Yes, Russian society is slowly, very slowly, too slowly, humiliatingly slowly, but it is waking up.
It must be said right away that Russian society does not raise the question of the meaning of this War – and of course there is no such meaning at all.
True, the repressions are harsh, but they are so harsh AND because brave people are too few and they are easily caught and condemned.
The sabotage, the violence, the protests, the shooting of the commanders in the back are yet to gain momentum. And not because of the tiny enclaves of civil society, but because of the obviously bad, shameful, inept and pathless way in which Putin's Russia fights.
Yes, there is an awakening in Russia, but it is still mainly the result of two (they are interconnected) reasons:
1. In the leading place are the frequent letters to the family about their son, brother, father, husband killed at the front - the Russian victims have become too many.
It is now difficult to find a family that has not heard, seen, learned, understood about someone who is "negatively selected", i.e. it became Gruz 200.
Even more shockingly, after November and December when mainly criminals and (supposedly) more experienced soldiers were exterminated, in January and February the average age of those sent to a Kobzon concert in Hell began to drop sharply.
And even such a death-ridden country as Russia is painfully sensitive to the death of beardless boys who came to the War from technical schools and student halls!
It should be emphasized that Russia is called by many
--- "death factory" - because in Russia the price of human life is extremely low and it is the largest supplier of the cheapest cannon fodder;
--- "a society with a culture of death" - the leading Russian propagandists speak like that from the TV screen to the Russians - what does it matter if a person will die now or in 10 or 20 years!
Of course, the children, brothers, husbands of these propagandists do not go to war, they clearly prefer to live longer.
2. Next, it is the cruel way in which war is fought. Russia has always, without a single exception, fought not with skill but with numbers. As in Zhukov's time.
As Zhukov has boasted to foreign senior military officers - Russia has no problem with minefields, because in order to demine them, it simply sends battalion after battalion through them. And he is not worried about it, because the wives will give birth to more ("бабы еще нарожают").
By Russian standards, that colonel or general is bad if he fought in such a way that he gave few killed - the more people he sacrificed ("положил"), the better military leader he is!
And now Russia in Ukraine is fighting in the same way...
Parents, brothers and sisters, wives and girlfriends receive heartbreaking messages from their sons, brothers, wives, loved ones - how they are released as "expendable material", how they overwhelm the enemy with corpses.
That is why this ice cauldron of water from crying and fear of the soldiers is poured on the heads of the Russians and they can no longer sleep, i.e. are starting to wake up.
No motivational excuses and slogans work in this war. Here it is not like in the war with the Nazis, when the homeland was treacherously attacked, when the Nazis captured hundreds and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and officers, raped, burned, robbed, killed. In the current war, Ukraine has not done anything wrong to the Russians and their other ethnicities. She did not invade their towns and villages, did not rape and kill a single civilian. Ukraine is the victim this time. At the same time, as Russians, Chechens, Buryats, Yakuts and others can see with their own eyes, people in Ukraine lived richer, more cultured, more peaceful, and happier than they live in Russia.
The reason for the first shivers of indignation in Russian society is also the complete distancing of the elites from the War. The elites have not given a drop of blood in this war, they have not given a single victim. Mainly, people from the lower social strata (the poor and the poorest), as well as people of non-Russian nationality, were sent to war, slaughter and death. The elites and the middle class of ethnic Russians are not at war! From here, it is close to the conclusion that the simple, ordinary people, the fools, those without business connections, without friendships and money for bribery are at war - they are expendable material, they are the sacrificial lambs, doomed to slaughter.
Still, there should not be too optimistic expectations for a faster awakening of Russian society.
As I heard in a Russian movie:
- We Russians are a people of silence - we are silent when they play with our lives, we are silent when the government robs us, we are silent when they make fools of us, we are silent because from centuries of silence we have learned not to be silent.
03/02/2023
