Russians Now See a New Side to Putin: Dragging Them Into War

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/putin-russia-ukraine.html

No paywall
https://archive.fo/RWnWt

MOSCOW — Russians thought they knew their president.

They were wrong.

And by Thursday, it appeared too late to do anything about it.

For most of his 22-year rule, Vladimir V. Putin presented an aura of calm determination at home — of an ability to astutely manage risk to navigate the world’s biggest country through treacherous shoals. His attack on Ukraine negated that image, and revealed him as an altogether different leader: one dragging the nuclear superpower he helms into a war with no foreseeable conclusion, one that by all appearances will end Russia’s attempts over its three post-Soviet decades to find a place in a peaceful world order.

Russians awoke in shock after they learned that Mr. Putin, in an address to the nation that aired before 6 a.m., had ordered a full-scale assault against what Russians of all political stripes often refer to as their “brotherly nation.” Liberal-leaning public figures who for years tried to compromise with and adapt to Mr. Putin’s creeping authoritarianism found themselves reduced to posting on social media about their opposition to a war they had no way to stop.

And in Moscow’s foreign policy establishment, where analysts overwhelmingly characterized Mr. Putin’s military buildup around Ukraine as an elaborate and astute bluff in recent months, admitted on Thursday that they had monumentally misjudged a man they had spent decades studying.
“Everything that we believed turned out to be wrong,” said one such analyst, insisting on anonymity because he was at a loss over what to say.

*snip*

[Johnny2X2X]

1. Just saw a poll

Only 3% of Russians think Putin and Russia started this war, 60% blame the US and NATO.

[Jakes Progress]

5. Link?

[Johnny2X2X]

8. Levada Center polling

Link to tweet

?s=20&t=gFSIItEdWGRi1qvJ6woDWg

[Nevilledog]

6. Kinda hard to believe a Russian poll

See....Russian "free elections" & Russian media

[LenaBaby61]

11. THIS 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

[CaptainTruth]

23. In Russia, poll takes you.

[Cha]

13. Soaked in "Russia Today".. like

our Faux "news" Truthers.

[SheltieLover]

2. Brotherly my fking ass

Pffffft!

Hoping someone there can get to him & remove him from power!

[dalton99a]

3. "We had no idea he is a creepy murderous fuck"

[lindysalsagal]

4. Vlad wanted the world's attention. His people may turn on him

He's so narcissistic, he never considered that possibility. It's possible that vlad's love affair w tfg might turn Russian stomachs, now that the world watches in horror.

[Jakes Progress]

7. Nato and the US need to be as active

on social media with these stories as russian troll farms are about pizza basements. News if very censored in russia, but most who want the real news avoid the state news outlets and get news from the internet.

[brush]

9. Turns out he's really a throwback, last century-era, Russian dictator in the Stalin, Khrushchev...

Last edited Thu Feb 24, 2022, 03:41 PM - Edit history (1)

Brezhnev mold. Brezhnev at least embraced detente. Putin has abandoned it for the cruel, old Soviet model of tanks rolling in to crush former territories and put them back in their place of being controlled by Russia.

The world has changed since that outdated model of 70 year ago. Putin will live to regret this.

[uponit7771]

10. Yep, as I said earlier people are in shock in Russia and in UKR

[Bev54]

24. Yet Biden has been saying this for the past few weeks that he was going

to invade and all of Ukraine. He had the intelligence that the pundits did not. He called it right but nobody listened.

[uponit7771]

25. +1

[gohuskies]

12. Russia re-enacting Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia in the mid 1960s

As has been said before, when someone shows you who they are, you better believe it. Unfortunately we have a radical right wing base in our country who is willing to support and follow Vlad the Impaler's model for oligarchic despotism. Russia needs to be isolated, take away any participation in world matters from economic partnerships to athletic endeavours and expel them from their embassies. They should be kicked out of the UN just on the basis of their treachery. It is abhorrent that the President of the Security Council is the asshole from the russian federation; it is a total travesty and joke.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. No, much much worse. Those two were not free at the time. . . . nt

[gohuskies]

17. Yes that is a major difference

I cannot dispute that at all. They were already under Russia’s boot so the attack on a sovereign nation is more akin to the Nazi invasion of Poland. Tyrants like Vlad are simply following that playbook

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Afghanistan was prime cause of fall of Putin's beloved Soviet Union. Putin has miscalculated. . . nt

[Justice matters.]

16. Hope they also see his luxury he stole from them...

The self-proclaimed king of Russia's personal raft:

[Roland99]

18. The human devolution of a megalomaniac/malignant narcissist

Not like we've ever seen THAT happen, eh?

[sprinkleeninow]

21. Hmmm... lemme reflect....🤔

FFFF?

(Former Freak Forty Five.)

[OMGWTF]

19. Who does Putin think he is -- George W. Bush?

[C Moon]

20. So you're okay with what pooton is doing?

[Lonestarblue]

22. Just as Russia used social media to interfere with the 2016 election, we need groups

to use social media to give Russians the facts of what’s happening in Ukraine and with the US-EU pushback, encouraging them to bring Putin down before he bring’s Russia down. As I recall Russian hackers arranged rally events and certainly used Facebook to spread disinformation. We should spread the truth because the Russian media will not be allowed to report the truth.

[Scrivener7]

26. And then there's this:

“It’s so strange that Russia could attack anyone,” a 60-year-old pensioner said on Thursday as she walked through the breathtaking Moscow park, Zaryadye, that international architects designed ahead of the soccer World Cup Russia hosted in 2018. “This has never happened before in history.”

They might be even less informed than republiQans.