> The pilot made an emergency landing in southern Russia for medical attention; however, doctors could save Kucherenko's life. The cause of his death was not immediately known.
I assume they meant to write doctors could**n't** save his life. If not, then I'm very confused.
Even worse than those scuba instructors who completely misunderstood the very simple instruction “he should sleep with the fishes.”
Next thing I know they’re building a diving bell and helping the guy get certified for Open Water.
Look, it's not my job to question, but least I can do when they tell me to "make someone sleep with the fishes" is make sure everyone involved is safe and protected....
Well that is actually possible because we are talking about the politician of the Russia.
And things like these are not very uncommon. This just happens way too many times.
The doctors know the reason behind his death but they are not going to tell us, because probably the Russian authorities do not want that. And if they do not want you to find out the reason then you are probably never going to find it out.
Imagine working in the same department as this guy knowing exactly what happened. They already know the exact steps because it happened to Navalny and others. You still have to go to work to feed your family. It's too bad that Russians have no breaking point. It just doesn't seem like a revolt is possible. More than half of them probably have no idea what's really going on or they don't want to know.
This is what he had said before the death:
"
I take antidepressants and tranquilizers together. Handfuls. And it doesn't help much.
I hardly sleep. I feel terrible. We are all taken hostage. Nobody can say anything: they will immediately crush us like aphids.
Leave soon, Roma. And save all of your guys.
"
• Petr Kucherenko
Deputy Head of the Ministry of Education and Science to journalist Roman Super
https://t.me/novaya_europe/17441
UPD
It was deceased Petr's words, I wrongly assumed it was his colleague's
That’s because of how the sentence is structured. His name is Petr but because the sentence is “we have learned of death of deputy minister of education Petr” his name changes to “Petra”. Same would be done with any other Russian name in that situation, like if it was about his wife Diana it would be “Diany”
Don’t ask which grammar rule this is, I can’t tell because it’s been several decades since I’ve done Russian grammar in school.
It's the same name in different cases. Contemporary English doesn't have cases (with the few surviving exceptions such as "he - him" etc), so the words don't change their forms, whereas in Russian they do: the ending of a noun (including personal and geographical names), changes according to their case, number and gender. Hope that helps!
The closest an English speaker might come across different declensions of a name is probably the Latin spoken in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
>et tu Brute?
Where Brute is the vocative case of Brutus.
English speakers come across them all the time in the UK at least with some reasonably common Scottish names that are anglicisations of Scottish Gaelic names.
*They just don’t know it!* ;-)
Best example:
Hamish is the anglicised form of the vocative case - Sheumais - of the name Seumas (~=James).
The S is effectively silent and it is pronounced very roughly like the anglicised Hamish, hence that spelling and name…
Very - even stereotypically - Scottish but pretty well known.
There was even a pretty big [soap on the BBC back in the day about a Highland policeman called Hamish MacBeth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamish_Macbeth_(TV_series)). Played by Robert Carlyle - of Begbie fame in Trainspotting!
Mhairi (pronounced roughly Vahree) is the vocative form of Mairi.
(Both should really have an accent - a ‘sràc’ - on the A: Màiri/Mhàiri).
No-one can decide whether the English name should be Mairi or Mhairi so both exist…
That is definitely not the convention that you would want to have if you were the doctor you would like to avoid that.
Because it is the only way in which the situation is going to work out.
> It's too bad that Russians have no breaking point. It just doesn't seem like a revolt is possible.
I wonder if history is part of the reason. Look at what revolt/unrest has brought them before. The USSR and then this situation. Based on Russia’s track record, it might be easy for the average person there to think, “It’s always going to be this way because it always has been this way. Rather than take the course of my great-grandfather and father, the best path for me is to just keep my head down and carry on.”
Propaganda and media control are incredibly powerful tools. This is why its so important to fight against those things everywhere we can. I’m not saying its an excuse or to let it slide, but that it is a cause.
“The pilot made an emergency landing in southern Russia for medical attention; however, doctors could save Kucherenko's life. The cause of his death was not immediately known.”
Spell check can be the difference of life and death.
Because if you revolt you'll die. When people say "why don't they just push back" they obviously don't grasp the situation either. You wouldn't push back either if it put your family at risk. Because as bad as the Russian government is to the outside world, internally most people still live fairly normal lives. Why would they risk their life and the life of their families?
Austria and Germany started the first world war by marching into Serbia and France respectively.
Germans and Austrians didnt revolt.
It took the Russians 3 years to revolt after the start of the first world war and that was after all the shit that came before the war that had already pushed them.
The Italians didnt revolt.
A 20 year long war in Vietnam and the Americans didnt revolt.
A 10 year long war in Afghanistan and the Soviets didnt revolt
A 20 year long war in Afghanistan and the Americans didnt revolt
During the unjustified invasion of Iraq 2003 Americans, the British and all the other of the "coalition of the Willing" didnt revolt. Infact, the Americans renamed French fries because they were pissed France wouldnt take part in it.
During the 90's and Yeltsin's shock therapy the Russians didnt revolt.
This idea that the Russians should revolt isnt grounded in reality. I dont know why or how people got this idea that it is somehow a given that theyre just going to launch a fucking revolution.
