Oh my god. Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant - one of the largest in Europe is on fire and under attack from missile and gunfire. This is absolute ****ing insanity on top of insanity
Yes I think shelling Europe's largest nuclear power plant can be described as total lunacy. Minor miracle none of the reactors were damaged.
Other than the last line I pretty much agree with this. Everyone I know that is Russian hates Putin (which is only a few), but they are also young and speaks at least a little English, uses the internet a lot. Women also seem to like Putin less from my anecdotal experience. There's poor woman's rights in the country. My assumption is that most of Putin's support must come from older generations. So far I have seen less protesting against Putin now than against him a couple of years ago when it was discovered he had a secret private mansion. Not because they like him any more they just seem defeated and feel like protesting will just get them arrested and marked. I think it will take something big to remove him.
We know how difficult it is to change peoples political affiliations here in UK, especially older generations. No different in Russia & we have media access.
I was speaking to a half Russian (half Kazakh) friend and they have had to stop talking to their family about it in very much a Trump/Brexit style situation
I don't doubt this is very much the case in many households. The difference being that leaving the EU/supporting Trump are minor sins compared to the mass-murder of thousands of innocent people. The worst thing about Brexit, for me, was the injustice inflicted upon the pro-Europe Brits. Imagine how the anti-war Russians feel.
It isn’t a defence but expect the Russians that support his show a combo of - not really knowing what he is doing and not actually believing they are innocent people at all Think about how easily people who didn’t agree with others on Brexit / Trump were labelled with some very negative labels. From being called idiots to being called evil and nazis. Or traitors from the other side. So this is kind of an extension of that
There was a report on LBC just now of a woman in Kharkiv trying and failing to convince her parents in Moscow that the war was even happening.
Was going to say just this. If Russians are so brainwashed that their own children in Ukraine telling them they are being bombed fails to convince them, what chance is there really of a revolution? Pretty much zero.
I heard that too. Any substantial reaction against Putin and his cronies from the Russian population will not be for some time I fear. However if the small embers of a counter movement are still warm, when that reaction does come, I believe it will be an unstoppable fire. Once they learn how to overcome the severe and punishing restrictions on their protest, it will be driven by the sheer anger of being deceived for so long. Let's not forget that period of suppression has been many decades, even centuries in the making. Putin's time is now on a much reduced scale as a result of this barbaric and unnecessary war on Ukraine.
Any revolution is going to come from the younger, less brainwashed sector of the population I suppose, but I agree it isn’t happening very soon.
I just bought a coffee from my local shop from a young, Russian barista. His comment was, "I can't wait for that man to die". You and us both...
Disaffected urban workers, and the liberal petit bourgeoisie, serving as the center of gravity for a movement that largely wasn't supported by the rural populace, and then gaining momentum when a badly damaged and totally demoralized military wavered and then eventually decided that they weren't willing to kill civilians in order to maintain an autocrat who was sending them off to die. It's the broad outline of more than a couple regime changes, most notably the February Revolution in 1917. Do I expect it to happen? Not really. But the longer this goes, the more plausible it becomes.
There's another and very unattractive route this disaster can go. The Russian population know after years of experience, how to suffer shortages, denial of personal freedom as well as suffering for their motherland. We see how the Ukranians have reacted to their loss of freedom and degradation of their motherland too. Short of a military war of unimaginable catastrophe, the economic war now in increasing hostility must be the deciding factor, but, is 'the West population' prepared for the full engagement of such a situation? How do we cope with such situations, commonly experienced by our opponents people, not well I think judging by recent events with fuel 'shortages' and let's not get started on loo rolls. Heat and light loss will not be tolerated for long for some they simply wouldn't be able to survive for hours, let alone days without these essential services to our way of life. Yes, we can insist on turning off the gas and oil money flows into Russia, but which Politician is going to tell his/her population about how this will affect them? I really do hope that such a scenario does not come about, but we are getting closer to that point than many care to realise.
