This Russian woman is a good illustration of how an average Russian person sees the war and Ukraine. It is a mix of propaganda, ignorance and stereotypes, with little independent thinking.
"We haven't attacked Ukraine either. We're defending our territory", "Ukraine was ours then [in USSR], too!", "It [Ukraine] was always part of Russia", - this Russian woman is a good illustration of how an average Russian person sees the war and Ukraine. It is a mix of propaganda, ignorance and stereotypes, with little independent thinking.
Ukraine was never part of Russia. Ukraine was part of the SOVIET UNION. Russian really forget all the time that Russia is not the Soviet Union. Russia did not win WW2. The Soviet Union won the WW2. Fucking losers tell themself the story of how glorious they are, while nearly half of those death were not Russian (Total USSR: 10,600,000 Military death, 6,750,000 were russian - source Table: Soviet Union)
Not that I in any way condone what Russia has been doing, that’s not exactly right. Ukraine was part of Tsarist Russia before the USSR. However, Ukrainians have the right to self-determination and the right to defend themselves from aggressive neighbours just like anyone else.
What many "Westerners" don't seem to understand is that in communist countries it was perfectly normal to operate under double think. They knew the truth, but also knew that saying that truth would get them in trouble. So there was the opinion for "outside" and the opinion for "inside". That way of thinking still runs deep in Russia - and quite honestly, if a camera would be pointed at me, I might also just parrot the party line, otherwise....
That doesn't mean, that there aren't true believers, there are probably plenty, but you should not try to understand the average Russian by watching these videos.
lol I wish they would fuck off, but just imagine that most people around you (and me) will happily kill and torture anyone if that was allowed (as it is in Russia right now)
That's a bit like saying that Germany (one can add France) was part of Netherlands cause Franks.
Wrong too. It's just that "separatism" is not anything bad.
And here we'd have a huge problem with most Ukrainians as well.
They often think that they themselves are entitled to a separate nation on their own land and so on. But, say, Crimean Greeks, if after Stalin such a thing would remain in sufficient numbers, are not. I'm not talking about Crimean Tatars cause those are not native to Crimea. Or Armenians in Artsakh. Or Abkhazians, or South Ossetians.
They in majority really consider themselves exceptional, like other nations who are somehow great enough to have a state and unlike those who are not. A part of a club, so to say. That chauvinism has to go before I'll be able to support anything connected to Ukrainian nationalism.
Somehow so many people fail this little test. Russia is the aggressor both now and in 2014 and in 2008. But people in Crimea who'd sincerely want to not be part of Ukraine are in their right (I don't think they are too numerous now, though), just as Abkhazians (not to ethnically cleanse Mengrel Georgians, but to their own country) and South Ossetians (same limitations) and obviously Artsakh Armenians.