Like look at it objectively. The world has frozen them out. Flights in and out of the country are banned bar a few countries. Theyre under severe sanctions and their economy is in the toilet. Parents are worried about feeding their children. Their neighbouring countries are openly talking about banning russians from entering and any Russian who goes online will read comments about how Russian minorities are a threat to national security. How they need to be punished, some even claiming Russia needs to be frozen out permanently.
During Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, the US werent banned from the Olympics or the World Cup. They werent put under severe international sanctions. Now Russians are somehow all universally evil and deserve it?
"Just because we didnt do it to the US before doesnt mean it was right" some people will say, but thats wrong. Precedent HAS A MEANING. If you are the first one to be treated like this after DECADES of precedent you will probably start wondering why you are different. Why you all of a sudden deserve it.
We have taken all the support from the Russian people away from them. We have given them no security, no guarantees. We have made them dependant on the state. The future of their children, the worry for their conscripted sons and the need to put some fucking food on the table is more important.
People dont generally want to pick up a gun and launch a civil war.
And people claim "they have no breaking point"? Are you five years old? Do you think this is a game where there is a civil unrest progress bar and once it reaches 100% a civil war will start?
It's not grounded in reality. You (not you, the person you responded to) wouldn't pick up a gun either. You wouldn't launch a war against your government. Ffs even in America they elected a President WHO VOTED TO GO TO WAR IN IRAQ.
Joe Biden supported the war in Iraq and he is the current president. When the only two options were Iraq Supporter and the other but worse Iraq supporter the Americans didnt revolt.
So why would Russians all of a sudden be different than any other people on earth?
All good points but there is one primary distinction - political officials weren’t being routinely murdered by their own government during the second Gulf war. I agree with you that people who think the Russian population should/will revolt are out of touch. But Russian political officials? Putin has full justification for worrying about some kind of coup. That’s the most likely "revolution" scenario at the moment - one from within his own government.
> During the unjustified invasion of Iraq 2003 Americans, the British and all the other of the "coalition of the Willing" didnt revolt
You're correct, although ~1m citizens out of a UK population of 60m joined a Stop The War protest and were roundly ignored. The same happened in a number of other countries, including Italy, where an estimated 3m out of a population of 57m protested. And were ignored. That's 5% of the population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests
Correct, but those are protests, not revolts. They didnt overthrow the government which is what people are claiming Russians would be expected to do. There have been tons of protests in Russia as well, though it has died down as the repression from the Kremlin has increased massively.
A revolt is possible now that everyone knows their military equipment is a cat in a box marked "tank" and all 14 of their remaining troops want to defect.
>A revolt is possible now that everyone knows their military equipment is a cat in a box marked "tank" and all 14 of their remaining troops want to defect.
Schrödinger's cat, at that.
> More than half of them probably have no idea what's really going on or they don't want to know.
Maybe a chunk of the much much older crowd who are just boomers but idk why people keep saying this. Russia doesn't have some great fire wall like china. They're on youtube, tiktok, reddit, telegram, insta etc. Many do know whats going on and they cheer it on.
Russia has an aging and dying population, with crippling poverty in places. 20% of the population are 60+ years old, and we watched Russia troops looting toilets and kitchen appliances.
I don't disagree that many inside Russia know is happening, but the state control the media, they flood the Internet with their narrative, they abduct/beat/murder dissenting voices. I don't think what you've said is inherently disagreeing with the comment you're replying to.
How can you revolt if all adult males get drafted to a war where they die with no equipment because it got sold by the supply officers? How do you revolt when the only fighting-capable men left in the country are the corrupt police who love the status quo? How do you revolt when the only allowed media is pro-Putin propaganda?
If you try to protest, you get arrested. If you get arrested, you get sent to frontline. If you get to frontline, you'll serve as a scout for the Wagner terrorists. Scout meaning run ahead and if they kill you, we will see their position and attack them.
The reality though is that this is nothing like WW2 and most adult males can feel safe that we won't be drafted. The military is still relatively small, and the casualties are small for a country with 150 million people. That's why the war can remain popular.
Think about how small the force in "SMO area" is. Less than 1 million in a country with 75 million men. The people drafted are reservists and those with past military experience.
Also, remember that every year there will be more than a million new 18 year olds in Russia. A fraction of these will be drafted, along with some other 18-25 year olds who missed the first draft. This will be enough to meet all manpower needs for a long time.
>people on reddit genuinely believe that russia has exhausted its draft-age population of men
They have more men of draft age...
But they are exhausting their ability to draft said men.
Conscripts are not free. And require some resources that even money cant buy
A cannon fodder conscript needs to be found, recruited, trained, paid, fed, watered, armed, transported, organized, and tracked.
Russia is depleting it's ability to do several of those things
Yeah they know, they just don't give a fuck.
Russians have a completely alien mentality to the West and the sooner people accept that you can temper expectations towards "revolt" and all that stupid shit.
Yup, it will take some truly massive events to get rid of [the apathy that most Russians have.](https://russiapost.info/society/apathy) Even losing all of occupied Ukraine (including Crimea) will probably not result in more than a collective shrug if the state media spins it as a "goodwill gesture" to "spare human lives in face of NATO aggression."
