Where do my sympathies lie? I'm for families and neighborhoods left intact. For churches, libraries, and museums to remain standing. That's my rooting interest.
That said, Russia is invading and bombing, which doesn't help with the things I support. And the claim that Putin is waging some kind of altruistic denazification campaign sounds suspiciously self-ennobling.
But that's Putin. Where's the logic in punishing Russian commoners? Especially those who live abroad and may be quite out of sync with the current regime. If Russian expatriates are going to be stigmatized for being Russian, it seems like an effort to bind them and return them to him.
Then there's been at least one attempt to clear out Dostoevski,, which are just moronic in the extreme. The people who were keyed up for a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West 20 years ago haven't gone anywhere, just switched targets for now.
2 comments:
I imagine most people in the world would agree with your root interests - certainly we do.
The current Russian invasion of the Ukraine could be seen as a culmination of a process that's been ongong since the end of ww2 when NATO was established as a force to counter what was seen as Russian communism's danger to the world - the world at that time being what we now know as the West. Since 1990 and the fall of the USSR, NATO has expanded into Eastern Europe much to the dismay of the Russian government. This article from the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle is a fairly complete description of how this has played out up until the present, plus it has a good map.
When you understand Moscow is only 300 miles from the Ukrainian border and about 500 miles from Kiev the Russians have a point. The US proved in 1962 they wouldn't countenace a nuclear armed communist nation anywhere near their border - never mind DC.
(I always object to the statement that Putin annexed Crimea since a great majority of the Crimean public voted to stay with Russia as did the people of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014 when the Maidan rebellion overthrew the president of the Ukraine. Rather than have those areas also join Russia the Minsk agreements were drafted to allow them to remain as part of the Ukraine, but to keep their language and to self-govern. The Ukraine didn't sign those agreements and there's been war in Eastern Ukraine ever since. It's a very long story.)
You're right that punishing ex-pat Russians, Russian students, and Russian intellectuals is ridiculous. We've heard of more besides these, like banning diplomats, canceling Russian news sites, banning Russian athletes from international competition, and even banning Russian owned cats from cat shows. It looks like we're back to Freedom Fries again here in Hissy-Fit Central.
I think you're right. They're simple enough interests. But some like to obscure these things.
I do have to wonder if NATO is extending its reach at the cost of its effectiveness. Maybe they just want more countries paying dues? Anyway, if they want new member countries on the Russian border in order to get intel on Russia there are probably better ways of doing that.
Blocking Russian news sites is stupid on a couple of levels. For one thing it gives Putin cover to do the same with all Western news media on a tit-for-tat basis. Also, not all of them are propaganda sources. It's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Russian cats might not be bothered by being barred from cat shows. Cats know they're hot. Either way, I feel bad for their humans.
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