A thread/rant about #BuchaMassacre and why ordinary Russians vote for Putin and don't mind commiting war crimes.
Things are a bit complicated, so we need to dive into Russian culture and society to understand it.
I promise you, the ride will be worth it.
A lot of foreigners who never had to deal with Russia or Russians hold stereotypical view of "vodka and bears" that was created as a cold war propaganda and doesn't have anything to do with modern realities.
The reality is both better and worse.
The modern day Russia, at least how its government is desperately trying to portray it, is a large modern economy with GDP PPP per capita of Greece and economy almost the size of Germany.
It has a lot of smart people with deep culture that want to see their nation thrive.
But the brutal reality is, there is humongous inequality within the country. What is worse, this inequality is both geographical and social.
Such inequality is the result of oppressive system reliant of natural resources to keep itself running, where humans are also a resource.
While there are millions of progressive, educated and ambitious people, mostly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the rest, 120+ million people are agressive, jealous, greedy, corrupt and overall pathetic humans.
They won't mind voting for Putin and supporting his actions.
You might think that such pathetic moral state of population was the result of years of propaganda and economic hardships, but in reality, the overall mentality of said population allowed Putin to take control and commit atrocities on their behalf.
All Russians are responsible.
While majority of Russian population are passive-agressive, inert masses, they won't start raping and murdering civilians left and right. But they will support such actions if they are to gain anything from it.
To understand who does it, we need to look at the RU army structure.
Ever since dissolution of Soviet union, serving in army stopped being a necessity, and people with money or influence started to dodge the draft.
Over the years, less and less people were drafted, and now most of RU army are contract soldiers from the poorest regions of Russia.
Those of Russians who live in poor-ish (all except Moscow and St.Petersburg) cities still have at least some morals, albeit egocentric and selfish.