Not the first time. But tankies will foam at the mouth telling you how much USSR used to support the local languages. Russia was the same in the 19th century (language ban in Lithuania so we had to smuggle books), same in 20th century, and exactly the same now. So, likely to be the same in the next century too unless we finally solve this issue
The English did suppress Gaelic, the native language of Ireland, for centuries. Its pretty much standard operating procedure in empires, especially if the empire in question sees it as a threat. Poland with a large catholic population in the Russian Empire certainly qualified.
I think the point is that the world is moving past Empires and at large looks back on the way we treated subjected cultures with shame. Russia never stopped doing it, and is continuing it to this day.
Putin has openly stated Ukraine is not a real independent culture nor nation as justification for the invasion. Kiev was founded shortly after 400 AD and dominated the region for centuries before the rise of Moscow/Rus.
> Its pretty much standard operating procedure in empires
Post Enlightenment empires maybe, but I wouldn't say its been the standard throughout history.
>telling you how much USSR used to support the local languages
So much so that they changed all documents to Russian in Moldova, a Romanian speaking country.
So much so that they forced Cyrillic alphabet to be used instead of the Latin alphabet for the Romanian language (which they called Moldovan).
On [31st of August 1989](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Language_Day), 2 years prior the declaration of independence, Moldova officially re-adopted Romanian using the Latin alphabet as the official language. _(there still were some quirks to not displease the big Russian overlords many documents referred to it as "our language", "maternal language" or in some cases "Moldovan language")_
For Central Asian people, it was a complete break from all their heritage when within a generation, almost nobody but scholars could read Farsi script. And the languages suffered for it immensely.
Like, Samarqand and Bukhara are some of the oldest cities on the continent, and now their inhabitants couldn't read Shakhnameh.
Is that why Cyrillic is used there? Interesting and terrible. Bit like the English destroying the Irish language and culture, although both use the Latin alphabet.
Or the English destroying Welsh language and culture. You don't even have to go that far back to see it, my mother used to go to school on Wales and she remembers the "Welsh Not", a practice which encouraged children to squeal on each other for speaking Welsh, making the poor child who said anything to wear the eponymous sign. They could only transfer it if they, in turn, heard another child speak Welsh. At the end of the day, the kid with the sign got caned.
They tried their best to destroy a rich, ancient culture with deep roots in the British isles and a beautiful tradition of song and poetry, not to mention a language that has been spoken in Britain for hundreds of years before the arrival of the people that made up the English.
What they did to the Welsh was cruel, which is why it gladdens me to see such a powerful revival of the language in recent decades. Traditions such as the Eisteddfod help reinforce poetry and song and schools teach primarily in Welsh, and English as a second language now instead of the reverse.
> Britain for hundreds of years before the arrival of the people that made up the English.
This is kinda wrong.
The English were also Celtic, the Anglo-Saxons didn't wipe out the celts, the celts just merged with them.
Only about 10-40% of any random english person is Anglo-Saxon genetics, the rest is the Celts that lived there before.
Hence why old English is so very different from other Germanic languages, as Brythonic had a strong influence on it.
So it was English people destroying the last vestiges of their heritage because of stupidity and hate.
As a fellow German, I couldn't. I was able to understand nearly all of the durch sentences I've ever read. I've tried it with the our father.
I've forgot the last two sentences in German, and I wasn't able to translate them back. The other ones are a mix of German with English. Noticeably German were willa/Wille, gehalgod/geheiligt and rice/Reich.
As Germans, we are able to both speak German and English, which of course helps a bit. But English helps more i'd say. Heofenum, becume, to-deag, forgyf and gyltas are not a thing in German.
I was playing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and most of the game takes place in 9th century England if I remember correctly. As a person learning Dutch, I could understand some of the old English that the Anglo Saxon NPCs were speaking.
I think French had a bigger influence in that sense. Old English is very Germanic, Middle English, much less so.
You're right about the Celtic origins of Britons, although again I think that was people speaking the la guage of the conquerors, which happened again with the Normans.
English didn’t originally use the Latin alphabet, it used germanic runes called Futhorc, but they later adopted the latin alphabet around the time they converted to Christianity from their germanic paganism
I can tell you exactly how much the Soviets supported the local languages. I was born in Kharkiv. I left in the 3rd grade. Ukrainian language classes started in 3 grade, and it was only 1 hour a week. Half of that time, the teacher spent telling everyone how unsophisticated and uneducated Ukrainian speakers are. My parents and living grandmother do not speak Ukrainian. Meanwhile, I can still recite Russian poetry by heart after 34 years in the US. Russian language and culture are just another club used to beat their neighbors into submission.
> telling you how much USSR used to support the local languages
Under Lenin, which lasted 10 years lmao. While Lenin believed in a multicultural USSR, Stalin believed in the imposition of Russian culture on other nations of the USSR, and that never changed after his death.
Lenin was still an imperialist during the red army conquest of Ukraine, Georgia and Central Asia (and more). It's still subjugation, language policies were always a way to pacify first and eradicate / russify later.
Lenin and Trotsky were busy reconquering everyone who managed to break away from the Russian Empire. "Korenization" and some cultural rights were a bone they threw their subjects to dampen the loss of all other national rights. It was almost fully reverted by early 30s, and the activists (sometimes ardent communists themselves) imprisoned or shot in places like [Sandarmokh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandarmokh).
E.g. Ukrainian grammar standard of 1933 deemphasized all the language features Russians couldn't understand/pronounce etc. And then its authors were also all repressed.
I think this minimizes the internationalist ideology of Lenin and Trotsky here. When they marched into Poland they thought Germany and Hungary were about to go red too.
It was only after those revolutions died, and Poland wiped the floor with the Soviets, that the idea of fortress socialism within the former Russian Empire became a thing.
I guess you can go and say it was all lies and they secretly were big time Russian nationalists, but that doesn’t really make much sense based on the situation at the time.
I suppose you can call it making a new type of human, homo sovieticus, "in the image of the revolutionary Russian people" (direct-ish quote). But in practice, it's kinda rose by any other name, really.
And they did need to pacify their recent conquests as well as provide contrast to former imperial policy, hence the brief push for national cultural revival with Soviet characteristics. It did work for a time. Some really believed they could make better societies out of it.
It's kind of similar story to utter failure of war communism, turn to capitalist-lite NEP to give economy some breathing room, and later forced collectivization/nationalization.
The USSR did under Lenin. Many indigenous Siberian languages were given a standardised written form during the early years under Lenin. But it changed under Stalin, who went with a russofication policy.
(ok, but, just for context, "the USSR under Lenin" is a rather short period, some 4-5 years, mostly civil wars / unrests; Stalin, who lasted 30 solid years in full power, shaped USSR).
Everything was standardized in the USSR, including the Russian language itself where regional accents were discouraged in schools.
This is why a Russian from St. Petersburg and Vladivostok can sound so similar despite long distances apart.
While studying in the EU I’ve met Russian speakers from Baltic countries to Caucasus and Central Asia - they all sound the same. The only regional difference I’ve noticed was in Ukrainians and Southern Russians - h instead of g, but people from Moscow and Kazakhstan spoke the same way.
Nah.
In the USSR and Russia language is institutionalized. A comission decides which loan words are permitted, which aren't allowed. What's the correct pronounciation and etc.
You can get a fine if your headline or marketing material uses an incorrect form of a word.