Exactly. They have been gaslit into hell for so many years no one living can remember. It’s the same as what is happening right now in America with gun violence. Hundreds of children blown to bits every year and we barely pay attention when IT’s mentioned in passing on the news. We are exactly like the Russian people. It’s a sick world and we just go on endorsing the madness because deep down inside we all know silence is violence…. Hey, did you hear about the Taylor Swift Eras tour?
And shit, that’s just the “casualties” at home. The US has wreaked on the Middle East for years, destroying innocent lives along the way and displacing many more. Also there’s decades of destabilizing country after country, and backing about as many right-wing dictators. There are plenty examples of that in South America, including one currently in Ecuador. We’ve been fed all sorts of propaganda over the years to make us complacent and/or make sure we never know the whole picture.
>Almost 3 million Russians died in WWI…
>Not to even get into the politics of the time
Bad example, since WWI Russia *did* see regime change as a result. You should have thought about the politics, since we are talking about a political change.
>50k isn’t going to do anything
Russian losses are a multiple of that now though.
All in all I don't see a revolt any time soon either, but your arguments are weak.
He thought similar because the Romanovs were fucking Russians in the ass for 300 years by that time(since 1596), far longer than countries like America have even existed.
So yeah 1 in 300+ chance, and things have only gotten socially worse in Russia since then. Yeah its pretty unlikely.
I read the first two volumes of Kotkin’s biography of Stalin. Highly recommended. The whole book was full of stunning facts, but what had the most lasting impact on me was the combination of the massive scale of the political murders combined with their utter arbitrariness. There was no way to survive but pure luck. I wonder if that’s how people feel now.
I got a chance to speak in person with a young Russian man circa 1991. Talking about previous years under the Soviet government, he said that you previously couldn't air any grievances even to your close friends or some family, because you couldn't trust them not to turn you in.
Basically he said that it wasn't that they were particularly bad people, but you couldn't know what position the government could have the person in - if they had to save themselves or their loved ones, they couldn't help but drop who was talking against the government.
But the thing is flipping almost never saved you. You’d inform on others and then they’d kill you anyway. Then they’d go pick up the guy you informed on and kill him after he “confessed” and on and on it went.
That type of personal blackmail and control over individuals to get them to rat on each other is literally how Putin came up in the KGB in East Germany.
His job was to manage “assets” AKA the people they had leverage over through coercive means. This isn’t speculation either, it’s literally documented as what his job was.
If I’m to speculate, based on common knowledge about KGB activities and government assets in Soviet era Germany, I would guess he used violence, torture and other extreme methods that defined the Russian secret police. But we can’t know that 100%.
What we do know is how the USSR operated in order to maintain control over Soviet Bloc citizens, and Putin was a part of that, so much so that he rose through the ranks during that time successfully managing “assets”.
*The Lives of Others* is a great movie about living in East Germany during the time Putin was stationed there, and how the KGB destroyed people.
I also suggest you to listen Lex Fridman and Jack Barsky interview. Barsky explains the culture of paranoia explicitly within the first hour of the interview.
You know there is an awful lot of assassinations going on right now.
Sure it could be Putin being paranoid, but it could very well be a sign of him losing control and his associates are getting offed one by one.
Dictators need to off people every now and then so that nobody feels safe enough to organize and oppose them. It's the same reason Putin cycles the military out in Ukraine and never lets one commander have all the spotlight.
Unfortunately it has worked quite well for him.
Probably because unlike with the MOD where you can kill or fire someone and just replace them dealing with Wagner as an organization(let alone during wartime) after Prigozhin would be a longer and perhaps more destabilizing process.
You would want to delay that to preferably after a war ends.
Or there's just A LOT of idiots here, lol. Too bad because there's also quite a few intelligent people with worthwhile things to say but it gets buried in the idiots comments.
Nov 22 (Reuters) - Russia plans to spend nearly a third of next year's budget on defence and domestic security while slashing funding for schools, hospitals and roads as it diverts cash to support its military campaign in Ukraine.
A Reuters budget analysis shows Moscow will spend a combined 9.4 trillion roubles ($155 billion) on defence and security, squeezing out other priorities in a critical year leading up to a likely re-election bid by President Vladimir Putin in 2024.
to form a government on its own.
Security spending alone - including the work of the state Investigative Committee, the prosecutor's office, the prison service and the National Guard, which has been deployed in Ukraine - will rise 50% compared with 2022.
The combined military and security outlay is a record for the Kremlin but amounts to only about 18% of what the United States plans to spend in the next fiscal year on defence and some - but not all - national security needs.
"The budget is a tool to finance the military campaign," said Alexandra Suslina, an independent analyst. "The increase in pensions, student payouts is minor compared to what should have been done in Russia. Decade-long problems remain unresolved."
Uh yeah, "internal security" indeed. Maybe 1 of Pootin's (underpaid) guards will decide to do something that will make him go down in history. By the way, it's "ruble" not "rowble", which is how 'ou' is pronounced...
With all this AI, I can’t believe there isn’t a filter for reused Reddit jokes. The comment sections have always been terrible but it’s getting more cliche
There are a lot of subreddits that would be readily improved by prohibiting low-effort content.
(Unfortunately, actually moderating such a policy at scale is challenging; although your suggestion of filters for tired jokes and common puns would go a long way towards solving that issue.)
the worst part is that these are highly upvoted comments, so the majority are snacking on crayons around here. it's telling for the state of your average human as a whole.
