this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2025
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It is, as usual, a bit more complicated than that. Of course there are hard-boiled imperialists there, as anywhere. But it is unlikely that even Putin himself is one, he just has his own agenda.
Russians are a nation with too dark a history in the last couple centuries (and of course before). They were oppressed by their own, killed by their many neighbours in millions, and the memory of this lives deep in them. The major driver for many of them is to avoid harm first of all, powered with fear of their own government and instilled fear of "foreign malign forces" (definition changes by the day, rather easily, driven by propaganda). It is not safe to be against the war, so naturally the majority goes with the flow.
Do they want to actually conquer neighbours? In a way, there is a sense of pride in belonging to the strongest gang in the hood. As in, it is better to be a part of said gang than be chased by it.
Source: am russian-born, with a lot of contacts in the country.
Sense of belonging? This is exactly what I am mean by genocidal imperialism being universal among russians.
You (and other russians) fundamentally do not believe in self determination and will always find excuses to justify violence, occupations, torture and ethnic cleanings. The russians are even OK with being put down and abused by their own regime as long as there is imperial conquest.
I don't buy the "dark history" narrative. There is nothing inherent (in a physical sense) about russians that leads to degeneracy and debauchery. It's all the choices they make. The somewhat peaceful breakup of the USSR was a unique opportunity for russians and we can see the choices they made.
Source: I've lived in russia for many years and I speak fluent russian. I've also lived in North America, Asia and Europe and speak other languages.
There's a fuckton of cultural baggage from, following Emmanuel Todd, exogamous communal family structures. Stuff like this. There's a whole theory about how the "really existing socialism" states started out with that family structure, replaced the actual pater familias with a grand national one, to silently change the actual family structure to nuclear in a rebellion against the violence inherent in that particular arrangement (Todd explains that way better than me). But the fundamental values that the system was an expression of still isn't gone, and definitely alive and well in the military context. And mafia / prisoner culture. There's one truth in that system: If you're not a perpetrator, then you're a victim. As such the "fear drives people to do things" is true, the question Russia should be asking itself, though, is where that fucking cart of theirs is headed. Where they want it to be headed. Have yourselves a February revolution and this time not have it usurped by October. Normalise civic agency.