Understanding Russia & Putin

[Leo Gura]

I've been seeing a lot of talk in western media and on this forum about how insane, crazy, or evil Putin is. Well, such talk should immediately make you suspicious of your own worldview.

This video offers a much better perspective of Russia's and Putin's perspective than anything I have seen coming from Western media.

What I see consistently is that people in the West fail to consider Russia's security interests at all in this situation. They just dismiss that as a cover for Putin's personal lust for power or Putin's delusional view of history.

Don't take this as a justification for Putin's war, but as a way of understanding the situation better. If you cannot understand the survival agenda of your adversary then you will not be able to correctly predict his actions and negotiate with him. That's the point. This is not about morality, it's about being understanding. You can't have peace with someone you fail to understand.

This is also not about blaming the US or the West, or creating some kind of moral false equivalencies. It's about understanding how to prevent conflict.

[Husseinisdoingfine]

I never like the demonization of Russia/Putin. They’ve made it out to be a Marvel Comic book story with good guys (Ukraine), and bad guys (Russia). The survival concerns of Russia have been completely neglected. It seems as if no one is considering the legitimate security threat in which NATO poses for Russia. NATO has attacked countries while unprovoked, and America has financially exploited Russia.

America knows that Russia doesn’t want NATO on their border, but American presidents continued to expand it. Russia was directly lied to, as they were promised no NATO expansion.

Instead of being sympathetic to the survival concerns of Russia, some have even resorted to diagnosing mental illnesses in Putin. The self bias is astounding to see in person, and so is the hypocrisy of NATO, having had shown no concern for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Iraq and Libya, now acting concerned over that of Ukraine.

The exact same people responsible for the Iraq war are now waving their finger at Russia! How is no one seeing this?

 

[DocWatts]

@Leo Gura Any plans to make a video (or a vlog) about current events in Russia?

[Leo Gura]

Just now, DocWatts said:

@Leo Gura Any plans to make a video (or a vlog) about current events in Russia?

No

[Husseinisdoingfine]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No

At least share a blog post, or someone else’s YouTube video.

 

[itachi uchiha]

@Leo Gura be careful leo.they will make a meme out of of u if u  are not careful

[Dryas]

I’ve seen a lot people criticizing this Professor (Mearsheimer) online on this issue. Is that because people aren’t interested in understanding or is he just wrong? 
 

 

[Leo Gura]

58 minutes ago, Dryas said:

I’ve seen a lot people criticizing this Professor (Mearsheimer) online on this issue. Is that because people aren’t interested in understanding or is he just wrong?

Make up your own mind.

But what you should notice is that the narrative of Western media is so one-sided that it's not surprising that Mearsheimer's perspective gets dismissed or rationalized away. It doesn't fit the pre-existing narrative that is hammered in the news every day. There is of course also little desire for the West to take any responsibility for the images coming out of Ukraine, so it's understandable why Mearsheimer's perspective would be quickly dismissed.

But again, make up your own mind. There is no one to tell you who is right.

The fundamental blindspot that I see in the West is that no one wants to acknowledge that NATO could be seen as a legitimate threat by anyone. The Western narrative is: anyone who sees NATO as a serious threat is crazy, psychopathic, or evil. Anyone who feels threatened by NATO is a bad faith actor. Well... that kind of view is exactly what could start a war.

If Mearsheimer is just wrong, how come he was able to predict that Russia would go to war over Ukraine over 5 years ago? That's a pretty impressive prediction. Was he just lucky?

Overall, the West was very surprised that Russia invaded Ukraine. Is that because Putin is a madman, or is that because the West failed to understand the geo-political situation? It's not like Russia has not been warning about this and raising concerns about it for over a decade. The record is clear on that. Russia's warnings were just never taken seriously by the West.

The situation reminds of this scenario: guys at the corporate office have a culture of groping women's asses. They grope ass every week. The couple of women who work there keep telling them to stop, it's hurtful, but the guys think it's all just fun and games and that no one is getting hurt. So they keep groping ass for 10 years. Then some woman finally get fed up and tells them, "If you touch my ass one more time I'm going to fight back." But they laugh it off. Then one day they grab her ass  and shes stabs one of the guys in the dick with a letter opener. All the guys are shocked, surprised, and horrified. "OMG! How could this woman be such an insane psychopath! What's the big deal? All we were doing was just grabbing some ass. That isn't hurting anyone. Ass is great for grabbin'. That's what ass if for. Anyhow boys... let's get back to groping that ass. Let's grope some titties too. I hear a few boys in accounting want join in. What's the big deal? Every man has the right to freely choose to be part of our ass-grabbin club. Let's throw them a welcome party. And in the future if any woman complains about us, we'll have our boys in accounting cut her salary in half. That'll make her think twice."

[Preety_India]

17 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The situation reminds of this scenario: guys at the corporate office have a culture of groping women's asses. They grope ass every week. The couple of women who work there keep telling them to stop, it's hurtful, but the guys think it's all just fun and games and that no one is getting hurt. So they keep groping ass for 10 years. Then some woman finally get fed up and stabs one of the guys in the dick with a letter opener. And all the guys get shocked and surprised. "This woman is obviously an insane psychopath!"