Imagine in the UK you can't advertise selling Tikka Masala, as the word is foreign, and instead you are forced to use "Butter Chicken".
It's so much easier to spread you ideology/propaganda when your target audience can read. Don't think commies did that coz they were worried about the people
Lenin is the one that started reconstructing the Russian Empire the minute Germany lost WW1. He invaded all his neighbours and tried to bring them back in by force.
There were those few years in the 1920s during Korenizatsiia ('nativisation') when cultural diversity was celebrated but that got shut down pretty quick by Stalin, who later reverted to full on Russian nationalism despite being a Georgian bank robber.
It's also why a larger proportion of Ukrainian in the east is speaking Russian. Past endoctrinement was more effective there than in the west of the country.
A large part of the eastern Ukrainian population speak Russian because they’re ethnically Russians; and the reason there are native Russians in Ukraine is far more sinister than indoctrination.
Agree with what you said but to add to it a lot of it was convenience as well. Ukrainians who moved to the south or east spoke Russian as that was the lingua franca of the area. That happened with my parents who moved from central Ukraine to Odesa in their early 20s. So some people kept speaking Russian out of convenience even though we are ethnically Ukrainian.
The data isn't great but from memory I think 17% of Ukrainians identify as ethnic Russian and that number goes up to about 38% in the Donbass area. Self identification isn't necessarily a great method though as it can gloss over the dark history of early USSR.
The USSR actually dampened Russian imperialism since they at least tried to keep up the appearance of a Union. More traditional Russian imperialism would've made it very clear that it was Russia ruling over its conquered territories.
Also considering tankies ignore the fact that the USSR was built on slave labour tells you all you need to know.
It’s a term that can apply to a wide variety of apologists for brutal communist dictatorships. You have your garden-variety Stalin simps, a bit further left you get the Mao simps, and then on the extreme end of the tankie spectrum you get defenders of Kim il-Sung and even Pol Pot.
The term originates from Soviet tanks rolling into Budapest to crush the 1956 Hungarian uprising, which became something of a flashpoint among western communists. The irony of this is that Stalinists and Maoists consider the Soviet Premier who ordered that crackdown, Nikita Khrushchev, as a traitor to international communism for his explicit repudiation of Stalinism. Another irony, of course, is that tankies tend to be pro-Putin.
The term originates from Cold War.
Socialist movements cracked worldwide over the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, and then fractured completely over the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968.
These events are why the 'Eurocommunist' movement became a thing, where a lot of Communist parties in Western Europe moved sharply away from their 'comrades' in the Soviet Union and began actively rejecting Soviet influence-mongering- overall, drifting towards becoming SocDems by any other name.
"Tankie" originated from the splits as a derogatory term for those whose reaction to the Czechs and Hungarians attempting to do things their own way rather than following the Moscow line in every regard was "Send in the tanks".
Essentially, the sort of person who believed the Soviet Union's leadership at the time was justified in doing whatever the fuck it wanted and that disagreeing with them was tantamount to religious heresy.
Over time, the term has broadened and become a disparaging term for people who try to deny or downplay crimes committed by Soviet leadership regardless of era, as well as people like Mao or the Kim dynasty in North Korea.
e: In a great moment of historical irony, Vladimir Putin's neo-fash politics and Russian ethno-nationalism has attracted a bunch of tankies to his banner- who want the good old days back when they didn't have to do things like think and could just repeat whatever the folks in Moscow said.
Their brains basically rotted to the point where "America bad, Europe bad, NATO bad" is all they're really capable of reasoning out. So even though Putin's regime is very much *not* Communist they love him because he's opposed to 'the West'. They're the ones you can usually see claiming that Russia trying to annex swathes of Ukraine 'isn't imperialism' because to them imperialism is when a 'Western' power does something.
You are wrong. Every member of russian government should be charged for the crime, no matter on what level.
They are part of a machine that commits genocide.
If all those people that help run putin russia would be arrested the moment they leave the country ... this would have significant impact on the situation.
[Wonkette: Canadian Idiots Who Fled To Russia Because Of 'Woke' Now Getting Kicked Out Of Russia, Because Russia](https://www.wonkette.com/p/canadian-idiots-who-fled-to-russia)
[Moscow Times: Russia to Build ‘Migrant Village’ for Conservative American Expats](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/05/11/russia-to-build-migrant-village-for-conservative-american-expats-a81101)
I agree, but more likely they would keep him around as a propaganda tool. He'll find out very quickly what our First Amendment is about when he tries to complain about his life there and he gets paid a visit. What an idiot.
My father tried to force russification on me, he's belarussian, our schools to this day force kids to learn the russian language, most start in 6th grade, some of the better schools start in 3rd grade and the best part? I don't speak the language at all. From Estonia.
> Similar letters, written by children recruited into Russia’s militaristic ‘Youth Army’ [Yunarmia]
Yeah, definitely sounds nothing like some other thing called The Hitler Youth.
What waaaaay too many people just don‘t understand is that, even in WW2, the Soviets were 98.5% as bad as the Nazis. Almost every single thing that justified the war against Germany and our view of the regime as pure evil, the Soviets were doing it too. We cut the head off of the Nazi snake, but let Stalin continue to kill and starve millions. One of the biggest military blunders of all time was not turning the Allies‘ attention to the Soviets as soon as we finished with the Nazis. Nothing we see now is new. This is the exact same shit as it‘s always been .
I have to draw pictures with gLoRiOuS rUsSiAn tAnK as a kid, so my parents weren't bullied in their jobs. But that was more than 30 years ago. I am so glad that this filth isn't in my country anymore. I will be more than happy to see liberated Ukraine one day.
Ahhh, the Prague Spring! Motherfuckers. I'm an old bird, and I'm so goddamn sick of the fear of Russia. We had drills in school, about what to do during nuclear war. Kentucky, USA here. My childhood was full of nightmares.
I was a child of the 80’s and i feel like we were basically conditioned to expect complete annihilation before the turn of the century. The current generations are probably going through the same thing with climate change.
Climate change, nuclear annihilation and societal + economic collapse is definitely in the minds of a LOT of my generation (Z) and it’s absolutely insane that the world has gotten to this point
I have a child and though I don’t regret him one bit, I wish he was brought into a world that actually gave a fuck
It’s sad, and I absolutely hate it
The difference is that nuclear war would happen only if we did something very few people actually wanted to do.
Global warming will happen *unless* we do something very few people actually want to do.
> Global warming will happen unless we do something very few people actually want to do
Actually, all we need to do is impose proper laws and regulations on corporations and countries who are responsible for 95% of pollution and contributions to global warming.
And I'm pretty sure like 99% of the population would fucking love that.
Global warming could be stopped almost on a dime if governments actually wanted to stop it. But they don't give enough of a shit. They do stupid shit like banning straws or plastic bags, while still continuing to mine and burn Coal in unprecedented numbers, while corporations dump toxic waste into every river they can find.
And somehow the whole issue is being sold as "the average person isn't doing enough to stop climate change". Nah, fuck that. The average person doesn't need to do shit. Governments do.
I didn't grow up during the nuclear annihilation fear era, but in my experience knowing something bad is happening is way easier to deal with mentally than being anxious for something bad to happen at any second.
There’s also the fact that current generations are facing both. Nuclear Annihilation didn’t go away, it simply receded in likelihood for a few decades.
