I don’t know, I wonder in about 40 years if the Russian people, the ones that are still alive, will look back at this pandemic era and wonder WTF happened that everything went downhill so fast and probably stayed that way for decades. They may think that their once imperious fearless leader wasn’t such hot shit as Russian history made him out to be, rather he was just plain shit.
The way these nation-state autocratic slugs work is to completely control the public messaging so unless Putin is overthrown the great Putin ‘peacekeeper?’ narrative might keep being accepted in Russian history as some great hero.
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I guess we have to remember that here in the US we do also live in a big-ass empire. Back in the Vietnam days, our history barely mentions events like the ‘Gulf of Tonkin’ incident, agent orange (which let’s face it is a chemical warfare event, different but not that unlike the contemporary news warnings regarding Russia using chemical warfare in Ukraine.), plus we have a habit of supporting/backing/installing autocratic and fascist individuals in previous war theatres. Shit keeps happening. 🤷♂️
How much have we heard about Vietnam vets getting great treatment at the VA system of medical assistance over the years? It always turns out to be a fight for vets to get what was promised. Yet our defense budget isn’t exactly lacking in any way except maybe taking care of vets that served. Hmm.