Thread by @kamilkazani

Moscow liberal's logic:

1. There were (allegedly) hundreds of thousands Chechens willing to be a part of Russia
2. Yeltsin bombed them to ashes Mariupol-style
3. "Not clear what was an alternative"

How exactly are these guys different from Putin? Same crazy, murderous mindset

Fact

Modern Russia is more of a product of Chechen Wars than of Putin's personality. Remilitarization, buildup of security state, they all started due to the First War. By the late 1990s Yeltsin was actively looking for a KGB heir. All his three last PMs were from state security

Moscow liberals want to portray Putin as an "accident". He was not. The system chose Putin, not the other way around. Yeltsin elevated Putin from nothing, started another war to facilitate his succession and used the lowkey nuclear blackmail when Clinton tried to argue

Putin's brand became too toxic. He made too many mistakes and continuation of his rule puts the entire system under risk. So @navalny's succession became the hill to die on for the entire little Moscow race of overlords: "liberals"/nationalists who benefit from empire's existence

@navalny Moscow liberals and nationalists do not support @navalny because they see him as a "candidate for change". It's the other way around. They stand for him because they see his succession as a "return to normality". Pretty disgusting normality I must say

Facts:

1. Global narrative on Russia is shaped by the major Western media/scholars
2. Both journos and scholars are (mostly) clueless. Most have no other sources in Russia other than the Moscow establishment
3. The Moscow establishment is interested in minimal, cosmetic changes

4. Moscow establishment is mortally terrified of the system being dismantled. It would undermine their privilege
5. They provide Western media/academia with facts selected and interpretations constructed to justify the minimal change narrative. They must be cosmetic, they argue

6. Since most of the Western media/academia have no other sources than the Moscow establishment they form their opinion based on facts selected and interpretations constructed by the latter. Respectable Western institutions do perspective laundering for the Moscow establishment

7. Since the narrative promoted by the mainstream Western media largely amounts to the laundered perspective of the Moscow establishment, the Westerners are genuinely astonished with either Ukrainians/Russian minorities/regionalists questioning the said "objective" narrative

8. Hence the differing views on @navalny's imperial succession. Those who see the imperial system as an asset will fight for him till the last breath. That's their only chance, realistically speaking. Those who see it as a liability or threat tend to hold very different opinions

9. @navalny'st platform is the platform of the cosmetic changes. Since the Moscow establishment interested in only cosmetic changes hold the monopoly of representation, their perspective becomes the mainstream Western perspective. Nobody else is given voice, for the most part

@navalny 10. The question of @navalny's succession is the question of cosmetic vs fundamental changes of the Russian sociopolitical system. If you don't get it, you won't get why so many Ukrainians/Russian minorities stand against it while the Moscow "liberals" - for it

11. In my next thread I'll show how @navalny and his team are weaponising the "anti-corruption" rhetorics (mixed with factual lies and the wildest claims) to buttress the imperial system. I will also show their strategy of putting the blame for Putinism on minorities

Cheers

PS @k_sonin "There are many pro-Russians there. I don't see what choice we had except for bombing the hell out of them" is a @UChicago Professor. Good example of what kinds of perspectives are being routinely legitimised by the authority of the Western academic institutions