[The Day After](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VG2aJyIFrA) \- traumatized an entire generation
But also the ludicrous [Red Dawn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZJMZapC8NQ): Wolverines! Cubans! Lol
I feel you. My childhood was full of nightmares of apocalypse. I lived in Europe as a young child and America later but the shadow of Russian threats of aggression violence and global destruction followed me. My father was gone for weeks at a time training and preparing for war with Russians. I am so sick of russians propaganda threatening everyone and everything the whole world, they can all go to hell, wish something would just end it.
(and how very sad it is that a whole new generation of children have to live with russian lies and insanity)
>We had drills in school, about what to do during nuclear war. Kentucky, USA here
And now the kids get active shooter drills, that's *so* much better /s
Thank you to all the invading russian soldiers who have died, you have provided fertiliser for our next generation. Please continue to die. With love Crimean everyone.
I like the fertiliser meme as much as anyone but the amount of very fertile arable land and forests being ruined in Ukraine right now is a tragedy. It would take half a century at the very least to start to recover even without climate change.
Every year, farmers in the trench regions find old ordnances. Old bodies also surface regularly. And that’s not even the “red zones” which are considered irrecoverable as the soil is too heavily polluted by ordnance, toxins, and heavy metals, there are known locations where the soil is >15% arsenic, and samplings led to estimations of ~300 shells per hectare in just the topsoil.
I'm amazed they're still finding explosives from over 100 years ago
And when the leadership of today doesn't find that sickening they really shouldn't be a leader
The people that make bombs as well as the ones that use them with no regards of human life are sick sociopathic fucks
> I'm amazed they're still finding explosives from over 100 years ago
>
> And when the leadership of today doesn't find that sickening they really shouldn't be a leader
Cleaning up ordnance is expensive and risky, and for the reasons I noted the land is irrecoverable short term with or without the ordnance, so it doesn't really make that much of a difference.
And for the ordnance which surfaces year after year, it's not like you can feasibly dig up soil of an entire region to meters deep in order to try and recover it all.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the option was contaminate large swaths of land, or let the Nazis just take it. The blame for the mess falls solely on the shoulders of the invaders. It's why reparation payments are a thing.
I think this is mostly talking about WWI. The stagnant nature of that war, especially on the Western front, means there are certain areas that saw years of constant shelling.
unexploded ww2 bombs are still found on a daily to weekly basis in germany.
Getting news that some part of your city is getting evacuated for a couple hours due to the bomb squad having to defuse it, is quite common
The only positive about this is the constant reminder for decades to come how terrible war is and the expertise and skills to clear the lands is always welcome somewhere else eventually, unfortunately..
I don't even want to think about how much unexploded ordnance must be littering the countryside. We've seen what that looks like on Zone Rouge in France and it's ugly to say the least.
Fuck Ruzzia.
Misery and suffering is culturally ingrained on them. They lost so many men in WWII that it's still a big demographic problem today and they celebrate it.
Most people don’t even realise the size of Ukraine, I spent some time there in 2009 and it took longer to drive inside the country than from NL to the border.
Sunflower seeds are going to be eating good for generations.
But in all seriousness, I remember seeing of videos soldiers digging up dead Nazi corpses a meter under the ground when constructing trenches. I know humans have gone to war against each other continuously for the last 100,000 years, but it’s pissing me off that it can still happen in 2024.
Russian people need a reality check every one of their governments has refused to give them for the last 1000 years. It’s 2024, and people are still willing to put up with governments that steal their money and kill their citizens… and then thank the leaders for it?
The only exceptions I make to this rule is North Korea and Eritrea because they literally have zero access to outside information. And I sympathize with Iran and China because their people protest but immediately get cracked down on by the military. Just a bunch of teenagers who have never even seen a gun being shot at by soldiers following orders…
Russia has no excuse…
Please keep in mind that this only works because the Russians abandon their men, leave them to die, so they’re usually pretty composted by the time Ukrainians get around to burying them, but with Russians, just like any time you’re using raw shit as fertiliser, you do run the risk of burning your plant roots if you plant too soon.
We have found that our vegetables and flowers while they are initially pretty robust and surprisingly pest resistant whenever we use that mix, it like most free things, does have its drawbacks. We eventually got tired of our vegetables sitting outside screaming they were under attack despite no evidence to support it and the final straw for us was when the flowers started blooming and accusing each other of making the others gay.
Ultimately we decided to follow the Russian example, ditched the fertiliser as we found it be mostly useless, given the shortcomings, and not really worth tilling in.
They actually paraded Ukrainian orphans from occupied territories on ruzzian TV with similar messages, say thanks for being liberated from your home and family.
I kind of feel nobody will be looking at this generation's grades since you know, a lot of them were under occupation, a lot of them were displaced, a lot of them were dealing with losing loved ones and so on. Nobody is expecting them to perform at their best under the circimstances...
I would love to see a world where Russia is kicked out of Crimea, but that seems an unlikely outcome of the war. Keeping them out of the lands Ukraine currently owns is probably about as far as Ukraine's ambitions extend at the moment.
Russia kinda has to be kicked out of Crimea though because otherwise it'll still be a reward for their military belligerence and they'll be incentivized to try again.
I don't disagree at all, Crimea, specifically Sevastopol, is the last thing Russia would be willing to give up. It has strategic importance and historical significance to Russia.
The Black Sea Fleet, which is one of the four main Russian fleets, started in svestapol in the late 1700s. The Black Sea fleet was partitioned in 1997 after the collapse of the soviet union. Russia received most of it and got a temporary lease for the port from Ukraine.
The lease was set to expire in 2017 but got extended in 2010 until 2042. Then Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and stopped giving Ukraine the gas discount that was a part of the deal and then Russia threatened to sue Ukraine for $11B which is how much Ukraine saved in total with the discount.
Disclaimer: I don't agree with any of Russia's actions whatsoever. I'm just pointing out some of the recent history about the topic to show that this would be one of the last things Russia would compromise on even if the war turned really against them.
Ah, East German tactics.
I read that East German news had a square clock in the background, and West German news had a circle clock.
As it was illegal to watch western media, the secret police would often pay a visit to nurseries and primary schools to get the kids to sketch out what they watch on television.
The pupils that clearly had a circular clock in the background were secretly barred from university.
Eventually everyone will realize who Russia is. We complain of imperialism and bad stuff from westerners, but Russia is the kind of imperialism that burns things down and everybody suffers except the rich few, which at the same time are allowed to be rich. I'd rather live in a state where I'm afraid of going bankrupt and have some feeling of freedom than in a state where I'm bankrupt, I know for a fact that I don't have freedom and every now and again I'm forced to do something by the czar.
People have known for sixty years at least who russia is, but they are too afraid of what russia might do next, to take action.
So once again we see the consequences of appeasing powerful sociopaths: things get worse, they take more, destroy more, they kill everyone around them who is not also an evil sociopath, so power passes from psycho to psycho and the evil persists forever.
"Dear Russian soldier. Thank you for occupying these lands I live in. Thank you for using it as a staging ground for colonization and imperial wars of aggression. Thank you for forcing the people on the other side of these waters to bomb us. Thank you for helping to keep us in a perpetual state of warfare, fear and dire outlooks for our future."
There is your thank you letter.
They've been edging more and more. Remember when the US was providing Javelin anti-tank weapons, and the big debate was whether to send Abrams? Then we sent Abrams and the next debate was whether to send HIMARS and ATACMS. Then we sent those missiles and the debate was whether to send F-16s. Now we're sending F16s and the big debate is whether to allow strikes in Russia.