Lol. Can a situation like WW2 happen again? 

 

[tsuki]

I was thinking along the same lines. There się virtually no serious consideration of what the Russians are saying. Like they were just stupid. This is a huge red flag in communication.

If this is an existential threat to Russia, imagine if they failed and we had a second Russia breakdown. That would be nasty. Imagine what would happen to their nuclear arsenal.

[Fleetinglife]

This war has nothing to do with anthropocentricity or the global ideology of humanitarianism, in order to cause the outpouring of sympathy, empathy, help or moral outrage for the Ukrainians, Ukranian men, women, boys, girls and children and the Ukranian independence cause and struggle from Russia, so people watching and seeing the images coming from it can indentify with it's basic human survival, solidarity, care and self-preservation aspect of it's citizens and focus their anger, rage, dismissal and disapproval on only one side causing and being responsible for it, while the other side also in part responsible, and funded by those same citizens, has effectively now hidden behind the curtains of this play, operating in the background, purported to seize the opportunity to claim the moral highground and mantle in this whole ordeal, and has effectively escaped and blocked any criticism and blame for itself and for the responsibility for this crisis, by now openly effectively working with it's lobby groups in the Western media ecosystem, to enforce it's one-sided line and view by punishment of cancelation, ostracization, dismissal, accusations of treason or of censorship, they have effectively ceded all exclusive responsibility for the cause of this ongoing humanitarian crisis to Russia and the Russian people. A masterclass example of the game of intentional and in part also unintentional self-deception and deception on a global scale. See the UK Labour leadership hard-line being enforced towards any semblance of NATO's criticism and calling for it's responsibilty of causing a part of this humanitarian crisis (echoes of Corbyn and his criticism of  Zionism and call for viewing the Palestinian side) a by threat of membership cancelation, hence forth ones political career prospects in the party, and British politics more in general (a deeply historically ironic unintentionally reincarnated example of a new remodelled version of a more soft spot, but yet again hard line central command enforcement for a progressive light revival of centralised stalinist liquaditionist policy for party line deviationism with a human, more progressive face for the sake of "insert X" this time global humanitarianism rallying up and policy - how the myopic historic irony escapes them regarding this policy decision doesn't cease to astonish and amaze me at the same time in it's incredibly seeming unconscious historical myopia with it's parallels regarding the position being enforced and stance to be taken and its hypocrisy at the same as the utter gaul of their hypocrisy regarding this decision in comparison to their stance to the taboo of criticism of Zionism and Palestinian problem that exists still within their party) signaling the clear compromisation and corruption of it's claim to represent the truth for the oppressed, marginalised and downtrodden, by defense and weapons industry lobbying and it's foreign politics ideological stance justification extension, a capture and seizure of it's large part by the interests of the capitalist class on this issue and it's ideological upside down view of the world and world politics in order to justify and excuse those same interests, to put it more shortly and bluntly, hence the self-fulfilling prophecy of the truth being the first causalty of war is being manifested and realize this way by the need of furrowing through and allocating a massive increase in defense industry spending from the government budget of all governments now in Europe, a marked shift towards the rightization of the political discourse and culture with the advent of this new clear threat and one sourced enemy. Here is this censorship on the name of noble humanitarianistic narrative management shielding any culpability of the Western defense industry and NATO lobbying on full display:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/starmer-labour-mps-nato-russia-b2025240.html%3famp

For the Russian leadership this a raw, brutal geo-political considerations game for the survival of it's military power and relevance in the world, they are seeing this exclusively in this light, while the West emphasis is on the humanitarian crisis, they themselves refuse to take any relevant widely exposed blame and responsibility in causing, because the survival of their global humanitarian concern identity hinges also too much by downplaying NATO's blindspots, mistakes, weaknesses and proneness to succumbing and being tempted by opportunistic self-interested imperialism for the most benefit going and gain towards itself again paradoxically, that some other countries, not part of that VIP club, see as a threat, means of western domination, exploitation, subordination and subtle financial and economic enslavement of their up until build up relevance, influence and power in the world to them clear as day, which is too traumatic for the West to expect given its self-image, belief, experience and perception of its self. 

As, Putin once said (in his "never corner a rat analogy") , a rat being a rat, you can't expect to try and corner it and not expect in any way or any means necessary it might want to try to fight back, escape and free itself, that there is some honest self-reflective position on what Russia position is now and cards are developmentally in comparison to the West and how it must act in order to survive, prosper and save it's skin (very detailed, witty and crafty Soviet era styled allegories on it's position and how it sees it path forward to maintaining relevance and prosperity for itself given it's current position that it's in the world geopolitically and the costs, demands and prices associated that come with that):

 

