Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people think saying Putin wants to restore the Russian Empire = condoning the invasion of Ukraine?

Because it was suggested in a way that minimizes Putin’s outrageous and aggressive agenda while portraying him as a traditional harmless Conservative. He is a ruthless dictator who brokers no dissent and a war criminal who spreads a lot of disinformation to justify his many aggressions, annexations of other peoples’ land and undermining of Western democracies while promoting far right extremism around the free world. It benefits his own authoritarian rule to weaken Western democracies.

Democracy is messy but the alternative of clinical dictatorships is far far worse.

Anonymous wrote:Why do people think saying Putin wants to restore the Russian Empire = condoning the invasion of Ukraine?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people think saying Putin wants to restore the Russian Empire = condoning the invasion of Ukraine?

I’ve noticed it, too. Anything beyond “Putin bad, Ukraine will win” is labeled as produced by “Vlad” or Russian trolls . Baffles the mind. I think there is a poster or two who does that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

In trying to make the case that Ukraine and Russia are historically “one people,” Putin (or his scribes) did not go back to the Soviet version of history; instead, they reached for the most reactionary tsarist one. That’s because the Soviets did recognize Ukrainians as a separate ethnic nation with their own language and the (theoretical) right to self-determination, which in practice meant they were granted a Ukrainian republic within the Soviet Union. Unlike the Soviets, the Russian tsars saw Ukrainians as part of the Russian nation, representing no more than its “Little Russian tribe,” and their language a mere regional dialect. They also believed that over the centuries the West had attempted time and again to undermine Russo-Ukrainian unity. Putin borrowed this point, adding NATO and the EU to the list of Western offenders.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/06/ukraine-russia-not-same-country-putin-ussr-00005461

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Even if Ukraine was that close to Russia culturally (and they seem to believe otherwise), it makes it even worse that Putin and his crony generals invaded them and committed hundreds of thousands of war crimes against their neighbors . It is akin to a large man claiming to passionately love a petite beauty but actually stalking, torturing and murdering her after she makes clear she does not love him or to be controlled by him. To add insult to injury, the large abusive man claims to have carried out the abuse and murder out of love.

Further, if Putin and his cronies were not planning on invading NATO countries then they had nothing to fear from the defense alliance. Now everyone knows they that NATO countries were right to be afraid of Russia’s unprovoked aggressions and to create an alliance to defend themselves.

Anonymous wrote:

In trying to make the case that Ukraine and Russia are historically “one people,” Putin (or his scribes) did not go back to the Soviet version of history; instead, they reached for the most reactionary tsarist one. That’s because the Soviets did recognize Ukrainians as a separate ethnic nation with their own language and the (theoretical) right to self-determination, which in practice meant they were granted a Ukrainian republic within the Soviet Union. Unlike the Soviets, the Russian tsars saw Ukrainians as part of the Russian nation, representing no more than its “Little Russian tribe,” and their language a mere regional dialect. They also believed that over the centuries the West had attempted time and again to undermine Russo-Ukrainian unity. Putin borrowed this point, adding NATO and the EU to the list of Western offenders.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people think saying Putin wants to restore the Russian Empire = condoning the invasion of Ukraine?

I’ve noticed it, too. Anything beyond “Putin bad, Ukraine will win” is labeled as produced by “Vlad” or Russian trolls . Baffles the mind. I think there is a poster or two who does that.

Anonymous wrote:

In trying to make the case that Ukraine and Russia are historically “one people,” Putin (or his scribes) did not go back to the Soviet version of history; instead, they reached for the most reactionary tsarist one. That’s because the Soviets did recognize Ukrainians as a separate ethnic nation with their own language and the (theoretical) right to self-determination, which in practice meant they were granted a Ukrainian republic within the Soviet Union. Unlike the Soviets, the Russian tsars saw Ukrainians as part of the Russian nation, representing no more than its “Little Russian tribe,” and their language a mere regional dialect. They also believed that over the centuries the West had attempted time and again to undermine Russo-Ukrainian unity. Putin borrowed this point, adding NATO and the EU to the list of Western offenders.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/06/ukraine-russia-not-same-country-putin-ussr-00005461

Anonymous wrote:Why do people think saying Putin wants to restore the Russian Empire = condoning the invasion of Ukraine?

Anonymous wrote:Obviously, Putin doesn't want to restore the Soviet Union. He wants to restore the Russian empire.

In trying to make the case that Ukraine and Russia are historically “one people,” Putin (or his scribes) did not go back to the Soviet version of history; instead, they reached for the most reactionary tsarist one. That’s because the Soviets did recognize Ukrainians as a separate ethnic nation with their own language and the (theoretical) right to self-determination, which in practice meant they were granted a Ukrainian republic within the Soviet Union. Unlike the Soviets, the Russian tsars saw Ukrainians as part of the Russian nation, representing no more than its “Little Russian tribe,” and their language a mere regional dialect. They also believed that over the centuries the West had attempted time and again to undermine Russo-Ukrainian unity. Putin borrowed this point, adding NATO and the EU to the list of Western offenders.