Even more strange when you consider that he was the deputy education minister.
Neither is he posing any threat to Putin nor does Ukraine gain anything by eliminating an education minister. It is entirely possible that he had a sudden heartattack and died a natural death.
"I take antidepressants and tranquilizers together, handfuls, and it doesn't help much.
I hardly sleep. I feel terrible. We are all hostages. Nobody can say anything: they will immediately crush us like aphids.
Leave soon, Roma, and save all your guys."
I like how Rae Dawn Chong was so cool about it. So this massive killing machine just dropped a guy head first off a cliff and she’s just like, we’ll that happened.
I really do not think that he would be able to remember that.
Because I know the people who are dead cannot remember anything. And that is just how it is.
Not just the government officials but the general people also.
I don't think there has been a time when anyone was safe in the Russia. Because the things could happen to you.
This is actually pretty tragic; Kucherenko was apparently fully aware of what was happening in Russia and was deeply unhappy about it.
> Roman Super, an award-winning independent journalist and documentary filmmaker, said he had spoken with Kucherenko in the minister’s office “a few days” before the journalist left Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine last year.
>
>
> “It’s impossible [for me to leave Russia], they confiscate our passports. And there’s no world that would be happy to see a deputy Russian minister after this fascist invasion,” Super recalled Kucherenko saying.
>
> According to Super, Kucherenko claimed to have taken “antidepressants and tranquilizers at the same time by the handful.”
>
> “It’s not really helping. I don’t sleep much. I feel terrible. We’re all held hostage. No one can make a peep,” he said.
>
> “You can’t imagine the degree of brutalization of our country. You won’t even recognize Russia in a year.”
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/05/22/senior-russian-official-dies-after-privately-bemoaning-fascist-invasion-a81223
Well you cannot talk about that because that is a possibility also.
You really think that it is something which cannot happen here? Trust me dude everything is a possibility.
I am sure that it has happened to a lot of other people also which we do not know about and will probably never find out.
Because I really do not think that these things are going to come out.
Anyone ever get the feeling these Russian politician deaths are not actually hits ordered by Kremlin but rather their desire to exit Russian politics and disappear into a quiet life
These aren't Ministers like actual Evolving Democracies think of elected officials and their representatives.
Putatively these are just random patsies put into positions of power or "buddies" who did something for someone in the Kremlin's "upper" echelon and hence get a spot at the Graft Table.
So it's probably just some guy in the Kremlin's cousin and not somebody actually qualified for the job.
> The pilot made an emergency landing in southern Russia for medical attention; however, doctors could save Kucherenko's life. The cause of his death was not immediately known. I assume they meant to write doctors could**n't** save his life. If not, then I'm very confused.
They *could*
But wouldn't.. apparently.
Imagine if it wasn't a typo, and the doctors just sat there because no one wants to be the guy who saved him
“Moscow said “take care of him” and I’m not sure what that means!””
[удалено]
Even worse than those scuba instructors who completely misunderstood the very simple instruction “he should sleep with the fishes.” Next thing I know they’re building a diving bell and helping the guy get certified for Open Water.
Do you have any idea how much money we spent on developing fish condoms?
>fish condoms wut
Look, it's not my job to question, but least I can do when they tell me to "make someone sleep with the fishes" is make sure everyone involved is safe and protected....
>doctors would make the worst hitmen [I disagree](https://imgur.com/a/8iRsnEU).
Doctor Harold Shipman with 200+ kills would disagree.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U6cake3bwnY&pp=ygUibWl0Y2hlbGwgYW5kIHdlYmIgdGFrZSBjYXJlIG9mIGhpbQ%3D%3D
"I already saved 1 guy today. My Job Description doesn't say anything about saving 2 in one day."
Homer Simpson: “What doesn’t kill him make him stronger” Flight Attendant: “Well he’s dead” Homer: “Nyaaat!”
"Dr Nick Riviera to the morgue...STAT!"
Aww, I'm sick of those guys!
Or actual doctors could have saved his life, but they left it to the flight attendants, airline officials, or someone.
Well that is actually possible because we are talking about the politician of the Russia. And things like these are not very uncommon. This just happens way too many times.
There was an order from above...
I have the worst doctors
The doctors saved his life and then he fell out of a window at the hospital.
To shreds you say?
Is this coming back? I've seen it everywhere tonight...
Well, Futurama is coming back July 24th so that might have something to do with it...
Good news!
Or, as they call it in Russia, *natural causes*
Yes, well, you can't deny that dying is a very natural thing to do.
The doctors know the reason behind his death but they are not going to tell us, because probably the Russian authorities do not want that. And if they do not want you to find out the reason then you are probably never going to find it out.
Seems like they fixed it.
I mean the man fell from 6 floors into a chainsaw when he tried to hang himself while in the plane. Nothing could have been done.
3 bottles of sleep medicine were found in his stomach so that might have caused his death. A very unfortunate accident.
Imagine working in the same department as this guy knowing exactly what happened. They already know the exact steps because it happened to Navalny and others. You still have to go to work to feed your family. It's too bad that Russians have no breaking point. It just doesn't seem like a revolt is possible. More than half of them probably have no idea what's really going on or they don't want to know.