Regardless of the infactualities perhaps of some the details and description of those events that he forwarded then that turned out later to be false, for dometisc propaganda purposes, the underlying sentiment for the whole of the interests and relevance of the Russian Federation on the global stage remains (getting personally an intermediary stage of rough, brutish hard and not an easy slow, painful, steady evolution and attempt of solidifying the transition to stage Blue to Orange views, values and vibes in the global capitalist world dominated by the western financial sector dominance, setting up most of the rules of the capitalist innovation and prosperity game, in the most and majority of its part still, attempt from this moment onwards, due to the from then increase to Russia's power, wealth and influence in the world) :

Also a relevant, insightful article to read on how Putin, his economic advisors and some economists favorable to their perspective and side from their long term national state interest POV see the interests and future visions for the Russian Federation and it's place and position in the global world order going forward from this whole situation with the Western world:

http://thesaker.is/how-russia-will-counterpunch-the-u-s-eu-declaration-of-war/

Edited March 7, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[How to be wise]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

The situation reminds of this scenario: guys at the corporate office have a culture of groping women's asses. They grope ass every week. The couple of women who work there keep telling them to stop, it's hurtful, but the guys think it's all just fun and games and that no one is getting hurt. So they keep groping ass for 10 years. Then some woman finally get fed up and tells them, "If you touch my ass one more time I'm going to fight back." But they laugh it off. Then one day they grab her ass  and shes stabs one of the guys in the dick with a letter opener. All the guys are shocked, surprised, and horrified. "OMG! How could this woman be such an insane psychopath! What's the big deal? All we were doing was just grabbing some ass. That isn't hurting anyone. Ass is great for grabbin'. That's what ass if for. Anyhow boys... let's get back to groping that ass. Let's grope some titties too. I hear a few boys in accounting want join in. What's the big deal? Every man has the right to freely choose to be part of our ass-grabbin club. Let's throw them a welcome party. And in the future if any woman complains about us, we'll have our boys in accounting cut her salary in half. That'll make her think twice."

You have created a false equivalency here. The situation you’re describing is completely different to what is happening in Ukraine. I see that you are stuck in self-bias, since you are Russian.

[Vrubel]

@Leo Gura  If putin’s position is so understandable and reasonable why all that ridiculous propaganda with neo nazi’s etc. ?

even Russians will discover that they have been lied to

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

You have created a false equivalency here. The situation you’re describing is completely different to what is happening in Ukraine.

That depends on how you choose to look at it.

You see Ukraine as aggression. Putin sees it as a necessary defensive positioning.

I'm not saying one is right or wrong. I'm saying it's relative to your survival agenda.

Quote

I see that you are stuck in self-bias, since you are Russian.

What you might want to see is that the Russian perspective is not represented almost AT ALL within Western media.

This should make you suspicious.

I don't really care much about Russia or Putin. My bias is in understanding the situation as deeply as possible. I don't really care about the morality of it. I care about understanding it.

10 minutes ago, Vrubel said:

@Leo Gura  If putin’s position is so understandable and reasonable why all that ridiculous propaganda with neo nazi’s etc. ?

even Russians will discover that they have been lied to

I think Western media has also misunderstood what Putin means by Neo-Nazi's. I don't think he means anti-Semites. I think he means Ukrainian nationalists. Maybe I'm wrong about this. I don't know exactly what Putin means.

Is he overblowing his justification? Probably. That's what most countries do when they start a war. The threat is usually over-exaggerated and the other side demonized.

[How to be wise]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I don't really care much about Russia

Forgive me if I find that hard to believe, since you were born in Russia, and your family is Russian.

[Fleetinglife]

20 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

I see that you are stuck in self-bias, since you are Russian.

This constant ad hominem etiquetting that I saw multiple people here raising again and again in vain and trying to forward again as some explanation or argument of why Leo's supposed (non) position and (non) stance on this is the  way that it is or why he is writing and talking about this the way that he is, that doesn't feel right to them or align and resonate with their own unconsciously formed views and feelings on the situation, reeks of some insecure projections regarding this whole situation from their identity survival, self-perception and feelings of them as a human and other human beings and how they perceive and feel about this from their human identity standpoint tbh. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Fleetinglife

[Preety_India]

I think Russia is being aggressive and actually accelerating the process of a pro-US leadership in Russia. Counter productive.

 

[Leo Gura]

10 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

Forgive me if I find that hard to believe, since you were born in Russia, and your family is Russian.

But I live in the West. I don't benefit from Russia overturning the US-led world order. I benefit from US hegemony.

If anything you should be accusing me of a pro-US bias since that's where my bread is buttered.

It's that since I was born in Russia it's easier for me to see how biased Western media is when it comes to world perspectives. It's very hard for Western media to see their own biases and to see the world from a non-Western POV.

[tsuki]

@Preety_India The actions Russia is taking are self defeating to a large degree. Like taking the Crimea, which was mostly populated by pro-russian citizens, thus tipping the scales against themselves in the remaining population.

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, tsuki said:

@Preety_India The actions Russia is taking are self defeating to a large degree. Like taking the Crimea, which was mostly populated by pro-russian citizens, thus tipping the scales against themselves in the remaining population.

Taking Crimea was not self-defeating. Russia gained important strategic access to military ports in the Black Sea.