Heh, "point to Russians". I have several friends in Moscow, and up until the last few days they were in complete denial about Putin's intentions or troops buildup. There were memes, jokes, etc.
The propaganda inside Russia is very strong. Russians need sanctions, they need to start suffering (economically or otherwise). And then maybe they'll wake up.
>The propaganda inside Russia is very strong. Russians need sanctions, they need to start suffering (economically or otherwise). And then maybe they'll wake up.
What makes you sure that it won't cement their position even more? Western countries hurting russia's economy via sanctions basically confirms the "evil westerners" narrative.
You just stated that the people of the whole country need to start suffering.
There already was period in our history when one politicial stated that we must all be destroyed as an ethnic group and our lands repopulated, and that was not good at all.
Ukrainians are already suffering. And Americans too will suffer from the sanctions that Americans impose. But I am willing to suffer economically to protect a free republic that truly represents its people, because they are people, just like me.
So you say that a country, which keeps putting itself into war over and over again, killing millions of people mostly based on lies they tell us, isn't evil?
The parent asserted that Nazis are evil. While I'm sure there is a range of behaviors that constitute "evil" I don't think a drone assassination campaign in any way compares to the deliberate and systematic attempt to remove all members of certain groups (i.e. Jewish people, among others) from Earth.
150,000 people in Washington, DC, protested the Iraq war when it was getting started.
It, uh, didn't accomplish much. I'm not sure that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is any more inclined to listen to protests than the Department of State was.
This can't be true, because this thread started off with
> In repressive regimes there is no freedom to protest. You cannot have hypocrisy in how you deal with political protests if you do not have political protests!
I'm Russian and It was clear that this could happen at any moment based on negotiations between the parties and other events, although the media laughed a little at this...
Denial doesn’t mean they were influenced by propaganda. Invasion just didn’t make any sense and even among the opposition there was a belief that Putin is evil but rational.
So now the conclusion is he's not rational. Now what? A non rational dictator sitting on a very large number of nuclear weapons is not a good thing for the world.
Now it’s just scary. Let’s hope Ukraine will be able to resist long enough to force Putin to negotiate peace and to forget about any attempt to reach his goals along the Western borders of Russia by military means. It’s too bad that our hope is that enough Russian soldiers will die for Russian public to notice that war is in their house. There’s no popular support for the war, but the pain of war is not yet felt.
Unfortunately there’s no other options left. Sanctions are not a short term deterrent.
> Let’s hope Ukraine will be able to resist long enough to force Putin to negotiate peace and to forget about any attempt to reach his goals along the Western borders of Russia by military means.
I hope with you but the force asymmetry is large. But so far they have been doing much better than could have reasonably been expected.
> It’s too bad that our hope is that enough Russian soldiers will die for Russian public to notice that war is in their house.
This will be one of the most carefully controlled statistics, there is no way that official channels will get close to communicating these numbers. I've been wondering if this isn't one of those areas where the tech world could really assist.
> There’s no popular support for the war, but the pain of war is not yet felt.
And likely won't be for weeks or even months.
> Unfortunately there’s no other options left.
Agreed.
> Sanctions are not a short term deterrent.
Also agreed, but they are a message, especially if those sanctions hurt the EU as well. I would be happy to shut down the heat here if that's what it took to get the EU completely disconnected from Russian gas. It would be very annoying but we'd live, my grandparents went through far worse than that. And I've been trying to figure out how I can really help Ukrainian refugees.
>I hope with you but the force asymmetry is large. But so far they have been doing much better than could have reasonably been expected.
It is not that large. I remember an estimate of some strategist that you need 5x more firepower to win a battle in urban environment (cannot find the link, sorry). Even if Russia sends 20-30% of its entire army and national guard to Ukraine, this would mean only a parity with highly motivated defenders. Russia certainly has better equipment and air support, but it may still take a lot of time and casualties will be high.
I'm not the parent, and I consider the people of Russia to be a separate entity from their government.
But, how do you see Putin getting pushed out of power, other than by the Russian people? If it is required that the Russian people push him out, is it not logical that they must be motivated, with the assumption that sanctions would not be required if they were already motivated enough?
I'm trying to understand all of this, and I appreciate your opinion/perspective.
Putin has huge internal security apparatus backing him up. He does not give a flying fuck about what people think and will not hesitate to suppress any potentially threatening activity with overwhelming force.
If you think that you can sanction / starve Russia to the point that simple people will organize, revolt and depose Putin I think you live on a different planet.
The only force that can really depose him are some competing elites assuming they have backing from enforcement agencies / military. I am not sure how you can sanction / bribe those into action.
Personally I think the West had quite a few years to sort things out between Russia and Ukraine. I think it was possible. I do not have any real proof but I suspect that instead of trying to find some meaningful compromise they were playing hard ball and are now reaping a "reward". What to do now - I have no frigging clue as the situation is out of control.
As for the subject of "suffering" - purposely starving the whole nation and keeping people hostage I think is what scumbags do / advocate.
I see. Do you think a hit to the economy could motivate any of the elites? Or are they mostly decoupled from any fluctuations in the Russian economy (foreign investments for example)?
The propaganda inside Russia is very strong. Russians need sanctions, they need to start suffering (economically or otherwise). And then maybe they'll wake up.