The fall of Berlin was 79 years ago, so even 18 year olds would be 97 now. Russia has very few GPW veterans left, no thanks to the neoliberal disaster of the nineties There were only 24,000 men above 95 in 2022 and many of them are probably dead by now.
It's a lot of love focused on a few heroes.
Is joke but the look on his face said "If I were a young man..."
As someone far away from the conflict and not involved in a combat way, my primary involvement is to counter untrue Western propaganda. Which I do. That propaganda not being true helps me in my task. What's really striking to me is the glee with which NAFO types or some in the Ukranian Defensive War thread greet any sign of a Russian atrocity. If they were motivated by compassion, Russia dropping a bomb on a school (or appearing to) would be a cause for sadness in such people. But instead what I see often enough is great satisfaction in having one more tool to use. Like your example of Bucha - shaky evidence but received gleefully by the NAFO types who don't care about the victims but love having something to wave around. I don't like giving them the satisfaction.
You're a bong, right? (apologies if not, but bear with me) I have a hypothetical: imagine if that, in the early 21st century it became known France and Spain had, for decades, infiltrated and poisoned the Scots against England. The Scots harassed Anglicans and Presbyterians, and outlawed its worship and only Roman Catholics were permitted to hold services. Scots Gaelic became the official language and the use of English was outlawed in government, schools and in public. The Scots have been surreptitiously arming and training, with anti-English militias who declared they wanted the expulsion of all English, and the deaths of those that refused to leave.
Mel Gibson Robert the Bruce was the Scots national hero, and Scots sang ballads extolling the death and dismemberment of the English. The community of English Protestants on the border declares independence and expresses its desire for unification with England. The Scots, armed and and flush with French and Spanish money, declare an anti-terrorist action against that community, and it later turns out they planned an offensive to liberate their fellow Celts, the Welsh and foment deep divisions within England with the goal of causing the North, Middle and Southern English counties to separate and declare their independence from the Crown; in other words, to use the West's own terminology, "de-colonize" Great Britain.
Britain decides to go in, protect the English on the Scots border and stamp out the current Scots anti-British government, which by that point is now allied and supplied by Belgium, Germany, Italy, etc, as well as Russia (lol). Britain is successful but its a slog, and the Scots are not showing signs of a willingness to negotiate, let alone surrender. Indeed, the anti-British sentiment increased by a factor of 10, and Glasglow demands England's total, unconditional surrender as well millions of pounds in reparations, and the abdication/exile of the Windsors. Those are ridiculous demands but Scottish anti-English rhetoric becomes much worse, and even more belligerent.
Should Britain treat the Scots with kid gloves in this scenario? Show mercy? Restrain itself in the face of virulent hatred from Scots men, women and children singing songs glorifying the agonizing death and suffering of all Britons? Would Britons have compassion, and show restrain at all times?
This isn't an attack on you
@Overly Serious or anyone else here. I just want people to ask themselves if they were in a similar position, like Russia and Russians, what their true and honest reaction would be to a people who have said, time and over again, that they want you to die an agonizing death as they dance on your dying and broken body, and have vowed to destroy you, your people and everything you hold dear, or die trying. And the Western world supported such a people and their goals.
For me, its not that
Russia wants to genocide the Ukrainians so much as the
Ukrainians want to genocide the Russians, and the people of the Russian Federation (
and with the support of my country; distaste doesn't even come close to what I feel).
It's horrifying to envision such a scenario but what's even worse is facing what you would need to do if it should come to pass within your own borders.