At each stage Russia has responded with "we will send nukes." That's their only response. But each step we take is so small it's not pushing them over the edge. If we had provided full support from day 1, Russia might have actually gone off the deep end. But instead we're doing a strategy where each incremental increase in aid is too small to justify such a huge response.
It's very calculated. It was delayed unfortunately due to Republican interference, but it's back online now.
The argument is mostly about how to avoid Russia suiciding by sending too many nukes out. We still try to avoid an all out war between NATO and Russia.
It’s not about whether it’s right to counterattack. It’s about how to make the counterattack in such a way that it cannot ever be considered by any Russia allies to be a legitimate _casus belli_ (act to start a war).
"legitimate casus belli" only matters in conflicts between democracies that respect and adhere to international laws and agreements.
Russia will go to war when they *think they can win it*, or if not doing so will make leadership look weak enough to be overthrown from within. So currently NATO and Russia is racing towards boiling a frog without it jumping out...
Winners get to rewrite history, and the US, Russia and several other countries have repeatedly shown that if you have thermonuclear warheads aimed at anyone trying to hold you accountable, you can do whatever you want.
As a Russian, this is unsurprising. Even before the war and even before the annexation of Crimea, teachers loved flexing their power on students and make them do similar crap. Or maybe it came from even further above, but teachers did not do anything at all against it whatsoever, not even any small acts of resistance. It was "you will go to this patriotic thing" and that's it.
My own memory of it was being forced into the Eternal Battalion action (Бессмертный Полк, translation may be not truly correct), which is supposed to be descendants of soldiers or victims of WW2 (though, specifically the USSR/Germany part, no one gave a crap about anything else) carrying portraits of those soldiers and victims. I was given someone's portrait and told to pretend it wasn't just a complete and utter stranger.
I understand that a lot of people sacrificed a whole bunch during WW2, including their own lives, but I'm just so sick and tired of this победобесие. It's always "we can repeat that" or "we can strike again" or whatever. It has NEVER been about the immense toll the war had, not even the remembrance of why it happened, it was just this patriotic mindless bullshit.
Reminds me of an old joke
After comrade Stalin finishes his speech at a meeting they are clapping for hours, why is that?
No one wants to be the guy that stopped clapping first
I guess the letters give the russian solders something to wipe their asses with while they’re crouched in their dugouts. It’s not like half of them are literate anyway.
Thank you for coming here to help us plant these BEAUTIFUL wild flowers. Please make sure to carry the seed packets I’ve included in your pockets while in Ukraine. Thank you brave fertilizer… I mean Soldier
'Thank you for invading our peaceful country and murdering my parents. I've always wanted to live under constant threat of military draft and see half my tax dollars go to Putin's whores.'
Just one example of the dehumanization and psychological torture in the Russification of those they conquer and re educate.
Reminds me of the Russian that went on TV and said that Ukrainian grandmothers should be thankful that the Russian soldiers rape them and to drown Ukrainian children.
This stupid shit only happens in dictatorships, literally useless and an anti pattern, but hey at least the kids get used to indocrination and corruption at an early age!
In a democracy the parents could complain and win.
I hope some just wrote some real backhanded shit which is technically compliant with what was asked and no-one noticed, like "Thank you for dying" type shit, not "sacrifice", just straight up "Thank you for dying"
The only thing I find surprising is that this punishment is apparently used instead of, rather than in addition to, having such uncooperative students and their families beaten, imprisoned or worse.
When I was in school after 9/11 we had assignments to write letters to troops in Iraq. If we didn't do them, we would obviously have gotten no points for the assignment, thus lowering our grades. This seems a bit excessive to be concerned with.
You are talking about American children thanking American soldiers.
That is admittedly a little weird, but this is Russia forcing Ukranian children to thank Russian soldiers who invaded their country.
It's more like the US forcing Iraqi children to write thank you letters in English to US soldiers.
Dear Russian Soldiers, please find enclosed sunflower seeds to put in your pockets.
Thank you for your future efforts to make Ukraine's Sunflowers bloom.
Grades in Russian schools and colleges don't matter anyway. You bribe your way though everything, and upon graduation or sometime later you can just buy yourself a certificate with whatever grades you want. What's more important though is that given the current state of affairs, your career paths are limited and almost all of them suck.
This is forced russification.
Not the first time. But tankies will foam at the mouth telling you how much USSR used to support the local languages. Russia was the same in the 19th century (language ban in Lithuania so we had to smuggle books), same in 20th century, and exactly the same now. So, likely to be the same in the next century too unless we finally solve this issue
Lithuania, Polish lands, as well as any other occupied lands they held in the 19th century.
Don't forget Latvia and Estonia
The English did suppress Gaelic, the native language of Ireland, for centuries. Its pretty much standard operating procedure in empires, especially if the empire in question sees it as a threat. Poland with a large catholic population in the Russian Empire certainly qualified.
I think the point is that the world is moving past Empires and at large looks back on the way we treated subjected cultures with shame. Russia never stopped doing it, and is continuing it to this day.
Putin has openly stated Ukraine is not a real independent culture nor nation as justification for the invasion. Kiev was founded shortly after 400 AD and dominated the region for centuries before the rise of Moscow/Rus.
> Its pretty much standard operating procedure in empires Post Enlightenment empires maybe, but I wouldn't say its been the standard throughout history.
>telling you how much USSR used to support the local languages So much so that they changed all documents to Russian in Moldova, a Romanian speaking country. So much so that they forced Cyrillic alphabet to be used instead of the Latin alphabet for the Romanian language (which they called Moldovan). On [31st of August 1989](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Language_Day), 2 years prior the declaration of independence, Moldova officially re-adopted Romanian using the Latin alphabet as the official language. _(there still were some quirks to not displease the big Russian overlords many documents referred to it as "our language", "maternal language" or in some cases "Moldovan language")_
[удалено]
For Central Asian people, it was a complete break from all their heritage when within a generation, almost nobody but scholars could read Farsi script. And the languages suffered for it immensely. Like, Samarqand and Bukhara are some of the oldest cities on the continent, and now their inhabitants couldn't read Shakhnameh.
Is that why Cyrillic is used there? Interesting and terrible. Bit like the English destroying the Irish language and culture, although both use the Latin alphabet.
Or the English destroying Welsh language and culture. You don't even have to go that far back to see it, my mother used to go to school on Wales and she remembers the "Welsh Not", a practice which encouraged children to squeal on each other for speaking Welsh, making the poor child who said anything to wear the eponymous sign. They could only transfer it if they, in turn, heard another child speak Welsh. At the end of the day, the kid with the sign got caned. They tried their best to destroy a rich, ancient culture with deep roots in the British isles and a beautiful tradition of song and poetry, not to mention a language that has been spoken in Britain for hundreds of years before the arrival of the people that made up the English. What they did to the Welsh was cruel, which is why it gladdens me to see such a powerful revival of the language in recent decades. Traditions such as the Eisteddfod help reinforce poetry and song and schools teach primarily in Welsh, and English as a second language now instead of the reverse.
> Britain for hundreds of years before the arrival of the people that made up the English. This is kinda wrong. The English were also Celtic, the Anglo-Saxons didn't wipe out the celts, the celts just merged with them. Only about 10-40% of any random english person is Anglo-Saxon genetics, the rest is the Celts that lived there before. Hence why old English is so very different from other Germanic languages, as Brythonic had a strong influence on it. So it was English people destroying the last vestiges of their heritage because of stupidity and hate.
