Always saw this thread popping up and avoided clicking on it until today, for some reason. Wish I hadn't bothered.
I'm in Russia right now. Married to a Russian woman, who was born in Ukraine and has family dotted all over the place, all against what's happening and desperate for it to be over. Her dad's a military veteran, and he's the sweetest guy I've ever met, a wonderful person who makes wooden toys in his spare time for local kids and brings us homemade soup each week. I've seen Russian soldiers, too, a shocking majority of whom are frightened or naive young men, barely out of their teens, with minimal training, pushed into the military life by the macho culture that prevails over here and the utterly in-tatters economy, most of whom hadn't got a clue where they were even being sent when all this kicked off and/or had been brainwashed into thinking they were helping people. And I've seen parents here who are broken and don't even know that their sons are in Ukraine until they get a call saying that they've been killed.
The whole thing is an atrocity, do not get me wrong, and I am in no way defending any of Russia's actions. I also agree that any scum, soldier or not, that goes around raping, murdering, or torturing people deserves whatever comes to them.
But for me, directing anger at the people at the top who kicked this off and control it is perfectly normal, directing anger at the concept of what's happening is fine, and directing anger at the absolute worst of the worst who have committed rapes and murders during these recent months, absolutely. And of course our thoughts and cares have to be with Ukraine and its people right now. Again, I don't want this at all to sound like "Oh won't someone please think of the poor Russians!"
But to blindly condemn the entire country and to find some kind of joy in seeing people blown to bits, to be unable to think of the human beings, the people who were born and raised here and joined the army thinking they were doing something good and are now caught up in this whole thing, well that's pretty damn sick, too... But to each his own I suppose.
All I hope for is that this ends as soon as possible.
Wouldn't bother replying to this as I won't return to the thread.
www.theatlantic.com