Can I ask about Russia?

[EarsUpTailUp]

The more I see about Trump, Vance and Zelenskyy, and Putin and Ukraine, the more I’m seeing comments crop up that Zelenskyy is the problem, that Putin “has it right”, and I’m so confused as to why. I’ve seen a couple of comments on MN about this, but they’re slammed down (understandably) before sharing any info.

I don’t believe it, but I’d like to know what information people are getting to give them this opinion.

I know a couple of people irl who are clear that they’re team Putin, but beyond spouting sound bites about Zelenskyy being an entertainer and a propagandist, how toxic Ukraine is wrt trafficking, and that Putin is misunderstood, I don’t understand where they’re coming from, and if there is clear evidence of their beliefs.

I can’t dictate how this thread goes, but I would like to understand where this other side is seen from, with links and evidence if possible, and would love this to be a civil conversation.

And are again now.

Did you mean to say that isn’t owned by a rich white man?

(I’m guessing you know the Guardian is owned by the Scott Trust Limited)

Perhaps they are sleepers...

You gov polling showed that 4% of UK respondants surveyed had a favourable view of Putin. So unless they are all very vocal online I think we can safety say a lot of the pro putin voices on social media are bots or not in the UK. I know we are not meant to troll hunt on here but I am always suspicious of "I'm just curious about...," threads on things to do with Russia/ Ukraine.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/20/boris-johnson-volodymyr-zelenskiy-phone-call-kyiv-aid

Yep! There’s another thread I’m on where the OP stopped even trying to hide it ten pages in

That’s nice
However if the invasion of Ukraine had anything to do with US bases or NATO near to Russia then :

1. Why did Putin ask for Russia to have NATO membership ?
2. Why did Putin sign up Russia into and take part in NATO initiatives ?
3. Why did it take 10 years between 2004s Eastern European membership sign ups and the 2014 invasion of Ukraine ? (Or 5 years after the Baltic memberships of 2009 further away from Russia?
4. Why didn’t Putin complain about the 2023 & 2024 new NATO memberships of neutral countries on his doorstep?

Could it perhaps have nothing to do with former Soviet occupied countries opting to join an alliance ?

You don’t think that it has something to do with the Ukrainian people complained that they thought their president was going to renege on promises to them - which he then did and they then protested, resulting in him ordering security forces to shoot protesters.
The killing of protestors resulted in the expansion of the protests, the president doing a midnight flit to Russia and the country being invaded by mysterious little green men who turned out to be mercenaries (illegal in Russia but OK if they are pretend mercenaries acting as Putin’s ‘deniable’ army who also base in Russian army camps) plus ‘soldiers on holiday’borrowing the army’s vehicles to go on holiday with their weapons

NATO membership by year
1949 Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, and United Kingdom.
1952 Greece and Turkey.

1955 West Germany (became Germany in 1990).

1982 Spain.

1999 Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland.

2004 Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

2009 Albania and Croatia.

2017 Montenegro.

2020 North Macedonia.

2023 Finland.

2024 Sweden.

Are you fucking joking me. I don't even know where to start with this blatant Kremlin propaganda.

It's disgusting. MNHQ need to look into this Russian troll/bot.

Yep. Trying so hard to understand.

Bloody hell. MNHQ please get a grip on this.

Have reported the post.

Thanks.

Russians are masters of disinformation. They run massive troll farms and operate bots designed to cause dissent and make people like your foolish friend believe what she believes. It's psychological warfare.

Yup, this this this. I think this sort of thing, including how to evaluate sources and take a critical approach to online discourse, needs to be taught in school. Not just in history – as an every day skill.

Do you still work for the MOD @tomikka?

I do

But what part of contradicting Russian claims is Russian propoganda

Pointing out that Russia were not complaining about Eastern Eurpopean NATO membership - and over a decade later blaming the US / NATO

Or that the Ukrainian people protested and were killed by Putin’s puppet president?

My post was a response to the reference that the US are to blame for ‘expanding’ towards Russia - that is Russian propoganda

I always assume that the supposed paranoia and unease about NATO is just used to justify aggression motivated in fact by imperialist ambitions

If you actually want to know more about the Russian mindset, try some books.

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible (Peter Pomerantsev) - disinformation.

The Long Hangover (Shaun Walker) - good outline of how Russia has politicised history and historical memory to further its ends and lay the ground for what’s happened in Ukraine (it was published before the war but very relevant and covers up to around 2018).

Goodbye Russia (Sarah Rainsford) - ex-BBC correspondent who knows the country very well and was expelled in 2021. Outlines how Russia has changed in the last 20 years or so.

Hang on. Which president are you talking about? Have we all misunderstood your post?

Viktor Yanukovych. (Euromaiden protests etc)

((((and there could have been too much of a sarcasm slant in my post))))

and the ‘little green men’ being Wagner Group, FSB and the Russian army with their badges off. (2014 invasion)

Oh, dear. Yes I think so!

Your post now makes sense @tomikka!

I have a clever work colleague like that too. But he stays up late watching You Tube and that’s how he became brainwashed. Somehow the people he follows convinced him not to look at or trust the news, so he is in an echo chamber,

He has progressed down the far right pipeline - become anti vax, anti fluoride, hates trans people, thinks feminism is the cause of DV, very pro Trump etc - this guy was popular and likeable at work before but I notice people are getting sick of him. When I mocked Trump for claiming the air crashes were due to severely cognitively disabled DEI air control staff, my colleague said “but what if it’s true?”

I do have a dear friend who is Russian and she is very anti Putin. She doesn’t dare go home to visit her family as it’s likely she’d be arrested there.

@Tomikka Really confused why you're getting flack for your factual post

Of course it's not Kremlin propoganda.