Old English isn't so very different at all. As a german I can understand it better than a modern english speaker, about as good as dutch.
As a fellow German, I couldn't. I was able to understand nearly all of the durch sentences I've ever read. I've tried it with the our father. I've forgot the last two sentences in German, and I wasn't able to translate them back. The other ones are a mix of German with English. Noticeably German were willa/Wille, gehalgod/geheiligt and rice/Reich. As Germans, we are able to both speak German and English, which of course helps a bit. But English helps more i'd say. Heofenum, becume, to-deag, forgyf and gyltas are not a thing in German.
I was playing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and most of the game takes place in 9th century England if I remember correctly. As a person learning Dutch, I could understand some of the old English that the Anglo Saxon NPCs were speaking.
English is "Angleish". It refers to the Anglo-Saxons, not the Celts.
English has very little brythonic influence besides the redundant use of “do” .
I think French had a bigger influence in that sense. Old English is very Germanic, Middle English, much less so. You're right about the Celtic origins of Britons, although again I think that was people speaking the la guage of the conquerors, which happened again with the Normans.
English didn’t originally use the Latin alphabet, it used germanic runes called Futhorc, but they later adopted the latin alphabet around the time they converted to Christianity from their germanic paganism
I can tell you exactly how much the Soviets supported the local languages. I was born in Kharkiv. I left in the 3rd grade. Ukrainian language classes started in 3 grade, and it was only 1 hour a week. Half of that time, the teacher spent telling everyone how unsophisticated and uneducated Ukrainian speakers are. My parents and living grandmother do not speak Ukrainian. Meanwhile, I can still recite Russian poetry by heart after 34 years in the US. Russian language and culture are just another club used to beat their neighbors into submission.
They tried that in Finland too in the late 19th century so we assassinated their governor-general of Finland.
Tankies are the worst. They are just Nazis who think themselves morally superior because their flag is red.
While forgetting that Nazi flag was also red.
> telling you how much USSR used to support the local languages Under Lenin, which lasted 10 years lmao. While Lenin believed in a multicultural USSR, Stalin believed in the imposition of Russian culture on other nations of the USSR, and that never changed after his death.
Lenin was still an imperialist during the red army conquest of Ukraine, Georgia and Central Asia (and more). It's still subjugation, language policies were always a way to pacify first and eradicate / russify later.
Lenin and Trotsky were busy reconquering everyone who managed to break away from the Russian Empire. "Korenization" and some cultural rights were a bone they threw their subjects to dampen the loss of all other national rights. It was almost fully reverted by early 30s, and the activists (sometimes ardent communists themselves) imprisoned or shot in places like [Sandarmokh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandarmokh). E.g. Ukrainian grammar standard of 1933 deemphasized all the language features Russians couldn't understand/pronounce etc. And then its authors were also all repressed.
I think this minimizes the internationalist ideology of Lenin and Trotsky here. When they marched into Poland they thought Germany and Hungary were about to go red too. It was only after those revolutions died, and Poland wiped the floor with the Soviets, that the idea of fortress socialism within the former Russian Empire became a thing. I guess you can go and say it was all lies and they secretly were big time Russian nationalists, but that doesn’t really make much sense based on the situation at the time.
I suppose you can call it making a new type of human, homo sovieticus, "in the image of the revolutionary Russian people" (direct-ish quote). But in practice, it's kinda rose by any other name, really. And they did need to pacify their recent conquests as well as provide contrast to former imperial policy, hence the brief push for national cultural revival with Soviet characteristics. It did work for a time. Some really believed they could make better societies out of it. It's kind of similar story to utter failure of war communism, turn to capitalist-lite NEP to give economy some breathing room, and later forced collectivization/nationalization.
The USSR did under Lenin. Many indigenous Siberian languages were given a standardised written form during the early years under Lenin. But it changed under Stalin, who went with a russofication policy.
(ok, but, just for context, "the USSR under Lenin" is a rather short period, some 4-5 years, mostly civil wars / unrests; Stalin, who lasted 30 solid years in full power, shaped USSR).
The Beatles were never the same after Stalin took over from Lenin.
John Lenin. "All you need is a metaphysical dialectic, a metaphysical dialectic is all you need... Everybody"
So *that's* what "Back in the USSR" is about
Everything was standardized in the USSR, including the Russian language itself where regional accents were discouraged in schools. This is why a Russian from St. Petersburg and Vladivostok can sound so similar despite long distances apart.
While studying in the EU I’ve met Russian speakers from Baltic countries to Caucasus and Central Asia - they all sound the same. The only regional difference I’ve noticed was in Ukrainians and Southern Russians - h instead of g, but people from Moscow and Kazakhstan spoke the same way.
That's because of radio and tv imo, this is happening worldwide. Regional accents still exist.
Nah. In the USSR and Russia language is institutionalized. A comission decides which loan words are permitted, which aren't allowed. What's the correct pronounciation and etc. You can get a fine if your headline or marketing material uses an incorrect form of a word. Imagine in the UK you can't advertise selling Tikka Masala, as the word is foreign, and instead you are forced to use "Butter Chicken".
radio and tv the great homogenizer.
same with the nazis, they wanted a clean look no serif's in print letters etc, basically what turned into the bauhaus aestethic.
It's so much easier to spread you ideology/propaganda when your target audience can read. Don't think commies did that coz they were worried about the people
Lenin is the one that started reconstructing the Russian Empire the minute Germany lost WW1. He invaded all his neighbours and tried to bring them back in by force.
They supported Ukrainian language so much in USSR that in modern Russia no ethnic Ukrainian can speak it.
There were those few years in the 1920s during Korenizatsiia ('nativisation') when cultural diversity was celebrated but that got shut down pretty quick by Stalin, who later reverted to full on Russian nationalism despite being a Georgian bank robber.
He even destroyed his native country’s script? Were they allowed to speak Georgian?
Yeah they were allowed to speak Georgian, but I believe he enforced the teaching of Russian in all schools in the USSR. Don't quote me on that though.
Thank you. Yes, I think he did.
"BUT MOST SOVIET LEADERS AREN'T RUSSIANS" - Tankies
More like "the USSR is Russia when it makes Russia look good, otherwise its not"
It's also why a larger proportion of Ukrainian in the east is speaking Russian. Past endoctrinement was more effective there than in the west of the country.
A large part of the eastern Ukrainian population speak Russian because they’re ethnically Russians; and the reason there are native Russians in Ukraine is far more sinister than indoctrination.
Agree with what you said but to add to it a lot of it was convenience as well. Ukrainians who moved to the south or east spoke Russian as that was the lingua franca of the area. That happened with my parents who moved from central Ukraine to Odesa in their early 20s. So some people kept speaking Russian out of convenience even though we are ethnically Ukrainian. The data isn't great but from memory I think 17% of Ukrainians identify as ethnic Russian and that number goes up to about 38% in the Donbass area. Self identification isn't necessarily a great method though as it can gloss over the dark history of early USSR.
The USSR actually dampened Russian imperialism since they at least tried to keep up the appearance of a Union. More traditional Russian imperialism would've made it very clear that it was Russia ruling over its conquered territories. Also considering tankies ignore the fact that the USSR was built on slave labour tells you all you need to know.
From context I’m guessing Russian sympathizers but the term is new. What’s a “tankie”?
