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0 pointsanticodon3y ago0 comments

The big problem is that you, western people, especially people from USA, see the whole situation through the tiny keyhole where your media project whatever bias they want.

You have no means of access to objective or balanced information. You can't read anything about Russia or Ukraine in the original uncensored form. You can't watch any video from Ukraine or Russia without it being carefully selected by somebody and then translated for you.

E.g. you wouldn't be able to ponder when you see videos of Ukrainian soldiers being killed during combat, why seconds before dying they always speak in Russian, how that resonates with Joseph Brodsky poem last lines: https://russianuniverse.org/2017/02/27/joseph-brodsky-on-ukr...

And usually it's you, Western audience that makes blanket statements with no basis, uttering it so arrogantly as you know it all, where you actually know nothing.

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wbsss44123y ago· 2 in thread

> You have no means of access to objective or balanced information. You can't read anything about Russia or Ukraine in the original uncensored form.

Does anyone? I never was under any belief that I did.

Excuse my understanding, but is it your assertion that there is unfettered access to uncensored information within Russia??

anticodonOP3y ago

> there is unfettered access to uncensored information within Russia??

Well, there is. Why do you think I have less possibilities to access information than you? Yes, some websites are blocked. A tiny minority of USA/EU funded propaganda horns like Meduza, that for years translate pretty obvious rusophobic messages. But I can read even them through VPN or through numerous other ways that CIA and NSA provide for free for such propaganda factories.

A huge difference is that I can speak and read three languages. I can (and do) read US and European news in their native languages. I can read and do read from time to time social media like Reddit. I have friends and relatives in various countries of the world.

People in US and EU have less possibilities. Does any significant proportion of population can read Russian? No. You are forced to read only tiny amount of information that is selected by somebody else and translated for you.

Regarding Russia/Ukraine conflict there's even more. There's no separate Ukrainian nation. It's not genes, it's not anything else. Republic of Ukraine was created by Lenin and later was supported by Stalin who promoted "ukrainization" of eastern regions of Russia. We do not yet fully understand why they did it. We only see documents signed by Stalin, for example, "to intensify teaching of Ukranian in schools in universities" in this region. It's an irony, that they vilify and destroy monuments devoted to people that created their state. Also, I'm sure you never read about this and saw these documents translated anywhere in your media, because it would be pretty inconvenient truth.

Anyway, because it was always Russia, there're millions of families split between Russia and Ukraine. We understand each other. Even Ukranian language is easy for us to understand - it's Russian grammar but some words are replaced with Polish equivalents. There was and is perpetual movement of people between Ukraine and Russia. My ancestors were living on Ukraine when there was no such state but it was a part of Russia.

You cannot understand the history and relationship of Ukraine and Russia to the same extent as we do. You can't understand the Nazi propaganda in Russian and Ukranian that is all over the Internet, especially Russian/Ukranian parts.

You're being told a very simple story: "Putin hates democracy and that's why it want to destroy the great democratic state of Ukraine and it's great democratic people!" and you have no other choice but to believe it. There's simply no other source of information for you. Nor would you ever be able to understand what people here feel and think about it, when US based agencies come to Ukraine, for example, and publish books like "Paladins of Hitler" and other rusophobic propaganda, that is either Nazi or entirely confabulated.

skissane3y ago

> Regarding Russia/Ukraine conflict there's even more. There's no separate Ukrainian nation. It's not genes, it's not anything else

You seem to think that because Ukrainians and Russians have some shared heritage (cultural, linguistic and biological), they cannot be separate nations. But many other pairs of nations also share a significant degree of these things – Germany and Austria (and German-speaking Switzerland too), France and Belgium (Wallonia), Belgium and the Netherlands (Flanders), the US and Canada, the UK and Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Do you apply the same standards to any of them?

> Republic of Ukraine was created by Lenin and later was supported by Stalin who promoted "ukrainization" of eastern regions of Russia.

Neither Lenin nor Stalin invented the Ukrainian nationalist movement. There were already people within Ukraine who viewed themselves as belonging to a distinct nation from Russia; Lenin and Stalin just decided to ally themselves with some of these people and grant them some of their policy wishes.

> We do not yet fully understand why they did it

Marxism was originally an anti-nationalist movement–hence, it was very natural for the Bolsheviks to oppose Russian nationalism and support the demands of ethnic minorities for autonomy. Then, in the 1930s, Stalin gradually changed his mind about the topic – he began to see ethnic autonomy movements as a potential threat to his rule, and started promoting Russian nationalism and Russification in response.

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