Yurchak on how not to understand Russians' popular support (or lack of, or ambivalence towards) the war on #Ukraine.
"It’s not my job to comfort you. In fact, this is a catastrophe, including a moral one, we are all participating in a moral catastrophe. The catastrophe is not that everyone in Russia is fooled and supporting the war, but that people are simply powerless, they cannot mobilize against it, at least not yet."
It is a catastrophe, but it’s almost entirely self-inflicted. I was in #Russia plenty of times since Putin got into power: I was there during second war in #Chechnya, war in #Georgia, I was there when the first Internet censorship laws were introduced, during Bolotnaya protests, during #Euromaidan, war in #Donbass etc. All I heard from majority of Russians was continued justification of Putin, continued contempt and hatred towards everyone who dared to disagree and, most importantly, continued excuses for continued limiting of their own rights. They are powerless today because they wanted to be powerless in 2011-2012 when they happily delegated all their lives to Putin and childishly believed he will take them to the stars.
Maxim Edwards
kravietz 🦇
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