This is too much essentialism for me.
Everything the russians do is explained by cultural context. Any and all alternatives are not viable because of the cultural context. We shouldn't judge russian for being proud of putin because of the cultural context.
This is not a viable approach. At the end of the day, all positive social/cultural change is driven going against the grain. If the russians don't want to do anything, we should take it face value and not come up with excuses.
I genuinely hope something will come out of this, but knowing the slowness and reactive approach of European institutions I don't have any hope.
Rather than talk, it would make much more sense to hold a formal conference after achieving results in agreed upon behind the scenes negotiations. Something along the lines of:
I recognize that this may sound unrealistic, but most (all?) geopolticial achievements/breakthroughs/realignments were done with courage and a desire to win. Not "bla bla" or "but what about this or that".
Ah the classical "I don't believe this research because it doesn't align with what I think". You'll be surprised how often I've heard this. It's actually one of the reasons I don't bother posting detailed sourcing. Don't give me this "it's complicated" bullshit, you have no clue what you are talking about.
You quote Minialo from the NPR article. Let me tell you a little story about Minialo. So he had some sociological research about russian support for the war. Since the numbers were high (i.e. they didn't align with goal of white washing russian genocidal imperialism), he decided to massage the numbers. There were three questions around related to genocidal imperialism (continuing the war to take Kyiv, the role of occupied territories and something else). So to lower the "support war" stat he only counted the responses that said yes to all three questions. So you could say, let's continue the war to take Kyiv, but have a more ambiguous view on the role of occupied territories - that would disqualify you from supporting the full scale invasion of Ukraine (in Minialo's view that's a fair approach).
I've actually interacted with Minialo on Twitter (don't use it anymore). He said pretty typical russian BS "what about iraq?" and "many russians want to stop the war" (and he of course ignored that would also imply annexation of 20% of Ukraine, including my home town). I posted this rather provocative vignette questioning how he would feel if Ukraine did everything russia has done to us and then suddenly some part of the population would call for peace (with 20% of European russia occupied, bombing of Volga dam, razing Rostov to the ground like they did to Mariupol, Russian style torture of everyone involved with government or military in occupied territories and so on). He immediately started getting aggressive and dismissive (even though I merely suggested a completely equal scenario).
Minialo is a russian imperialist.
“The majority of Russians do not want to seize Kyiv or Odesa,” What great humanists! Occupying 20% of the country and holding ten thousands of civilians in torture camps, banning Ukrainian, banning Ukrainian churches and implementing a policy of settlers colonialism (I am from Donbas, so I know what goes on there). I wonder how russians would view a symmetric situation (similar to what I described to Minialo).
This is really the best you have?
A country prosecuting people with dissenting views does not mean a majority of the population hold dissenting views. On the contrary, broad support makes it far easier to prosecute dissenting views. If truly most of the country is opposed to something, you'll eventually get pushback and local resistance.
I think it’s a little more complicated than that, and I suspect a majority of Russians supported the war for the first few months, but currently support Putin and not all of his actions, including the war. The list experiment uses data from 3 years ago.
Sources my man. You were acting all high and mighty about sources and now we have to believe your opinion?
~85% stable support for the annexation of Crimea (cross validated with list experiment studies showing no preference falsification) is not a sign of support for genocidal imperialism? I hope you realize that for people in Ukraine the war started in 2014, the full scale invasion started in 2022.
Surprise, surprise. You russian genocide white washing shills are all the same. What are you even saying? You clearly didn't read anything I shared and simply assume that it all magically aligns with your worldview. If you did, you'd actually have meaningful arguments of my position. You didn't address a single point that I made and just went with "Nah, all that stuff actually shows I am right!1!1!!!"
That's why I labelled you as fake humanist.
I am done here.
Elmo and the American oligarchs will get tortured to death by drunk russian soldiers who will think they are american spies.
To be fair, I did say parts of the russian opposition because some members do take a more sober outlook on russia society.
I still don't see what is essentialist about a factual statement that parts of the russian opposition support imperialism and have made no efforts to go beyond that. I am not even talking about moral arguments, something as practical as saying "soft power is much more effective and results in less russian deaths than military invasions".
And it is reasonable to blame them for it. It's their choice; it's not like their pro-imperialism strategy has led to any success.
I don't feel that example with stoic's is relevant. Some members of the russian opposition did recognize that imperialism was not to the benefit of russian society. Navalniy and co refuse to do so; it's a choice that they made and it reflects their position more so than their broader cultural background.
My question stands, what have they achieved with their approach? You did imply that need to contend with cultural context of russia and they can't be merely enlightened. So what's the outcome of this if your logic is valid. Something's got to give.
I strongly disagree with the claim Navalniy has balls of steel. He is a fucking idiot who most likely doesn't understand his own people (I am assuming he thought people would rise up or something similar). Novodvorskaya has balls of steel. She opposed the invasion of Czechoslovakia and made fun of the communist party when she was 19. She stayed true to her beliefs all her life (even though most russians hated her for this). And she did not have any issues with telling russians very uncomfortable truths.
You bring up external shocks and the importance of not positioning your people as victims. So where are the russian liberation battalions (e.g. trying to setup a free russia in Kursk)? Where are the sabotage programs? Where are the initiatives to utilize senior regime collaborators? If nothing can be done to change the system from within, surely one would at least consider alternatives?
And it's not like what I mentioned above is somehow disconnected from the russian cultural context. Alexander II got assassinated by revolutionaries.
The devil is in the details.
Agreements with the US aren't really worth much. It's an oligarch-run proto-fascist state; such regimes tend to be unreliable. And we have the Budapest Memorandum to go by in Ukraine.
