Thread by @kamilkazani

I argue that Russian empire is fighting its war largely with colonial troops. DPR, LPR and poorer, often ethnic periphery within Russia provide Putin with disposable cannon fodder, while imperial metropole is spared

Navalny's Chief of Staff: That's madness

Meanwhile navalnists:

https://twitter.com/leonidvolkov/status/1564123822198063104

"Those who went to fight are not the best part of Russian population, I'm sorry. It is the low-income people, it is the Buryats..."

Olga Guseva, ex deputy chief of Navalny's staff in St Petersburg, now a YouTube host. I believe this is her Twitter account @GusevaOlyaa

She probably didn't think her words through so later she was forced to apologise. But that's good thing actually. When you don't think it through beforehand, you may accidentally speak truth. Like in this case: that the Russian empire fights with colonial troops

Her Freudian slip is very important, because it reflects the common knowledge: that Russia is asymmetrical empire with its periphery population enjoying semi subhuman status. Still, it is those semi subhumans who fight the wars of imperial expansion (while being spit upon ofc)

Most "liberals" will deny it vehemently. And yet, they all know it. See a prominent anti-Putinist businessman Chichvarkin @chich_8 . It is "unhumans from toilettes villages" who fight in Ukraine. Well, as a matter of fact he's not wrong. Moscow is spared from the war

The end