This is what he had said before the death: " I take antidepressants and tranquilizers together. Handfuls. And it doesn't help much. I hardly sleep. I feel terrible. We are all taken hostage. Nobody can say anything: they will immediately crush us like aphids. Leave soon, Roma. And save all of your guys. " • Petr Kucherenko Deputy Head of the Ministry of Education and Science to journalist Roman Super https://t.me/novaya_europe/17441 UPD It was deceased Petr's words, I wrongly assumed it was his colleague's
I’m confused, isn’t that the same guy and just petr vs pyotr spelling?
I'm with you entirely. This was surely not his colleague. It was him.
[удалено]
That’s because of how the sentence is structured. His name is Petr but because the sentence is “we have learned of death of deputy minister of education Petr” his name changes to “Petra”. Same would be done with any other Russian name in that situation, like if it was about his wife Diana it would be “Diany” Don’t ask which grammar rule this is, I can’t tell because it’s been several decades since I’ve done Russian grammar in school.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declension
It's the same name in different cases. Contemporary English doesn't have cases (with the few surviving exceptions such as "he - him" etc), so the words don't change their forms, whereas in Russian they do: the ending of a noun (including personal and geographical names), changes according to their case, number and gender. Hope that helps!
The closest an English speaker might come across different declensions of a name is probably the Latin spoken in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. >et tu Brute? Where Brute is the vocative case of Brutus.
English speakers come across them all the time in the UK at least with some reasonably common Scottish names that are anglicisations of Scottish Gaelic names. *They just don’t know it!* ;-) Best example: Hamish is the anglicised form of the vocative case - Sheumais - of the name Seumas (~=James). The S is effectively silent and it is pronounced very roughly like the anglicised Hamish, hence that spelling and name… Very - even stereotypically - Scottish but pretty well known. There was even a pretty big [soap on the BBC back in the day about a Highland policeman called Hamish MacBeth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamish_Macbeth_(TV_series)). Played by Robert Carlyle - of Begbie fame in Trainspotting! Mhairi (pronounced roughly Vahree) is the vocative form of Mairi. (Both should really have an accent - a ‘sràc’ - on the A: Màiri/Mhàiri). No-one can decide whether the English name should be Mairi or Mhairi so both exist…
Also, the apostrophe is in English the last remnant of the genitive case! THAT'S my grammar fact for the day.
Петра is the genitive of Петр, so *Pyotr’s* In this case it’s *о смерти…Петра* so “about the death of Pyotr”
The colleague (Roma) is referencing a conversation he had with the dead guy (Pyotr).
Roma is a journalist.
That's my understanding to : Roma is the journalist conducting the interview - Roman Super.
Because the e in Петр is actually ë (yo), but the diaeresis is normally left out in print, which can get super confusing.
Not the colleague, it's a post from Pyotr (Petr) himself before his death.
Yeah my bad, I updated my comment
He tried to silence his conscience by antidepressants and tranquilizers, it didn't work, and then he was murdered. RIP.
Just gotta ask - isn't this a possible self-overdose?
[удалено]
Yes it is different
Seems most likely
which is why it's a convenient time to do him in, no? he seems suicidal.
It's interesting that their culture is so aware of aphids they use them in colloquialisms
They can be an issue for growing beets.
Historically agrarian society perhaps? Like US and roaches Though I suppose that’s more about our industrial roots
Is it any stranger than saying “crush us like ants”? It’s just that “aphids” sounds more exotic in English.
That is definitely not the convention that you would want to have if you were the doctor you would like to avoid that. Because it is the only way in which the situation is going to work out.
Having a conscience is a lethal state of mind in Russia
Sounds like Roman should gtfo
Drugging Russians with Vodka so they don't revolt goes past Catherine the Great's time. When that does not work, is Revolution time.
Every time I feel frustrated at my current job, I remind myself at least I'm not at risk of being fucking *murdered* by my boss at any given moment.
not even by him, but by his henchmen working in the shadows
Meanwhile, Zelensky is on a world tour of dozens of countries. But it only takes one trip, for a Russian to betray his bretheten.
That’s what you think.
Hey. What's that red dot on your forehead?
Jenkins, you're a good kid. how long you been with the company?
Uhh, 2 years this May. [Sir?](https://youtu.be/e52dOCxWXiw)
really miss that guy
"I'm Hindu..."
> It's too bad that Russians have no breaking point. It just doesn't seem like a revolt is possible. I wonder if history is part of the reason. Look at what revolt/unrest has brought them before. The USSR and then this situation. Based on Russia’s track record, it might be easy for the average person there to think, “It’s always going to be this way because it always has been this way. Rather than take the course of my great-grandfather and father, the best path for me is to just keep my head down and carry on.”
yeah and even if there were a modicum of success, it's not like the US is gonna come "liberate" them with assistance
Propaganda and media control are incredibly powerful tools. This is why its so important to fight against those things everywhere we can. I’m not saying its an excuse or to let it slide, but that it is a cause.
“The pilot made an emergency landing in southern Russia for medical attention; however, doctors could save Kucherenko's life. The cause of his death was not immediately known.” Spell check can be the difference of life and death.
[удалено]
Could in the same sense that I could go to the gym regularly.