People in Ukraine would probably support this initiative if it meant actual security from the russians. Since Trump rejects Ukrainian membership in NATO (let alone efforts to get to our legal borders), the presence of US troops sounds like a ruse. A few soldiers hanging out in Lviv (far west of the country, close to Poland) aren't going to be much good against a russian invasion and at any rate, Americans lack the guts to fight russians (not counting a russian invasion of continental US which will never happen).
What's essentialist about what I said? I genuinely don't see it.
Large parts of the russian opposition do not see genocidal imperialism (e.g annexation of Crimea and destruction of Ukrainian and Crimea Tartar identities) as a bad thing. They have made no efforts to oppose genocidal imperialism. They openly called for supporting chauvinist parties under their ironically named "smart voting" strategy, even though they knew that those parties are not independent and are directly controlled by the Kremlin.
Your point about "reference frames" honestly sounds like white-washing russian genocidal imperialism. This is not a matter of becoming perfectly enlightened, it's a matter of understanding that if someone is committed to genocidal imperialism, they are not going to choose a hypothetical Navalniy over putin. They will choose the real deal.
But let's just say I agree with you for the sake of argument. So what has the russian opposition achieved by using imperialist reference frames (that you seem to imply they don't actually support, but need to use to connect with russians) in their outreach?
What are their achievements over the last 15 years? Surely tacit endorsement of imperialism would have helped them connect to the average russian?
From one of my posts in this thread. [2] explicitly addresses the canard about russians all being secret liberals and humanists but being forced to answer in support of genocidal imperialism because they are afraid. [3] also briefly touches upon this (among other things).
Sources
Some more specialized research that addresses some of the clown logic that you often hear in such discussions "they don't actually support genocidal imperialism, the vast majority are very afraid and lying in the polls!!!"
Solid support or secret dissent? A list experiment on preference falsification during the Russian war against Ukraine - Note how the authors explicitly state that their preference falsification adjusted estimate for support for the full scale invasion (65%) likely underestimates the true level of support.
Do Russians support the military invasion of Ukraine? - This is minor part of the report, but they do show how preference falsification is irrelevant with respect to often criticized (by allegedly liberal russians) Levada findings about ~85% support for the annexation of Crimea that has been stable from 2014 to 2021.
«А когда уже победа-то наша будет?» - In russian, maybe somebody made a good English language translation, I don't know. A damning take on "non-political" russians' view of genocidal invasions. The funny thing is that this qualitative research was run by opposition-minded russians. I am surprised they even published it.
Don’t trust opinion polling about support in Russia for the Ukraine invasion. A weak counter argument to findings similar to [1], does not in any way address the general points in [2],[3],[4]. The author explicitly denies [2] without providing any context or explanation. It's the "I don't believe any research unless it portrays russian society in a good light" factor so to speak.
I don't believe in cultural or ethnic essentialism. And at any rate, to move away from what you describe as cultural baggage, you have to start somewhere. A lack of desire to move beyond this is a choice made by the vast majority of individuals that constitute russian society.
Even large parts of their allegedly liberal opposition supported the annexation of Crimea (and the 2008 Georgia invasion). They are not even trying, they see genocidal imperialism as a good thing irrespective of any cultural baggage.
Did you ever ask for any research on this topic or even meaningfuly engage with what I was saying E.g. How do you know this? Have you considered the limitations inherent to specific research methodologies? What about the "philosophical" arguments about the validity and interpretation of political polling?
You never mentioned any of the above points and just went with "you are chauvinist and an enemy of all that is decent in this world!". And I went with your flow, is that really surprising to you?
Who said anything about ingrained? I don't believe it is ingrained in a physical or biological sense. It's a reflection of the choice they make. One that I would argue are enabled by people like yourself who feel the need to deny reality and whitewash russian genocidal attitudes.
Sources
Some more specialized research that addresses some of the clown logic that you often hear in such discussions "they don't actually support genocidal imperialism, the vast majority are very afraid and lying in the polls!!!"
Solid support or secret dissent? A list experiment on preference falsification during the Russian war against Ukraine - Note how the authors explicitly state that their preference falsification adjusted estimate for support for the full scale invasion (65%) likely underestimates the true level of support.
Do Russians support the military invasion of Ukraine? - This is minor part of the report, but they do show how preference falsification is irrelevant with respect to often criticized (by allegedly liberal russians) Levada findings about ~85% support for the annexation of Crimea that has been stable from 2014 to 2021.
«А когда уже победа-то наша будет?» - In russian, maybe somebody made a good English language translation, I don't know. A damning take on "non-political" russians' view of genocidal invasions. The funny thing is that this qualitative research was run by opposition-minded russians. I am surprised they even published it.
Don’t trust opinion polling about support in Russia for the Ukraine invasion. A weak counter argument to findings similar to [1], does not in any way address the general points in [2],[3],[4]. The author explicitly denies [2] without providing any context or explanation. It's the "I don't believe any research unless it portrays russian society in a good light" factor so to speak.
You're playing into their victim-hood narrative that the russians openly use for misinformation and promotion of their imperialist goals. Who is responsible for the current state of affairs in russia? The people of Botswana? The people of Uruguay?
No, it's the russians who voted Putin into power in 2000 (even though they knew the nature of the KGB) and then elected him again in 2004 when he shut down most mass scale independent media. And the elections of 2000 and 2004 are generally seen to be fair.
It's the russians who went with the comical Medvedev seat warming exercise and supported the invasion of Georgia in 2008.
Yet you keep trying to sweep this all under the rug, with claims such as "they are trapped there" to try and position them as innocent victims. When in reality they only have themselves to blame for the state of affairs in their country.