If Russians believe they are defending their motherland against an aggressive NATO, then no amount of death and suffering will burst that propaganda bubble.
Russians won’t ever wake up and think NATO are the good guys. They might wake up and decide they want leadership change, but as we’ve discussed, there’s no process yet that suggests that will be anything other than like for like non-change.
Losing Crimea would need some explaining, but that will be 95% achieved by blaming the evil west and Russia’s noble attempt to defend itself.
The best I can hope for is ordinary Russians’ view of Putin might change.
I agree, any russian citizens who have drunk the invasion cool-aid will not come to their senses readily. Those that were apathetic will remain so, unless the war starts to affect them personally. But the more and more territory Ukraine regains, the more losses the russian military takes, and (especially) the loss of “their” (annexed territory of) Crimea and the Donbas this year will be a wake-up call to all of them. There will be nowhere to hide. No amount of propaganda or spin will overcome it. The bubble will pop. They will be forced to wake up…
Are you sure you would want to be quoted like that? That sounds very much like what Trump said re covid. Not good to be associated with a Putin stooge is it?
Actually the propaganda about “ordinary Russians” that you believe is Putin’s.
We see video clips of it regularly here. The audiences for those TV programs have been collapsing rapidly in Russia - far faster than “mainstream” TV here - because the disconnect with reality is so much more obvious.
Your view is especially widespread among many Russian “liberals” who view themselves as vastly superior to “ordinary Russians” and among other countries that were also part of the USSR and did not end up like Putin’s Russia - especially Baltics.
Today’s Katz video is about an article specifically against those views, ie your views, from a Lithuanian politician:
As well as watching that “mainstream” refutation you should also take a look at this video interviewing some of the Russian partisans who are actively fighting.
Putin wants people to think Russia is his country. They say:
It’s not his country, it’s our country.
And they say it with explosives.
As you mentioned a while back, it took a lot longer for Australians to move into opposition over Vietnam and we never had to face the levels of repression in Russia.
Unfortunately, I agree with you - for the time being.
We have an historical example with the Afghanistan debacle. Once ppl became aware of the losses, their voices became loud and the gov of the day had to relent. It took several years however. Now the losses are orders of magnitude more dramatic in personnel and equipment so it might not take that long, and even if they hear the approximate number, it is so staggering that it’s hard to believe but that time will come - maybe within a year
Given how long Ukraine has publicly been asking for tanks, I wonder if this has actually been in the pipeline for some time and it’s taken until now to figure out the logistics for training, support & repair?
