Yea, you guys have more people. But the difference here is that Ukraine has no choice. You are attacking their home. Killing their civilians. Stealing their stuff. Ukraine won't back down because they have no choice. Your side does have a choice.
I at least appreciate that you aren't repeating the official Russian line that "Russians want a peace deal with Ukraine." Everyone knows that this is a lie. Russians want war. And Ukraine is probably just the beginning. Russian leaders keep repeating the lie that they want peace in order to split the west.
The truth is that Russians want war as much as Ukrainians want war. The difference is that the Ukrainian people have been forced into it, as you've said. The Russian people on the other hand have been lied into it, as barbos so wonderfully and capably demonstrates.
It acts like any other non-democratic nation that is also a police state where opposition is not tolerated and its citizens are imprisoned for public disagreement.
That's the key, isn't it, a gigantic key? Were we afraid that if we opposed the war, even called it a "war" we would be imprisoned? And remember that support for the war eventually caused us to withdraw, to lose. People are afraid to oppose Putin's war because they will be imprisoned by the state. Comparing this situation to Vietnam is laughable.
Komsomol members in arranged meetings. They used the opportunity to argue and discuss politics. As a young American without any prior experience in arguing with young Russian Communists, I was expecting something very different from what I encountered. Far from listening to doctrinaire party-line slogans and anti-American rhetoric, I got to witness a spectrum of opinions that ranged from staunch defenses of Soviet history and behavior to outright criticism and openness to democratic ideals. They even argued vehemently amongst themselves over the future direction that the country should take. (This was at a time when Kosygin and Brezhnev had just taken over power from Khrushchev, and no one was really sure where the country was going.) Very little there was what any of us expected to encounter, although we had our fill of propaganda shoved down our throats. Things look a lot different when you are up close than far away. I came away with the impression that Russians were very much like Americans, and I am still of that opinion.
I dunno about that. Those of us who were young and foolish enough to make loud noise about our opposition were liable to suffer government-sponsored consequences. Though rarely as severe and not so rigidly prescribed, they were very real. I witnessed more than enough bloodshed, and got teargassed myself at one demonstration in Berkeley. And we have not seen the ultimate outcome in Russia. They may well be forced to eventually do the same thing that the US did in Vietnam and that both Russia and the US did in Afghanistan.
And I have reiterated that point tirelessly, that the difference is not between Russian and American people.
Elixir said:
That's how Pootin spins it, doesn't make it so. Russian troops are leaving positions that would get them cut off and annihilated if they stayed.
Seems like Russia is setting itself up for the reverse of the victories that it won against Napoleon and Hitler.
There're other ways to stay warm when you're cold and lonely and life seems so precious in the moment. My understanding is in the Russian armed forces, you ask the guy next to you if he likes Cher.
