On Russians and death.
Anton Gerashchenko on X: "I sometimes see Westerners saying that the more human losses Russia sustains, the more injured and traumatized Russians return back home, the sooner public opinion will change and Russians will start opposing the war. Many Ukrainians, including myself, have thought so, too, in…" / X (twitter.com)
First half:
I sometimes see Westerners saying that the more human losses Russia sustains, the more injured and traumatized Russians return back home, the sooner public opinion will change and Russians will start opposing the war.
Many Ukrainians, including myself, have thought so, too, in the first months of the war. We addressed Russian mothers, Russian women, told them that their sons and husbands will be killed or maimed. We got very little feedback and virtually no results.
For the Russians these dead soldiers are "heroes who protected the Motherland". And Russians choose to see them this way, empowered by propaganda and ideology - Russia is very good at hero-izing the dead. They refuse to realize that it was their country that invaded another state, their country that kills, loots, rapes and injures civilians in Ukraine; that these Russian soldiers are murderers and villains. In fact, for many of Russian women life becomes better with their men gone - a lot of them had drinking problems, abused their families, did not work proper jobs. Usually the people who get mobilized or sign contracts with the Russian army are from specific social circles - the educated middle class (a broad generalization) is not keen to go to war. Usually it's poorer men from distant villages who are in the trenches. So now these women can live freely and get a substantial amount of money from the government, living with a glossed over memory of their son, husband or father. In a way, that reassures them that Russia is doing everything right. And as Russia has over 140 million people, it has a virtually endless resource of cannon fodder.