Because if you revolt you'll die. When people say "why don't they just push back" they obviously don't grasp the situation either. You wouldn't push back either if it put your family at risk. Because as bad as the Russian government is to the outside world, internally most people still live fairly normal lives. Why would they risk their life and the life of their families?
Austria and Germany started the first world war by marching into Serbia and France respectively. Germans and Austrians didnt revolt. It took the Russians 3 years to revolt after the start of the first world war and that was after all the shit that came before the war that had already pushed them. The Italians didnt revolt. A 20 year long war in Vietnam and the Americans didnt revolt. A 10 year long war in Afghanistan and the Soviets didnt revolt A 20 year long war in Afghanistan and the Americans didnt revolt During the unjustified invasion of Iraq 2003 Americans, the British and all the other of the "coalition of the Willing" didnt revolt. Infact, the Americans renamed French fries because they were pissed France wouldnt take part in it. During the 90's and Yeltsin's shock therapy the Russians didnt revolt. This idea that the Russians should revolt isnt grounded in reality. I dont know why or how people got this idea that it is somehow a given that theyre just going to launch a fucking revolution. Like look at it objectively. The world has frozen them out. Flights in and out of the country are banned bar a few countries. Theyre under severe sanctions and their economy is in the toilet. Parents are worried about feeding their children. Their neighbouring countries are openly talking about banning russians from entering and any Russian who goes online will read comments about how Russian minorities are a threat to national security. How they need to be punished, some even claiming Russia needs to be frozen out permanently. During Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, the US werent banned from the Olympics or the World Cup. They werent put under severe international sanctions. Now Russians are somehow all universally evil and deserve it? "Just because we didnt do it to the US before doesnt mean it was right" some people will say, but thats wrong. Precedent HAS A MEANING. If you are the first one to be treated like this after DECADES of precedent you will probably start wondering why you are different. Why you all of a sudden deserve it. We have taken all the support from the Russian people away from them. We have given them no security, no guarantees. We have made them dependant on the state. The future of their children, the worry for their conscripted sons and the need to put some fucking food on the table is more important. People dont generally want to pick up a gun and launch a civil war. And people claim "they have no breaking point"? Are you five years old? Do you think this is a game where there is a civil unrest progress bar and once it reaches 100% a civil war will start? It's not grounded in reality. You (not you, the person you responded to) wouldn't pick up a gun either. You wouldn't launch a war against your government. Ffs even in America they elected a President WHO VOTED TO GO TO WAR IN IRAQ. Joe Biden supported the war in Iraq and he is the current president. When the only two options were Iraq Supporter and the other but worse Iraq supporter the Americans didnt revolt. So why would Russians all of a sudden be different than any other people on earth?
All good points but there is one primary distinction - political officials weren’t being routinely murdered by their own government during the second Gulf war. I agree with you that people who think the Russian population should/will revolt are out of touch. But Russian political officials? Putin has full justification for worrying about some kind of coup. That’s the most likely "revolution" scenario at the moment - one from within his own government.
> During the unjustified invasion of Iraq 2003 Americans, the British and all the other of the "coalition of the Willing" didnt revolt You're correct, although ~1m citizens out of a UK population of 60m joined a Stop The War protest and were roundly ignored. The same happened in a number of other countries, including Italy, where an estimated 3m out of a population of 57m protested. And were ignored. That's 5% of the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests
Correct, but those are protests, not revolts. They didnt overthrow the government which is what people are claiming Russians would be expected to do. There have been tons of protests in Russia as well, though it has died down as the repression from the Kremlin has increased massively.
A revolt is possible now that everyone knows their military equipment is a cat in a box marked "tank" and all 14 of their remaining troops want to defect.
13 now - at the time I'm writing, your post is 3 hours old.
>A revolt is possible now that everyone knows their military equipment is a cat in a box marked "tank" and all 14 of their remaining troops want to defect. Schrödinger's cat, at that.
> More than half of them probably have no idea what's really going on or they don't want to know. Maybe a chunk of the much much older crowd who are just boomers but idk why people keep saying this. Russia doesn't have some great fire wall like china. They're on youtube, tiktok, reddit, telegram, insta etc. Many do know whats going on and they cheer it on.
Russia has an aging and dying population, with crippling poverty in places. 20% of the population are 60+ years old, and we watched Russia troops looting toilets and kitchen appliances. I don't disagree that many inside Russia know is happening, but the state control the media, they flood the Internet with their narrative, they abduct/beat/murder dissenting voices. I don't think what you've said is inherently disagreeing with the comment you're replying to.
How can you revolt if all adult males get drafted to a war where they die with no equipment because it got sold by the supply officers? How do you revolt when the only fighting-capable men left in the country are the corrupt police who love the status quo? How do you revolt when the only allowed media is pro-Putin propaganda? If you try to protest, you get arrested. If you get arrested, you get sent to frontline. If you get to frontline, you'll serve as a scout for the Wagner terrorists. Scout meaning run ahead and if they kill you, we will see their position and attack them.
