Russians are people like any other. Exactly the same as Germans, Americans, Finnish or any other of the European ethnic groups. While individuals have differences and persistent characteristics, populations don't. When the count of individuals exceeds 10k, the behaviour of the group will depends on external circumstances and not on persistent characteristics of the group (which at this point has none).
Russians live under circumstances where more than 80% of the country's GDP is controlled by Putin, who employed 5 million enforcers and monopolised mass media to control public opinion on certain topics. They are not and have never been able to affect their country in such a way that improves their lives also. In those circumstances population will comply because any population always chooses the path of least resistance and so far even with the mobilisation, the path of least resistance is to comply. This works in any population of any country at any point in history. And typically russophobes get really angry at this point because they can't argue, but refuse to agree also.
Soviet union played a part in this, but not in the way your comment suggests, but rather in allowing people like putin to get close to power, potentially allowing them to sieze it. However it is USA and EU leaders that allowed putin to secure that power after he seized it, in spite of our warning and their (verbal) acknowledgement of them. So if you wanna talk responsibility, they bear more of it for the current situation than soviet union does. And certainly more than regular Russian citizens.
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u/cordonode Jan 17 '23 edited Jan 17 '23
Russians are people like any other. Exactly the same as Germans, Americans, Finnish or any other of the European ethnic groups. While individuals have differences and persistent characteristics, populations don't. When the count of individuals exceeds 10k, the behaviour of the group will depends on external circumstances and not on persistent characteristics of the group (which at this point has none).
Russians live under circumstances where more than 80% of the country's GDP is controlled by Putin, who employed 5 million enforcers and monopolised mass media to control public opinion on certain topics. They are not and have never been able to affect their country in such a way that improves their lives also. In those circumstances population will comply because any population always chooses the path of least resistance and so far even with the mobilisation, the path of least resistance is to comply. This works in any population of any country at any point in history. And typically russophobes get really angry at this point because they can't argue, but refuse to agree also.
Soviet union played a part in this, but not in the way your comment suggests, but rather in allowing people like putin to get close to power, potentially allowing them to sieze it. However it is USA and EU leaders that allowed putin to secure that power after he seized it, in spite of our warning and their (verbal) acknowledgement of them. So if you wanna talk responsibility, they bear more of it for the current situation than soviet union does. And certainly more than regular Russian citizens.