The General Russia Thread

Iunno, there's been a lot of ink spilled over the political costs of conscription, but it's pretty debatable whether it historically mattered all that much to war support. The US public was a lot more hawkish during the Korean War than the Truman admin was, despite being subjected to conscription in a costly, grinding stalemate of a conflict. Public support for the Vietnam War ran similarly high: even in 1969, after three of the war's bloodiest years, Gallup pollsters found that 33% of US respondents still sought out "total military victory", nearly twice of those who wanted the conflict to end "as soon as possible". Pro-war voices remained loud despite the ferocity of anti-war protests; it would take a few more years of souring media coverage and obvious setbacks for the US public to get completely burned out on the war, despite US casualty numbers falling well below the bloody heights of 1967-1969.

The fact is that the median hawk or "apolitical" citizen just isn't that great at math, especially when it comes to calculating their odds of coming home in a zinc box — or with a laundry list of physical and psychological debts to spend their lives paying off.

You know what's historically pretty good at turning people against wars, though? Taxes. The Russian Revolution of 1905, for all the long-term good it achieved, was sparked by high taxes from the Russo-Japanese War and the famines it wrought on the countryside. The Japanese didn't get off scot-free, either: the country saw increasing unrest from war taxes and struggled to balance its finances, leading to massive riots that burned down a good chunk of Tokyo after Japan's fragile financial state forced it to let the defeated Russians get away with a lenient peace deal.

The whole mess left Nicky's government reluctant to raise taxes in the Russian heartland; when WWI broke out, it decided to offload the tax burden onto its Central Asian colonies, along with asset seizures and other measures like cotton price-fixing that left countless people indebted and wrought famines across the region. Exemption from conscription was their one saving grace: when the Russian government crossed that line in 1916, all of Central Asia rose up in revolt, months before Russia proper had its great mutinies and revolutions.

Conscription is scary and absolutely a turn-off for public opinion, but the idea of getting killed and maimed can seem like an abstract numbers game. Taxation and austerity are things you could feel right away. The US gets around the issue with large-scale wartime borrowing, and Russia still managed to earn a pretty penny from fossil fuel exports (and is keeping tax increases to large companies, now that price caps and EU fossil fuel embargo are in full effect).

When was the last time the Russian federal government actually listened to protests? In 2018, when it tried to take advantage of the festive World Cup atmosphere to sneak through a raise in retirement ages. 90% of Russian pollsters condemned the pension reform; Putin's approval rating tanked to historical lows; the Medvedev cabinet was forced to resign and the plan was eventually rolled back to everyone's (momentary) relief.

Mass mobilisation hasn't really managed to decisively turn the Russian public against the war so far; maybe it will, maybe it won't. But if I had to bet on a future mass unrest in Russia, I'd probably put my money on a tax or austerity package that hits babushka right in the pension funds.

Not like one can reliably know if coming home in a box is more likely from protests or from a war, especially as you go to the protests voluntarily, but can hope that you will not be conscripted to the war. Especially as usually after going to the protests you will stlll have to go to the war as well, if they are not immediately succesfull.

Edited by Smeagol17 on Apr 18th 2023 at 5:11:58 PM

Yeah, it depends on what happens to the Russian economy, which is a process that will take years to unfold.

But I can think of one other thing that can quickly and seriously affect public opinion in a very negative way: defeat on the battlefield.

Attrition happens slowly and is hard to notice. A set piece defeat happens quickly and is easy to see. Very bad for public morale.

Russia says its air force accidentally bombed its own city near Ukraine.

And...

Russia's Belgorod sees mass evacuations over undetonated bomb TLDR: A second undetonated bomb was found in the same area where the first bomb blew up.

Another closure of human rights organization [1].

AFP reported that the Night Wolves bikers is doing a rally from Moscow to Berlin.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230429-pro-putin-bikers-launch-rally-bound-for-berlin

What they want, a repeat of 45 idiots....

I'm trying to figure out exactly how they plan to pull that off. The only routes where they might get away with it are really the long way around because there's no way in hell they're getting through Ukraine, the Baltics or Poland.

The article mentions that they plan to go to Volgograd, so I would assume they do want the round about way. Like to Caucasus->Turkey->Balkan etc..

Exclusive: We Interviewed the Russian Woman Accused of ‘Stealing’ 20,000 Children

VICE had an in-person interview with Maria Lvova-Belova regarding the issue of Russia kidnapping Ukrainian children.

After watching that, it's safe to say that woman sees absolutely no wrong in what she did. In addition to the usual downplaying of the total amount of children taken by the Russian government (she claims only 380 were permanently "adopted" vs the 19,500+ Ukraine is saying), or how many parents were deceived into giving up their children to be taken away (most were told their children were being transported to temporary "Summer camps" until the conflict was over,) she even bragged about adopting a 16 year old boy from Mariupol.