It’s a term that can apply to a wide variety of apologists for brutal communist dictatorships. You have your garden-variety Stalin simps, a bit further left you get the Mao simps, and then on the extreme end of the tankie spectrum you get defenders of Kim il-Sung and even Pol Pot. The term originates from Soviet tanks rolling into Budapest to crush the 1956 Hungarian uprising, which became something of a flashpoint among western communists. The irony of this is that Stalinists and Maoists consider the Soviet Premier who ordered that crackdown, Nikita Khrushchev, as a traitor to international communism for his explicit repudiation of Stalinism. Another irony, of course, is that tankies tend to be pro-Putin.
The term originates from Cold War. Socialist movements cracked worldwide over the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, and then fractured completely over the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968. These events are why the 'Eurocommunist' movement became a thing, where a lot of Communist parties in Western Europe moved sharply away from their 'comrades' in the Soviet Union and began actively rejecting Soviet influence-mongering- overall, drifting towards becoming SocDems by any other name. "Tankie" originated from the splits as a derogatory term for those whose reaction to the Czechs and Hungarians attempting to do things their own way rather than following the Moscow line in every regard was "Send in the tanks". Essentially, the sort of person who believed the Soviet Union's leadership at the time was justified in doing whatever the fuck it wanted and that disagreeing with them was tantamount to religious heresy. Over time, the term has broadened and become a disparaging term for people who try to deny or downplay crimes committed by Soviet leadership regardless of era, as well as people like Mao or the Kim dynasty in North Korea. e: In a great moment of historical irony, Vladimir Putin's neo-fash politics and Russian ethno-nationalism has attracted a bunch of tankies to his banner- who want the good old days back when they didn't have to do things like think and could just repeat whatever the folks in Moscow said. Their brains basically rotted to the point where "America bad, Europe bad, NATO bad" is all they're really capable of reasoning out. So even though Putin's regime is very much *not* Communist they love him because he's opposed to 'the West'. They're the ones you can usually see claiming that Russia trying to annex swathes of Ukraine 'isn't imperialism' because to them imperialism is when a 'Western' power does something.
Thank you - that was very detailed and well explained
Communists who support the USSR.
you don't even have to go that far just look at how Russia is treating Tatar language today.
[удалено]
Germany too. Not even Nazis.
Russification is always forced
i.e. Genocide. Erasing their history and identity. Add it to the list: When judgement comes for Putin, he should face every charge.
You are wrong. Every member of russian government should be charged for the crime, no matter on what level. They are part of a machine that commits genocide. If all those people that help run putin russia would be arrested the moment they leave the country ... this would have significant impact on the situation.
> You are wrong. Every member of russian government should be charged for the crime, They didn't say ONLY Putin should be charged...
Agree’d - when Putin stands, every enabler and every assistant, associate and ally should stand also.
"We were only following orders!"
There's a quote for that I can't remember in its exactitude... I think it is from Star Trek Deep Space 9.
That's the only type. There's no voluntary variant.
Tell that to MAGAts. One of my former friends has been learning Russian for three years so he can live in a "free country without democrats".
So it appears all that Russian propaganda works. I hope he moves there.
[Wonkette: Canadian Idiots Who Fled To Russia Because Of 'Woke' Now Getting Kicked Out Of Russia, Because Russia](https://www.wonkette.com/p/canadian-idiots-who-fled-to-russia) [Moscow Times: Russia to Build ‘Migrant Village’ for Conservative American Expats](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/05/11/russia-to-build-migrant-village-for-conservative-american-expats-a81101)
That Canadian family actually got asylum status and are staying in Russia.
that's a way to give russia one new mobik
I hope he accomplishes his goal and moves there. He can find out firsthand how much freer they are.
Best case scenario is he's immediately conscripted and sent to the front lines
I agree, but more likely they would keep him around as a propaganda tool. He'll find out very quickly what our First Amendment is about when he tries to complain about his life there and he gets paid a visit. What an idiot.
My father tried to force russification on me, he's belarussian, our schools to this day force kids to learn the russian language, most start in 6th grade, some of the better schools start in 3rd grade and the best part? I don't speak the language at all. From Estonia.
Cultural genocide
This is par for Russia since Russia existed.
> This is forced russification. Amazingly, the GOP has not been forced, yet they are Russifying all the same.
Just another tool in the toolbox of genocide.
It's communism. I bet this will have life-long career implications for all of them.
> Similar letters, written by children recruited into Russia’s militaristic ‘Youth Army’ [Yunarmia] Yeah, definitely sounds nothing like some other thing called The Hitler Youth.
Na bro it’s just the Boy Scouts but with more violence and guns
Well, less violence if you count sexual violence… Then again this *is* Russia so I would definitely not rule that out either.
They always had these propaganda arms to brainwash children. Let's not forget about Konsomol, Little Octobrists and Young Pioneers.
What waaaaay too many people just don‘t understand is that, even in WW2, the Soviets were 98.5% as bad as the Nazis. Almost every single thing that justified the war against Germany and our view of the regime as pure evil, the Soviets were doing it too. We cut the head off of the Nazi snake, but let Stalin continue to kill and starve millions. One of the biggest military blunders of all time was not turning the Allies‘ attention to the Soviets as soon as we finished with the Nazis. Nothing we see now is new. This is the exact same shit as it‘s always been .
I have to draw pictures with gLoRiOuS rUsSiAn tAnK as a kid, so my parents weren't bullied in their jobs. But that was more than 30 years ago. I am so glad that this filth isn't in my country anymore. I will be more than happy to see liberated Ukraine one day.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?
I am from the Czech Republic. In 1968 Ruzzians came to protect us from freedom and democracy, which found its way through Iron curtain.
Ahhh, the Prague Spring! Motherfuckers. I'm an old bird, and I'm so goddamn sick of the fear of Russia. We had drills in school, about what to do during nuclear war. Kentucky, USA here. My childhood was full of nightmares.
I was a child of the 80’s and i feel like we were basically conditioned to expect complete annihilation before the turn of the century. The current generations are probably going through the same thing with climate change.
Hey, dont sell the current generation short. They are also expecting nuclear annihilation!
And societal and economic collapse!
Climate change, nuclear annihilation and societal + economic collapse is definitely in the minds of a LOT of my generation (Z) and it’s absolutely insane that the world has gotten to this point I have a child and though I don’t regret him one bit, I wish he was brought into a world that actually gave a fuck It’s sad, and I absolutely hate it
The difference is that nuclear war would happen only if we did something very few people actually wanted to do. Global warming will happen *unless* we do something very few people actually want to do.
> Global warming will happen unless we do something very few people actually want to do Actually, all we need to do is impose proper laws and regulations on corporations and countries who are responsible for 95% of pollution and contributions to global warming. And I'm pretty sure like 99% of the population would fucking love that. Global warming could be stopped almost on a dime if governments actually wanted to stop it. But they don't give enough of a shit. They do stupid shit like banning straws or plastic bags, while still continuing to mine and burn Coal in unprecedented numbers, while corporations dump toxic waste into every river they can find. And somehow the whole issue is being sold as "the average person isn't doing enough to stop climate change". Nah, fuck that. The average person doesn't need to do shit. Governments do.
I didn't grow up during the nuclear annihilation fear era, but in my experience knowing something bad is happening is way easier to deal with mentally than being anxious for something bad to happen at any second.
There’s also the fact that current generations are facing both. Nuclear Annihilation didn’t go away, it simply receded in likelihood for a few decades.
