This is unironically why I want them to get their shit utterly kicked in. I am really tired of the beautiful places and people of Russia being oppressed, indoctrinated and ruined by a violent criminal kleptostate that has genuinely ruined their lives and futures and simply convinced a large number of the ones that matter that “the West” did it, while actively designing their economy to create masses of peasants fit only for the war machine they plan to inflict on the rest of the world.

And yes, I realize they claim much the same about us. Fuck that. I don’t buy it, not nearly the amount of it they’re selling at least. We’ve done plenty we should be ashamed of, we’re not perfect, but the fact that they’d almost all rather live here in “the west” than there tells us that we can’t have gone too far wrong. The Russian Federation needs to die, and the lands formerly called the Russian Federation need to be rebuilt into something we can coexist with. We’ve seen that happen from a conquered and subjugated vassal, but they must gradually return to strength, not looted and colonized like a prize but shown how to find Russia’s rightful place as the leader they clearly so desperately crave to be on the world stage – as a leader, like Germany is now. This will not happen through military means, not with nuclear weapons in play, but the economic and political efforts to topple their regime and protect the formation of something better are necessary and must continue. We have often failed terribly at nation-building in the years since the end of WW2, to the point that it seems we are now reluctant to ever again try, but that is not a good excuse not to try nor to not try to learn from our mistakes and do better. The stakes are very high, we must try, and I desperately hope we can do better.