She genuinely deserves being on that ICC wanted list.

Edited by SgtRicko on May 4th 2023 at 3:22:22 AM

Cross-posting from the War in Ukraine thread: Pro-Kremlin novelist injured in car explosion in Russia

1. Pro-Kremlin novelist Zakhar Prilepin, who supported the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the "special military operation" to Ukraine last year, was injured when his car exploded in Nizhny Novgorod. Currently being treated for minor bone fractures, according to Gleb Nikitin, regional governor of Nizhny Novgorod. Prilepin was in Nizhny Novgorod for lunch after visiting Donetsk and Luhansk, according to Russian news outlet RBC.

2. Irina Volk from the (Russian) Interior Ministry claimed a Ukrainian was involved.

3. Sergei Mironov from the For the Truth Party, which Prilepin founded in 2020 (which merged with the A Just Party a year 2021; that same year Prilepin refused a seat in the State Duma), claimed Ukraine was responsible. Maria Zakharova from the (Russian) Foreign Ministry added the US and NATO as those responsible.

Edited by HallowHawk on May 6th 2023 at 11:19:20 AM

Izvestia published a spicy interview with Patrushev on Russia's ongoing confrontation with the West. Some highlights:

• The Anglo-Saxons want to establish a unipolar order by depriving Russia of its victory, and then its place in the UN Security Council.

• References to the Heartland theory, which he says is the basis for Western efforts to separate Russia from its former imperial domains.

• NATO's eastward expansion follows those of Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler.

• Americans do not know what war is because their continent hasn't seen one since 1865, hence their leaders' hawkishness in trying to deal Russia a defeat in Ukraine.

• NATO is a US occupation of Europe in effect, turning the continent into an economic base for US experiments and overriding its national governments on a whim.

• Western nations' freezing of overseas Russian assets is modelled directly after the British seizure of the Russian Empire's gold reserves in the 1920s.

• US think tanks are formulating plans to split Russia apart by waging information war, spreading hoaxes, pseudoscientific theories, historical revisionism and gender diversity across its constituent parts.

• This effort is funded to the tune of $800 million a year by none other than George Soros, who betrayed his Hungarian compatriots to the Nazis in WWII.

• Germany's pivot to renewable energy will cause uncontrolled deforestation in Europe because more than half of it is apparently based on biomass, which of course is the consequence of their refusal to cooperate with Russia in the energy sector.

• Eastern Europe and Siberia will be the safest place to be when the Yellowstone Caldera erupts and ends all life in North America, which explains Anglo-Saxon leaders' eagerness to try and take the Heartland.

• The American Dream is dead. Hundreds of US citizens, mostly devout Christians, are getting foreign passports each year to escape cultural witch hunts, persecution of journalists and a government that forces them to bow before BLM activists.

• The US is waging war to the last Ukrainian so it could turn the country into a postwar Lebensraum, ripe for exploitation.

What the fuck was that word vomit I read?

EDIT:mistaken threads

Edited by Risa123 on May 8th 2023 at 12:28:09 PM

Least insane Russian nationalist.

And of course he had to get some antisemitism in there as well while he was at it.

hey at least the renewable take wasn't about wind turbines and solar panels taking up precious forest space.

How did George Soros betray Hungary to the Nazis when he was 8 years old?

Maybe he used AI to produce the speech?

- from Wikipedia

Basically, when he was a kid, Soros (and other Jewish children) were expected by the Nazi occupiers to deliver deportation notices to other Hungarian Jews - instead he used those delivery trips to warn the people in question after consulting with his father.

Right-wingers twisted that into "Soros was reporting on other Jews" because they can't abide a wealthy Jewish man not supporting them.

You know, I've heard it said in the past that Russian nationalists are big fans of Tucker Carlson, and going from what that guy has said I can see why. They must get all their info on how the West is from Fox and places like it. Especially that comment about 'government forcing them to bow before BLM activists'. Ah yes, the US government that under Trump famously bothsided protests where said activists got brutalized while their Neo-Nazi counterparts were largely left alone, which still happens now.

The thing I'm most curious about, though... would the Yellowstone caldera erupting actually kill everyone in North America, or is that just another one of those doomsday theories? (I've heard variations on it since I was 10).

Edited by PresidentStalkeyes on May 8th 2023 at 1:49:36 PM

You're better off asking that question about Yellowstone here.

Back on topic, who else within the US new industry that have been pro-Russia?

Edited by HallowHawk on May 8th 2023 at 6:59:56 AM

Kremlin Bans High-Ranking Officials From Resigning Amid War in Ukraine – iStories