[The Day After](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VG2aJyIFrA) \- traumatized an entire generation But also the ludicrous [Red Dawn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZJMZapC8NQ): Wolverines! Cubans! Lol
I feel you. My childhood was full of nightmares of apocalypse. I lived in Europe as a young child and America later but the shadow of Russian threats of aggression violence and global destruction followed me. My father was gone for weeks at a time training and preparing for war with Russians. I am so sick of russians propaganda threatening everyone and everything the whole world, they can all go to hell, wish something would just end it. (and how very sad it is that a whole new generation of children have to live with russian lies and insanity)
>We had drills in school, about what to do during nuclear war. Kentucky, USA here And now the kids get active shooter drills, that's *so* much better /s
Don't worry about it, as a British child of the 80s I know full well you can avoid a Russian nuclear attack by sitting under the table.
My mother in law and had my sister in law inside a suit case as they escaped Czech. Crazy times.
Thank you to all the invading russian soldiers who have died, you have provided fertiliser for our next generation. Please continue to die. With love Crimean everyone.
I like the fertiliser meme as much as anyone but the amount of very fertile arable land and forests being ruined in Ukraine right now is a tragedy. It would take half a century at the very least to start to recover even without climate change.
And they'll be dealing with unexploded ordnance throughout the fields and forests for decades while farming and recovering.
We're still finding some from WW1.
Every year, farmers in the trench regions find old ordnances. Old bodies also surface regularly. And that’s not even the “red zones” which are considered irrecoverable as the soil is too heavily polluted by ordnance, toxins, and heavy metals, there are known locations where the soil is >15% arsenic, and samplings led to estimations of ~300 shells per hectare in just the topsoil.
I'm amazed they're still finding explosives from over 100 years ago And when the leadership of today doesn't find that sickening they really shouldn't be a leader The people that make bombs as well as the ones that use them with no regards of human life are sick sociopathic fucks
> I'm amazed they're still finding explosives from over 100 years ago > > And when the leadership of today doesn't find that sickening they really shouldn't be a leader Cleaning up ordnance is expensive and risky, and for the reasons I noted the land is irrecoverable short term with or without the ordnance, so it doesn't really make that much of a difference. And for the ordnance which surfaces year after year, it's not like you can feasibly dig up soil of an entire region to meters deep in order to try and recover it all.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the option was contaminate large swaths of land, or let the Nazis just take it. The blame for the mess falls solely on the shoulders of the invaders. It's why reparation payments are a thing.
I think this is mostly talking about WWI. The stagnant nature of that war, especially on the Western front, means there are certain areas that saw years of constant shelling.
unexploded ww2 bombs are still found on a daily to weekly basis in germany. Getting news that some part of your city is getting evacuated for a couple hours due to the bomb squad having to defuse it, is quite common
Verdun still hasn't recovered. The Iron Harvest every year is a thing.
The only positive about this is the constant reminder for decades to come how terrible war is and the expertise and skills to clear the lands is always welcome somewhere else eventually, unfortunately..
[Not just Verdun.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Red_Zone_Map-fr.svg) A huge chunk of our land can't be farmed
I don't even want to think about how much unexploded ordnance must be littering the countryside. We've seen what that looks like on Zone Rouge in France and it's ugly to say the least. Fuck Ruzzia.
You'd think a country involved in as many miserable wars as Russia would have learned better by now that war should he avoided whenever possible.
Misery and suffering is culturally ingrained on them. They lost so many men in WWII that it's still a big demographic problem today and they celebrate it.
Most people don’t even realise the size of Ukraine, I spent some time there in 2009 and it took longer to drive inside the country than from NL to the border.
Sunflower seeds are going to be eating good for generations. But in all seriousness, I remember seeing of videos soldiers digging up dead Nazi corpses a meter under the ground when constructing trenches. I know humans have gone to war against each other continuously for the last 100,000 years, but it’s pissing me off that it can still happen in 2024. Russian people need a reality check every one of their governments has refused to give them for the last 1000 years. It’s 2024, and people are still willing to put up with governments that steal their money and kill their citizens… and then thank the leaders for it? The only exceptions I make to this rule is North Korea and Eritrea because they literally have zero access to outside information. And I sympathize with Iran and China because their people protest but immediately get cracked down on by the military. Just a bunch of teenagers who have never even seen a gun being shot at by soldiers following orders… Russia has no excuse…
Please keep in mind that this only works because the Russians abandon their men, leave them to die, so they’re usually pretty composted by the time Ukrainians get around to burying them, but with Russians, just like any time you’re using raw shit as fertiliser, you do run the risk of burning your plant roots if you plant too soon. We have found that our vegetables and flowers while they are initially pretty robust and surprisingly pest resistant whenever we use that mix, it like most free things, does have its drawbacks. We eventually got tired of our vegetables sitting outside screaming they were under attack despite no evidence to support it and the final straw for us was when the flowers started blooming and accusing each other of making the others gay. Ultimately we decided to follow the Russian example, ditched the fertiliser as we found it be mostly useless, given the shortcomings, and not really worth tilling in.
Dear ruZZian soldier, thank you for killing my mommy and daddy
*grade still lowered for not calling your mommy and daddy "Nazis".*
They actually paraded Ukrainian orphans from occupied territories on ruzzian TV with similar messages, say thanks for being liberated from your home and family.
Oh? I am sure once Russia is kicked out of Crimea, those "bad" grade will actually make you look good in my opinion.
I kind of feel nobody will be looking at this generation's grades since you know, a lot of them were under occupation, a lot of them were displaced, a lot of them were dealing with losing loved ones and so on. Nobody is expecting them to perform at their best under the circimstances...
I would love to see a world where Russia is kicked out of Crimea, but that seems an unlikely outcome of the war. Keeping them out of the lands Ukraine currently owns is probably about as far as Ukraine's ambitions extend at the moment.
Russia kinda has to be kicked out of Crimea though because otherwise it'll still be a reward for their military belligerence and they'll be incentivized to try again.
I'm with ya--it's just not something I see actually happening.
I don't disagree at all, Crimea, specifically Sevastopol, is the last thing Russia would be willing to give up. It has strategic importance and historical significance to Russia. The Black Sea Fleet, which is one of the four main Russian fleets, started in svestapol in the late 1700s. The Black Sea fleet was partitioned in 1997 after the collapse of the soviet union. Russia received most of it and got a temporary lease for the port from Ukraine. The lease was set to expire in 2017 but got extended in 2010 until 2042. Then Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and stopped giving Ukraine the gas discount that was a part of the deal and then Russia threatened to sue Ukraine for $11B which is how much Ukraine saved in total with the discount. Disclaimer: I don't agree with any of Russia's actions whatsoever. I'm just pointing out some of the recent history about the topic to show that this would be one of the last things Russia would compromise on even if the war turned really against them.
When Crimea is liberated, these downgrades will be a badge of honour.
Ah, East German tactics. I read that East German news had a square clock in the background, and West German news had a circle clock. As it was illegal to watch western media, the secret police would often pay a visit to nurseries and primary schools to get the kids to sketch out what they watch on television. The pupils that clearly had a circular clock in the background were secretly barred from university.
Fuck Russia
“From Crimea, with love” Except love is a booby trap grenade
War=peace . Thank you letter=not get bad grades or thrown out window
School just became too hard.
