"At least we all hate Putin, right? Surely we can all agree on that?"
I think "we all hate Putin" is an extreme oversimplification of approximately fifty years of historical political tension and mistrust, to the point of uselessness and playground-level name-calling. Democracy is not something that Russia or the USSR ever had and lost; they simply never had it. If what Vladimir V. Pozner said is true, the West/America could have accepted the olive branch Yeltsin offered at the disbanding of the USSR, instead of snubbing him/Russia out of arrogance and hurt feelings over the Cold War and the threat of nuclear strikes. Had that happened, it's possible that a man such as Vladimir Putin probably wouldn't have come to power in a similar way to how Hitler did. You can "hate" Putin as much as you want, but if you're going to do that, you also have to "hate" the American politicians and advisors who decided the foreign policy towards Russia was to punish and spurn it ("nobody threatens the USA and gets away with it"), rather than to judiciously intervene in it's development and steer it towards democracy (or at least a Capitalistic Tweedist oligarchy like America's).
I am definitely not going to pretend that I am up to speed with the finer details of the history, culture and mindset of Eurasia (or at least that part of it that was the USSR), so I'm not well-equipped to comment on the Ukraine crisis and civil war, nor what led up to it, by any means or stretch of the imagination. However, I will posit this: Americans (from the man in the street to the POTUS himself) pointing fingers at Putin and making him out to be the sole scapegoat/instigator strikes me as dangerously churlish, feeble-minded and irresponsible at best. You had a hand in it and your refusal to commit yourselves to a solution in good time is also to blame; don't pretend otherwise.
If there is one thing I understand about Russia, it is anti-American sentiment. It is something I carry in my heart for many reasons. The brash arrogance of the American people and their willful ignorance in the role their former leaders have played in meddling with the governance of other countries (often to detrimental/disasterous effect) is only one of those reasons. I'm not pro-Putin, but I'm certainly anti-America.
— Someone from a "shit hole" African country
Lead image: Photo of Saint Basil's Cathedral, by Julius Silver from/on Pexels
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I don't hate Putin at all and with me many do not. I do hate set ups, fake news, the US lying and Nato starting a fight/war. They sent all the weapons, bioweapon depots everywhere and kept their mouth shut during the past 8 years about the genocide. 🤔 This war was planned by the US just like C19 and the rest of the crisis in the past and future.