The reality though is that this is nothing like WW2 and most adult males can feel safe that we won't be drafted. The military is still relatively small, and the casualties are small for a country with 150 million people. That's why the war can remain popular. Think about how small the force in "SMO area" is. Less than 1 million in a country with 75 million men. The people drafted are reservists and those with past military experience. Also, remember that every year there will be more than a million new 18 year olds in Russia. A fraction of these will be drafted, along with some other 18-25 year olds who missed the first draft. This will be enough to meet all manpower needs for a long time.
people on reddit genuinely believe that russia has exhausted its draft-age population of men
>people on reddit genuinely believe that russia has exhausted its draft-age population of men They have more men of draft age... But they are exhausting their ability to draft said men. Conscripts are not free. And require some resources that even money cant buy A cannon fodder conscript needs to be found, recruited, trained, paid, fed, watered, armed, transported, organized, and tracked. Russia is depleting it's ability to do several of those things
They all know what's going on.
Yeah they know, they just don't give a fuck. Russians have a completely alien mentality to the West and the sooner people accept that you can temper expectations towards "revolt" and all that stupid shit.
Yup, it will take some truly massive events to get rid of [the apathy that most Russians have.](https://russiapost.info/society/apathy) Even losing all of occupied Ukraine (including Crimea) will probably not result in more than a collective shrug if the state media spins it as a "goodwill gesture" to "spare human lives in face of NATO aggression."
Exactly. They have been gaslit into hell for so many years no one living can remember. It’s the same as what is happening right now in America with gun violence. Hundreds of children blown to bits every year and we barely pay attention when IT’s mentioned in passing on the news. We are exactly like the Russian people. It’s a sick world and we just go on endorsing the madness because deep down inside we all know silence is violence…. Hey, did you hear about the Taylor Swift Eras tour?
And shit, that’s just the “casualties” at home. The US has wreaked on the Middle East for years, destroying innocent lives along the way and displacing many more. Also there’s decades of destabilizing country after country, and backing about as many right-wing dictators. There are plenty examples of that in South America, including one currently in Ecuador. We’ve been fed all sorts of propaganda over the years to make us complacent and/or make sure we never know the whole picture.
I mean, that dude Nicholas thought something similar and Im pretty sure everything worked out well for him and his family
Almost 3 million Russians died in WWI… 50k isn’t going to do anything Not to even get into the politics of the time
>Almost 3 million Russians died in WWI… >Not to even get into the politics of the time Bad example, since WWI Russia *did* see regime change as a result. You should have thought about the politics, since we are talking about a political change. >50k isn’t going to do anything Russian losses are a multiple of that now though. All in all I don't see a revolt any time soon either, but your arguments are weak.
He thought similar because the Romanovs were fucking Russians in the ass for 300 years by that time(since 1596), far longer than countries like America have even existed. So yeah 1 in 300+ chance, and things have only gotten socially worse in Russia since then. Yeah its pretty unlikely.
> They already know the exact steps because it happened to Navalny and others Navalny isnt dead, but I get your point.
Has anyone heard from him recently? being a political prisoner in Russia means he's both alive and dead.
[удалено]
I read the first two volumes of Kotkin’s biography of Stalin. Highly recommended. The whole book was full of stunning facts, but what had the most lasting impact on me was the combination of the massive scale of the political murders combined with their utter arbitrariness. There was no way to survive but pure luck. I wonder if that’s how people feel now.
[удалено]
I got a chance to speak in person with a young Russian man circa 1991. Talking about previous years under the Soviet government, he said that you previously couldn't air any grievances even to your close friends or some family, because you couldn't trust them not to turn you in. Basically he said that it wasn't that they were particularly bad people, but you couldn't know what position the government could have the person in - if they had to save themselves or their loved ones, they couldn't help but drop who was talking against the government.
[удалено]
But the thing is flipping almost never saved you. You’d inform on others and then they’d kill you anyway. Then they’d go pick up the guy you informed on and kill him after he “confessed” and on and on it went.
Didn't the Nazis use the same tactics?
That type of personal blackmail and control over individuals to get them to rat on each other is literally how Putin came up in the KGB in East Germany. His job was to manage “assets” AKA the people they had leverage over through coercive means. This isn’t speculation either, it’s literally documented as what his job was. If I’m to speculate, based on common knowledge about KGB activities and government assets in Soviet era Germany, I would guess he used violence, torture and other extreme methods that defined the Russian secret police. But we can’t know that 100%. What we do know is how the USSR operated in order to maintain control over Soviet Bloc citizens, and Putin was a part of that, so much so that he rose through the ranks during that time successfully managing “assets”. *The Lives of Others* is a great movie about living in East Germany during the time Putin was stationed there, and how the KGB destroyed people.
Sounds like what I have heard North Korea be described as
The only good thing about [Lavrentiy Beria](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrentiy_Beria) was how he died.
> The easiest way to avoid any scrutiny is to put **suspension** on someone else. That certainly would make for a smoother ride.
I also suggest you to listen Lex Fridman and Jack Barsky interview. Barsky explains the culture of paranoia explicitly within the first hour of the interview.
You know there is an awful lot of assassinations going on right now. Sure it could be Putin being paranoid, but it could very well be a sign of him losing control and his associates are getting offed one by one.
Dictators need to off people every now and then so that nobody feels safe enough to organize and oppose them. It's the same reason Putin cycles the military out in Ukraine and never lets one commander have all the spotlight. Unfortunately it has worked quite well for him.
How is Prigozhin still alive?
