Part II: What do Russians living in the United States and the EU think of Putin and the Ukraine & Syria Crises?

[Maksim_Frolov]

del 18+
and it is meaningless

[The5thOfNovemner]

Originally Posted by nuala

I hate Putin with all my heart. I hate the vertical of power they have built on the mix of criminality and corruption. I hate that Russians at the bottom of the pyramid have never known a democracy and don't even know where to start. I hate seeing threads on Russian forums with hundreds of replies to questions like "What is the coolest manicure?" and " What can I wear with these boots?" and "Can one wear shorts after 30?". But own politics? Either nothing or black submissive humor, or West-blaming. Those bubbles of discontent that do appear, come out as general complaining but rarely connected with Crimea or Donetsk or Sochi Olympics or other state robberies. It's as if, collectively, cause-effect and logic escapes them. People exchange advises on how to economize on food, how to make 100 dishes out of one single chicken. Proverbial belt-tightening, proverbial submission to fate, proverbial belief that they are Nothing in the big picture, but The Boss is their father. I hate this grey mousy person who got at the very top by chance and thinks an Emperor of himself now. I can hardly watch him talk - all his body language gives out that he is a meany, a liar, an infantile, and he's got either Aspergers and/or sociopathy. No offense to people with Aspergers. It is a shame that this thug was able to quarrel with the whole world and successfully cut his country off the civilization. In his weird twisted mind he finds it OK to demonstratively bulldozer food, - with wide TV coverage - ostensibly as a response to the Western sanctions, but gloating on TV in front of his already poverty-stricken people ?? Resignedly, the people call it "In response to Western sanctions, we'll bomb Voronezh". His friends-billionaires never have to plan oatmeal for a week, thank you very much.

You Hate Russians and Russia from the bottom of your hart.

I never met Putin personally, so I am not sure if I like him or not. Tell me something, are eligible to vote in Russian elections ? Because if you are not eligible to vote in Russian elections, you feeling about Putin should be shared with your shrink !

Putin cleaned up corruption in Russia.

Food prices did go up. You see, here in US we use GMO foods and high fructose corn syrup. Chemically processed flower.... In Russia they don't see that this is fit for human consumption. So basically to have an organic diet in US you have to pay more at the store. In Russia organic is the only option.

If we here in US would ban GMO and all that food would be healthier but will cost much more. I speak with people who live in Russia and every-one I talk to say "we are fine but not sure how some others survive".

If you remember Crimea jumped to join Russia because Russian pensions and government benefits are double of what they are in Ukraine.

In Russia if you have a career and are working, your concerns are your savings accounts, currency conversions etc.. If you are getting social services and are poor, you get food.

I would imagine the situation in Ukraine is much worst. Elderly and retired might actually be starving.

[The5thOfNovemner]

Originally Posted by grega94

Let me try to explain again. There is a civil war in Ukraine, you have pro Ukrainians outside of donbass and pro Russians within the borders controlled by the Donetsk people's republic and the Lugansk people's republic. Nobody accepts them as sovereign nations, not even Russia, but they are de facto independent states and are enemies of Ukraine. As such Ukraine is fighting them to retake their land. To fight in large urban areas is a very hard and dangerous thing to as proven in the battle for Stalin grad, so instead of sending their army to a slaughterhouse they bomb the cities and hope that the separatists will abandon the city, and they retake it. Just like what the US did to the south during the American civil war. The separatists have no reason to bomb their own de facto capital that they are currently occupying, there aren't even any Ukrainian troops within the city of Donetsk and any pro Ukrainians have probably been deported and maybe even shot. It doesn't matter who's side you are on but those are the facts. Personally I'm embarrassed of both and many pointless mistakes are being made, and nobody seems to want to learn. As an analogy Donetsk = Chechnya, Kiev/Ukraine = Moscow/Russia, people involved in this are just way to nationalistic and can't look at it objectively.

There is no point trying to explain anything to RememberMee...

This that and some of that. People who lived in East Ukraine. take a look at the map again. Do you see East Ukraine ?
These people will never be a part of Ukraine. It is to late.

In order for Ukraine to keep it's land, they have to change their name from Ukraine to any other

Civilians in Donetsk and Lugansk having seen this, they will never be a part of Ukraine.

Neighboring regions are waiting. Odessa and Kharkov will split the first chance they get.

I was born in Kiev, I am hoping to see that city liberated from mongrels.

Ukraine has a mandatory draft. So they make you join the civil war. But many volunteers go to join Donetsk and Lugansk.