Giorgio Grandi wrote:
The west has been at war with Russia since... for ever.
After communism, russians stop to fight, the west did not until Russians got back to fight.
Let me do a sup of notions for you
There is a lot of propaganda on both side. The west pictures Russia in a banal and simplistic way, almost childish if not even stupid and people believe it.
Russia is the biggest country of the world, which brings together varied culture and ethnicity with different values and principles. There is what is called European Russia includes 75% of russian population, but it is variegate in culture as the whole Russia is. Saint Peterburg with Moscow are the more "european" city, but this doesnt mean the population in european. I know very well SPB, I called this place "home" for many years, even now I continue to feel me as part of it. Like all Russia, also SPB (and all big city) are composed of different "reality". The center of the city, the the suburbs, the outskirts, the surrounding. In the west is the same, but the differences are not so huge as in russia.
In the center of SPB and Moscow, you can find gay club, gay bar, swinger club and really whatever you would sexually wish. SPB is a fuckshow of sex party every day of the week, but outside from the center there is not the same vibe. Of course people came to the center to have fun, but its a minimal % comparing to the rest of ppl that are generally more conservative.
I have been in gay clubs many time during my time in SPB, no one gives a shit if you are gay or if you hangout with someone gay... in the center of the city. Outside from the center, the more you go away from the center and the more you are into a different reality. It is just what is it, in the west is the same just you feel it less.
When you pick a girl in the center of SPB, you have great chances to sleep with her the first night, but if you pick a girl at 20km from the center, she wont sleep with you unless she see a commitment. Can you imagine the difference between a girl that hang out in SPB and a girl hanging out in the outskirts of.... Samara?
I just pointed you few simple reason to make you understand when you say "Russia" and "Russians" you do not have idea what you are talking about. The girls you see in porn, are brave souls who venture into unknown spaces and often get burned. The very generations of models that you most appreciated were raised by what I call "victims of communism". Parents who did their best and their worst, very often parents who separated and their children grew up as they could.
What most of Russian girls wish is a family, the family they did not have in their own childhood. So it is not true only old people support Putin. On the top of this, you need to understand the situation before Putin. At the end of the communism, in 90is, russia was like the far west, with criminality at the top and shootings in the street. Putin stopped this, create a system where technically anyone has the opportunity to change his life, and this was a game changer from people coming from communism.
The idea of "the west" bringing the war to russia was a common thought of most Russian citizens when I was there personally. A topic to discuss at dinner, with their parents. Russians have always been scared of Western imperialism.
Nato, to them, is an imperialist system, you need to understand this before to even approach the topic.
We can argue it is or it is not, but it is not relevant, the important is they believe so.
Did Nato try to give a different impression of itself?
Not really tbh, so here we are
Russia did not trust the USA, specially the liberal administrations as they consider "imperialistic" what they DRIVE through the NATO in the middle east.
I don't blame them for this point of view.
Also the liberal approach to inclusion of diversity, in russia is seen as something stuffed down your throat against your will, specially compared with the needs of the rest of the population. You need to fucking understand a double digit % of russian people do not have a loo at home, but they have a shack outside the house with a hole in the ground with the fecal remains of their grandparents: they do not give a shit about gender, climate change and inclusion, they wish to have a fucking loo and a decent school where to send their kids.
And yes, in ucraine the causes of the dispute that has been going on for 10 years are much more complex than how The West wants to represent it
And yes, they will fight until the last russian as they did with Napoleon and Hitler, they will eat the corpses of the death as they did during the siege of Leningrad before to give up
So, overall, mix geopolitic with national politic is the mistake most of you are doing. Most of Russian citizen do not trust the west and so do their politicians. A pro-west political party wont get the numbers to became a party.
And yes, there is hypocrisy in the way the institutions approach whats for us is normal, but this is a simple consequence of the fact the needs of their population is different from our needs
Where Russia finds itself today, is a self inflicted situation.
Just to name a few...
Atrocities of Stalin prior of WW2...
Helping Hitler start WW2 - invasion of Poland...
Attempted invasion of Finland...
Occupation and the annexation of Baltic states...
Rolling tanks into Eastern Europe...
Soviet - Afghan invasion...
Chechen wars...
Georgian war...
Annexation of Crimea...
Donetsk and Luhansk Pro-Russia separatists.. basically Russian funded mercenaries start killing Russians and Ukrainians alike...
The current genocidal invasion of Ukraine...
Will leave out the numerous proxy communist wars...
When CCCP collapsed, Russia never stopped being aggressive. It was too just broke from corruption to bully others.
And you wonder why smaller Russian neighbors pile into NATO? Russia isn't worried about it's security. It is worried it won't be able to expand into and steal it's neighbors land.
Putin had a chance to do some genuine good, but being the ex KGB rat that he is, he chose the Stalin playbook. So fuck him and the horse he rode in on. The dildo of consequences rarely arrives lubed.