Why bother silencing them when the election will only have one outcome anyway?
He can rig an election, but he can’t rig massive civil unrest. And that is what he fears.
Thank you for providing such a short, powerful, accurate answer.
Grieving widows blaming the Putie-Bear for their dead husbands making noise is the kind of thing that leads to internal dissent,
Yeah, but we’re talking about a guy who had no problem gassing his own people to end a hostage standoff, so I’m guessing any dissent out there he’ll have no problem with putting down ruthlessly.
They’ve already had one (aborted) attempt at insurrection, and gassing grieving widows makes for a lot of noise, too
Exactly. It was aborted. And then the guy behind it was murdered. Putin doesn’t care if he kills his own people. He would either shoot/gas everyone protesting or send them all to the front lines.
He gassed them quietly. It’s his mentality.
We all concentrate on putin, but even if he would be replaced things likely would continue in the same direction.
The scary thing is that 5-10 years from now we might have actually Russia attacking a NATO country, and it will test the alliance:
Many people doubt that this would happen, because Russia looks weak right now, but imagine if there was stalemate in Ukraine and Russia got some time to recover.
After that it would attack one of the Baltic states and successfully capture its capital, and before NATO will even respond, Russia will say “that’s all what we wanted we don’t plan to go further”. Now (mostly Western European countries) might not want to get into a direct war with Russia and might let it slide. If that would happen it would basically erode NATO, because many of its members would start question what benefit they have for being members.
What sucks is that even if NATO would plan and would respond as it supposed to, if Russia would believe that this is the likely outcome they might still attack. So NATO needs to act and make clear that it won’t get divided in such situation.
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https://piped.video/-BfpPVFP7cc
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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The babushka and woman voice in russia is mostly supressed, but if there is protests, it is mostly the mothers and babushka that voice their protest more fearless. It was again visible during the demonstrations against the war in the first weeks. While some man do protest too, the mothers and elder woman feel more “invincible” while the male russian is mostly complicit of the state narrative because of the violence they can receive. Many russian protest in the past were started or hold up by russian (mostly older) woman. I think the reason is mostly that they do not fit into a righteous narrative of the state. Russian State TV is mostly right wing Police/Justice content showing bad people getting locked up. The famous cells inside the courtroom are to some degree a invention of the russian TV propaganda. Putting people behind iron bars does always look guilty on TV. Nobody feels sympathy for someone talking through iron bars. But it does not work for Babushkas. State TV could never show a old russian woman (or multiple thereof) like that and have the majority on their side. It would always look deeply inhumane to (even) russians from every generation, seeing their elders portrait like that. People would be outraged. Therefore older russian woman are more fearless in groups to state their protest, because they know the state can not (in general) beat them up like they do with male protesters. During the protest they had to carry them away one by one without first beating them down like they normally do. And I am sure the (young) male were more tortured by OMON Troops than the older russian woman - if at all. So paying the woman is a solution that works for russia and china and some other asian countries, where there is a deep rooted respect for elders and mothers that are able to state protests, that can only hardly be controlled by strong force when erupting. Better pay up before than risking the images.
Russian grandmas and wives should take the money and protest anyway. Sounds like a great opportunity for a rogue propaganda campaign… Something like the following…
Option 1 - propaganda poster style
Option 2 - propaganda poster style
(All images created with bing image creator, prompt “Russian grandmother with russian government check and flaming wine bottle” some with “in the style of propaganda posters” appended.
Text made with google translate, english > russian, should say “I got mine. Time they got theirs.”)
Informational autocracy needs good picture of unanimous support.
The memory hole must be fed.
Kinda surprised they’re giving payouts at all and not just suppressing them, considering that they’ve been skimping out on the payouts for KIA soldiers.
“Take big sack of potato. My gift to you.”
Not Belarus
“election”
Take the money, flee, still shout as loud as possible about what is actually happening
Good luck trying to flee from Russia. Doing so is a life risk in itself
For wives it is easier that to their husbands
Yeeaahh, when the latest poll recorded the lowest war support yet, I think it’s a little too late for that. ~25% against is enough, that’s going to be self-sustaining.
That’s too many people getting tired of losing friends and family, and suffering economic impacts they personally experience. You can’t convince them they’re not experiencing what they’re experiencing, it just doesn’t work that way. They know bullshit is rampant in their system and nobody outside their personal circle should really be trusted.
Fuck russia.
I know what you mean, but I try to remind myself to blame Putin specifically. The Russian people are victims, too. Even some of the most rabid ones have just been fed too much propaganda. Of course, some are simply hateful assholes, but they don’t represent the majority.
I think the same is true of China. The CCP is the problem, not your average Chinese citizen.
Do you love Putin then? He hates russia too.
Putin pulls out all the stops to allow for a massive, continued campaign. Yet the EU and the US are slowly letting Ukraine bleed dry. There hasn’t been a conflict in recent history that was both as black-and-white, with a clear aggressor and a clear victim of agression, and as close as Russia’s invasion. And even with those near-perfect conditions, which would allow for decisive action from the West, they still would rather freeze the conflict, because that’s the more opportunistic thing to do.
Wonder how inflation is over there right now. They gotta be just printing money to pay for everything by now
