Thread by @ElenaTarasiuk

Here’s my today's trip into one of the Russian Telegram chats where politics is discussed. To get the mood. You are welcome to gaze into this corner of mysterious Russia with me. Nothing offensive. No violent vatniks. Only ordinary people🧵

Revolutions don’t work. Look at Iran. Protests don’t work. Democracy doesn’t work. Look at Europe. Ursula is corrupt. Somehow Canada popped up in a conversation as corrupt too. My guess is there are Russian relocants to Canada in that chat.

They are small people. Higher-ups make all decisions. They can do nothing. If they are asked uncomfortable political questions, they boast how they respond with silence. I get a heavy, “swampy” feeling from them. No wonder the swamps are used as a metaphor for Russia as a whole.

“Propaganda is working on us”, one woman complains. And she is right to do so. However, propaganda falls on fertile soil. Russian chauvinism, revanchism and aggressive passivity didn’t appear out of nowhere. It’s a lasting tradition they carried through iterations.

They speak of loving the motherland. Doesn’t matter what atrocities Russia commits. Mostly female, they project it on a difficult family “situation”. A husband gets mad and starts killing neighbours. A wife and children have nothing to do with it. They want to live as usual.

Much cruelty hides under this passivity of choice. I realise that Russia is a system and I want to be kind to these individuals. I also realise they are the ones shouldering it. They shrug off inconveniences, go on vacations to occupied Crimea and complain about prices. As usual.

At the same time, Ukraine is bombed daily. Russians drone-hunt people. They built the entire torture industry for Ukrainians. They slowly and methodically grind Ukraine into rubble. One has to keep these two realities in your mind when Russians complain. To get a better picture.

The majority of the opinions I have read are from women. From their thirties to their fifties. Well-educated. More or less financially secure. Trying to care for their children.

I was hopeful that Russians can do something, can change things. Years passed by. With growing horror I realised that they are mostly fine with the way their country lives and operates. Nihilism. And gloomy “we can survive this” attitude. Ukrainians, meanwhile, do not survive.