this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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A Ukrainian soldier named Serhiy, returning from Russian captivity, has reportedly been found mutilated with swastikas carved into his forehead, as disclosed by Dr. Olexandr Turkevich, who is treating him.

The soldier, blindfolded during the ordeal, claimed Russian soldiers threatened to dismember him, citing accusations of fascism.

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[–] [email protected] 111 points 1 year ago (39 children)

I just want to draw an important distinction between the Russian government, military leadership, & voluntary/willing soldiery and the average Russian citizen. It would be wrong to call the latter "the bad guys", but not the former.

[–] [email protected] 120 points 1 year ago (38 children)

Thank you.

Russian here, protested against the war and find it terrifying, not buying official narratives of nazis and NATO threat for a second.

Still remember the 24th of February, 2022. Before the date, we were all like "naive Westerners, Russia will not openly attack Ukraine, that's so obviously stupid on so many levels, it's a brotherly nation going through turbulent times, that's it". No one could in their sane mind even comprehend something like this. It was unthinkable. No one wanted that aside from a few select extremists, and most people never supported it later on - though propaganda machine did make some progress on the weakest of minds.

And then we wake up that day, on 24th of February, and have a collective "HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK PUTIN WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THAT OH WE'RE ALL SO SCREWED". It was a very grim day, and everyone had worries of their own: some, like me, had friends and family in Ukraine, some were afraid of their men being drafted (which did eventually happen in September 2022), others were just terrified of the scale of human suffering it will entail.

Since then, we learned never to trust anything and question everything we believe in. It was a cultural shock like Russia has never seen.

Same day, 24th of February, streets sparked in violent protests, police got extremely brutal - to this day, almost 2 years into the war, police has constant 24/7 presence in the places that were the main anti-war protest venues of my city. It lasted for months, despite police never stopping and detaining extreme numbers of people: courts are still overburdened processing all of them. All until everyone who had integrity and bravery and nothing to lose got in jail.

Putin should pay for all the atrocities he has committed, and that's something very many Russians will subscribe to.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Oh wow, I wonder whether something happened before Feb 24th that might have caught your attention? Any idea? I certainly remember there was something...

[–] GooseFinger 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not Russian so I have a limited perspective of this, but I remember people pointing out good indicators that the invasion was really going to happen during the weeks leading up to it, like how the Russian military was setting up field hospitals along the border. Obviously, hindsight makes reflecting on this difficult, and I'm not sure what information was available to Russian citizens at that time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Explained this in my answer; long story short, the very idea of such invasion was super unthinkable to an average Russian, and, while we've seen news from Western media, we discarded them as sensationalist and lacking understanding of the real situation.

But, as we soon figured out, Putin has no issue crossing any red line.

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