When the full-scale invasion started I had an opportunity to talk to regular people on both sides. Ukrainians were leaving their homes and moving to relative safety. Few russians were leaving the country as a protest, majority, though, either didn't care or had an excuse why they can't do anything. Their description of the situation was "well, it's uncomfortable".
The difference was shocking, but telling. They will do nothing until it moves from "uncomfortable" to "holy shit, run!"
A tangent I utterly enjoyed. Thank you!
What's crazy is that they redid everything from scratch at least already two times, but both times they got exactly the same as before.
Things are changing and ruzzia is already noticing that there's lack of people. For one, they find it increasingly difficult to find new soldiers.
But even without that, it's a very important number because it's a metric. A measure of progress.
This number doesn't mean that they can continue until they lost everyone. We don't know for sure, but I cannot imagine that they can lose another million and just carry on. So the absolute worst case is that Ukraine will win this war latest in 4 years.
I want to believe that even sooner because the quality of Ukrainian army is improving, while the ruzzian one is not. They might be building drones, but they're not reforming their army. That would imply that something is wrong and nobody wants to be blamed.
It's not going to be easy. But it's a round number on a way to victory.
It's about 8% of the male workforce. Even those that were "just" wounded and came home, they likely cannot get back to the life they had before.
This is an absolutely insane "just a number" and they will spend generations trying to recover from this just a number.
Life has become far poorer, duller and more dangerous than before the war,
Oh no, poor russians! Life is dull!
There's a slight difference between a life taken away when ruzzians bomb a city and a family dies in their sleep and a life taken away when somebody willingly goes to the military, is sent to the foreign country and gets killed while trying to kill an enemy.
But you're right, it's definitely human lives taken away.
Did you know that all those people are raised on the idea that there was dictatorship in ruzzia and then people stood up and there was the great October revolution?
The reason they can't do anything is because things are not that bad. For them.
Entire nation? Merely the grand majority of it.
See, after the ww2 there was a debate whether there's something special about Germans that made them do what they did. Everybody knew that the fanatical and sadistical part was a very small minority and it wasn't Hitler who worked in the concentration camps or Gestapo. It wasn't Himmler who worked in factories or fought in the army.
It was normal everyday people who lived, laughed, laughed and that.
Their kind of excuse was lack of information.
What is the excuse for the good russians that enlist to the army, work in factories making drones or simply live their life and pay their taxes? Apathy that was cultivated over the decades?
Apparently, a serious number of them found the motivation to move to Georgia now that the war that they maybe don't approve can actually affect them.
And I'm sure massive majority of them are loveliest of people, they have friends, parents they take care of, children. And they grumbled in their kitchens that this war is a waste of life in the evenings. And until today, in the mornings they went to their jobs that directly or indirectly supported the war. Because, you know, it's war and terrible, but it's bad pootin, it's not them.
Am I hostile? I think I am. And I'm not even in Ukraine, I just have family there and for 4 years now I hear from them of what was bombed, how their life is now shaped by war. What I don't hear from them is how bad it is for the poor good russians that don't have it easy.
Am I hostile? Probably. But I think it's kind of hostility of a doctor to a cancer.
We're give or take 10 days from 1.5 MILLION.
There's a nuance in your argument.
You're right, ruzzia is a terrible oppressive state and doing something against it is super dangerous and difficult.
But there's a catch. See, a 100k of them just crossed into Georgia. By all means their life is not going to be the best of roses.
But they didn't do it in 2022 when their cuntry openly invaded Ukraine.
They didn't do it in 2014 when their cuntry covertly invaded Ukraine.
They did now, when their own wellbeing is under danger.
In '22 I had a chat with a lady I knew that was happy that Crimea returned to ruzzia in '14. She said she was against the war and described the situation as "uncomfortable".
You're right there are plenty of "good" russians among those who just left. But they didn't leave because they are against the war. They've left because their life is in danger of becoming uncomfortable. Which means that until now it was, you guessed it, comfortable. You're right, maybe not luxurious and definitely not free, but it was good enough.
When "Mr Nobody against pootin" came out and started winning prizes, Ukrainians were really pissed. Because the message of that piece is exactly what you're saying - poor good russians can do nothing because of the evil pootin. The problem is that when it came out Ukraine already killed a million of poor good russians and now the evil poo wants to conscript more to bring that to two million.
Uncomfortable. Shift your butt a little to reduce the discomfort.
Hear hear. The hope is strong. Recent developments are, indeed, inspiring.