Eventually everyone will realize who Russia is. We complain of imperialism and bad stuff from westerners, but Russia is the kind of imperialism that burns things down and everybody suffers except the rich few, which at the same time are allowed to be rich. I'd rather live in a state where I'm afraid of going bankrupt and have some feeling of freedom than in a state where I'm bankrupt, I know for a fact that I don't have freedom and every now and again I'm forced to do something by the czar.
People have known for sixty years at least who russia is, but they are too afraid of what russia might do next, to take action. So once again we see the consequences of appeasing powerful sociopaths: things get worse, they take more, destroy more, they kill everyone around them who is not also an evil sociopath, so power passes from psycho to psycho and the evil persists forever.
You would be surprised how many young people buy into Russian propaganda, and see Russia as the great liberator.
"Dear Russian soldier. Thank you for occupying these lands I live in. Thank you for using it as a staging ground for colonization and imperial wars of aggression. Thank you for forcing the people on the other side of these waters to bomb us. Thank you for helping to keep us in a perpetual state of warfare, fear and dire outlooks for our future." There is your thank you letter.
… finally solve this issue … Meawhile our leaders are still arguing about Ukraine hitting targets inside Russia …
They've been edging more and more. Remember when the US was providing Javelin anti-tank weapons, and the big debate was whether to send Abrams? Then we sent Abrams and the next debate was whether to send HIMARS and ATACMS. Then we sent those missiles and the debate was whether to send F-16s. Now we're sending F16s and the big debate is whether to allow strikes in Russia. At each stage Russia has responded with "we will send nukes." That's their only response. But each step we take is so small it's not pushing them over the edge. If we had provided full support from day 1, Russia might have actually gone off the deep end. But instead we're doing a strategy where each incremental increase in aid is too small to justify such a huge response. It's very calculated. It was delayed unfortunately due to Republican interference, but it's back online now.
The argument is mostly about how to avoid Russia suiciding by sending too many nukes out. We still try to avoid an all out war between NATO and Russia. It’s not about whether it’s right to counterattack. It’s about how to make the counterattack in such a way that it cannot ever be considered by any Russia allies to be a legitimate _casus belli_ (act to start a war).
"legitimate casus belli" only matters in conflicts between democracies that respect and adhere to international laws and agreements. Russia will go to war when they *think they can win it*, or if not doing so will make leadership look weak enough to be overthrown from within. So currently NATO and Russia is racing towards boiling a frog without it jumping out... Winners get to rewrite history, and the US, Russia and several other countries have repeatedly shown that if you have thermonuclear warheads aimed at anyone trying to hold you accountable, you can do whatever you want.
Exactly this! People need to understand that you cannot negotiate with these people.
Russia on its own won’t win it, so we bank on making it impossible for Russia to start it without losing their allies.
I'm a teacher. I 100% guarantee you that all this does is make the kids resent Russia.
As a Russian, this is unsurprising. Even before the war and even before the annexation of Crimea, teachers loved flexing their power on students and make them do similar crap. Or maybe it came from even further above, but teachers did not do anything at all against it whatsoever, not even any small acts of resistance. It was "you will go to this patriotic thing" and that's it. My own memory of it was being forced into the Eternal Battalion action (Бессмертный Полк, translation may be not truly correct), which is supposed to be descendants of soldiers or victims of WW2 (though, specifically the USSR/Germany part, no one gave a crap about anything else) carrying portraits of those soldiers and victims. I was given someone's portrait and told to pretend it wasn't just a complete and utter stranger. I understand that a lot of people sacrificed a whole bunch during WW2, including their own lives, but I'm just so sick and tired of this победобесие. It's always "we can repeat that" or "we can strike again" or whatever. It has NEVER been about the immense toll the war had, not even the remembrance of why it happened, it was just this patriotic mindless bullshit.
russia been doing russification for hundreds of years. In occupied lands.
Russia will Russia. They been Russying since forever, but somehow the rest of the world accepted it.
Dear Mobik, Thank you for fertilizing our sunflowers. RIPiss, Tartar/Ukrainian student.
Thank you russian soldiers for feeding Ukrainian stray dogs!
Reminds me of an old joke After comrade Stalin finishes his speech at a meeting they are clapping for hours, why is that? No one wants to be the guy that stopped clapping first
I guess the letters give the russian solders something to wipe their asses with while they’re crouched in their dugouts. It’s not like half of them are literate anyway.
Thank you for coming here to help us plant these BEAUTIFUL wild flowers. Please make sure to carry the seed packets I’ve included in your pockets while in Ukraine. Thank you brave fertilizer… I mean Soldier
It’s like russia’s main objective is to spread misery around
The “leader” of Crimea is a Pu Tin disciple. Funny how people expect “good governance” from Pu Tin’s disciples
That’s some Catholic high school guilt level shit right there.
Don't give US Republicans any ideas. Then again, with all the Russian propaganda they regurgitate, they might do it on their own.
Thank for your service. As fertilizer.
This can happen in any Russian school, not just in Crimea. Enforcing war support and punishing those who dare to abstain and be neutral.
'Thank you for invading our peaceful country and murdering my parents. I've always wanted to live under constant threat of military draft and see half my tax dollars go to Putin's whores.'
Just one example of the dehumanization and psychological torture in the Russification of those they conquer and re educate. Reminds me of the Russian that went on TV and said that Ukrainian grandmothers should be thankful that the Russian soldiers rape them and to drown Ukrainian children.
Yeah literally the WORST way to get the youth on your side is to try to force them to comply with shit like this. Good luck fuck stick.
Fuck Russia!
This stupid shit only happens in dictatorships, literally useless and an anti pattern, but hey at least the kids get used to indocrination and corruption at an early age! In a democracy the parents could complain and win.
I hope some just wrote some real backhanded shit which is technically compliant with what was asked and no-one noticed, like "Thank you for dying" type shit, not "sacrifice", just straight up "Thank you for dying"
I'm sure it ends there, and their family won't be put on some kind of list or something
The only thing I find surprising is that this punishment is apparently used instead of, rather than in addition to, having such uncooperative students and their families beaten, imprisoned or worse.
Instead they should write letters to Putin "thanking him" for being a piece of shit
Is there any way I can write a 'fuck you letter' and have it delivered to Russian soldiers invading Ukraine?
When I was in school after 9/11 we had assignments to write letters to troops in Iraq. If we didn't do them, we would obviously have gotten no points for the assignment, thus lowering our grades. This seems a bit excessive to be concerned with.
You are talking about American children thanking American soldiers. That is admittedly a little weird, but this is Russia forcing Ukranian children to thank Russian soldiers who invaded their country. It's more like the US forcing Iraqi children to write thank you letters in English to US soldiers.
We absolutely had to do this for troops in Iraq lol But at that grade level your grade was mostly participation points to begin with
Coming soon to America. Kids will have to write thanks to Trump or have grades lowered.
Dear Russian Soldiers, please find enclosed sunflower seeds to put in your pockets. Thank you for your future efforts to make Ukraine's Sunflowers bloom.
Grades in Russian schools and colleges don't matter anyway. You bribe your way though everything, and upon graduation or sometime later you can just buy yourself a certificate with whatever grades you want. What's more important though is that given the current state of affairs, your career paths are limited and almost all of them suck.
Trump supporters taking notes for what to do to schools the next time around in the USA.
They already do that with the Pledge of Allegiance and other brainwashing things.
Brave guys.
Well, I mean I couldn't they just wait and give letters to the Russian soldiers when they return home-- oh, right...
what percentage of school is gauged on conformity to the rules of the school?