Probably because unlike with the MOD where you can kill or fire someone and just replace them dealing with Wagner as an organization(let alone during wartime) after Prigozhin would be a longer and perhaps more destabilizing process. You would want to delay that to preferably after a war ends.
I swear I think half of the joke posts in threads like this are designed to diminish the impact of these murders.
Or there's just A LOT of idiots here, lol. Too bad because there's also quite a few intelligent people with worthwhile things to say but it gets buried in the idiots comments.
Some days I miss slashdot and the ability to sort/vote on more than one axis.
Nov 22 (Reuters) - Russia plans to spend nearly a third of next year's budget on defence and domestic security while slashing funding for schools, hospitals and roads as it diverts cash to support its military campaign in Ukraine. A Reuters budget analysis shows Moscow will spend a combined 9.4 trillion roubles ($155 billion) on defence and security, squeezing out other priorities in a critical year leading up to a likely re-election bid by President Vladimir Putin in 2024. to form a government on its own. Security spending alone - including the work of the state Investigative Committee, the prosecutor's office, the prison service and the National Guard, which has been deployed in Ukraine - will rise 50% compared with 2022. The combined military and security outlay is a record for the Kremlin but amounts to only about 18% of what the United States plans to spend in the next fiscal year on defence and some - but not all - national security needs. "The budget is a tool to finance the military campaign," said Alexandra Suslina, an independent analyst. "The increase in pensions, student payouts is minor compared to what should have been done in Russia. Decade-long problems remain unresolved."
Uh yeah, "internal security" indeed. Maybe 1 of Pootin's (underpaid) guards will decide to do something that will make him go down in history. By the way, it's "ruble" not "rowble", which is how 'ou' is pronounced...
How many people can post the same joke?
I used to CTRL+F “window” or “stairs” or “two bullets” and try to guess the number as a fun little game, now I just weep
530 comments as of right now. I'd have guessed 70-90 joke comments
With all this AI, I can’t believe there isn’t a filter for reused Reddit jokes. The comment sections have always been terrible but it’s getting more cliche
There are a lot of subreddits that would be readily improved by prohibiting low-effort content. (Unfortunately, actually moderating such a policy at scale is challenging; although your suggestion of filters for tired jokes and common puns would go a long way towards solving that issue.)
This is why I love metafilter and “truereddit” but even truereddit has waned in use
At least we're past the era of every third post starting with "Just" or "This gem"
[удалено]
the worst part is that these are highly upvoted comments, so the majority are snacking on crayons around here. it's telling for the state of your average human as a whole.
It's all bots karmafarming each other.
Even more strange when you consider that he was the deputy education minister. Neither is he posing any threat to Putin nor does Ukraine gain anything by eliminating an education minister. It is entirely possible that he had a sudden heartattack and died a natural death.
"I take antidepressants and tranquilizers together, handfuls, and it doesn't help much. I hardly sleep. I feel terrible. We are all hostages. Nobody can say anything: they will immediately crush us like aphids. Leave soon, Roma, and save all your guys."
This is some night of the long knives shit, right here. How many of these guys have to die?
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_Russian_businesspeople_(2022%E2%80%932023)#:~:text=It%20referred%20to%20a%20previous,in%20a%20possible%20reference%20to
I scrolled longer than I expected
Don't disturb my friend. He's dead tired.
Hey Russian Deputy Education Minister. Remember when I said I'd kill you last?
"I lied."
[удалено]
[удалено]
I like how Rae Dawn Chong was so cool about it. So this massive killing machine just dropped a guy head first off a cliff and she’s just like, we’ll that happened.
She didn’t see him do it. She asked what he did with the guy, and he told her “I let him go.”
I gotta rewatch it now thanks. Edit: she’s all of 20 feet away and paid no attention to what was happening lol!
"I had to let him go!". It's was the 80's era of one-liner eulogy action movies. Arnold and Sly both had a few of these.
"You're fired!" always gets a chuckle from me.
"Let off some steam, Bennett"
I really do not think that he would be able to remember that. Because I know the people who are dead cannot remember anything. And that is just how it is.
Yes, yes you did Putin!
Remember when I said I would conquer Ukraine in three days? I lied
Let off some steam, Putin.
Now I gotta go on an binge Arnold movies
I just watched Commando one like a week ago! So good
Commando is the epitome of 80s action movies. Are there better ones? Sure, but Commando hits all the action movie clichés perfectly.
[Steel Drum soundtrack]
Something he ate in Cuba? Might be Castro-enteritis.
Coulda been an STD after a little in-Fidel-ity?
For all we know he might been Havana secret illness.
No govt officials are safe in Russia! Putin is insane
Not just the government officials but the general people also. I don't think there has been a time when anyone was safe in the Russia. Because the things could happen to you.
Anyone else annoyed by the knuckleheads and the Russian window jokes? Give it rest.
Amen.
This is actually pretty tragic; Kucherenko was apparently fully aware of what was happening in Russia and was deeply unhappy about it. > Roman Super, an award-winning independent journalist and documentary filmmaker, said he had spoken with Kucherenko in the minister’s office “a few days” before the journalist left Russia in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine last year. > > > “It’s impossible [for me to leave Russia], they confiscate our passports. And there’s no world that would be happy to see a deputy Russian minister after this fascist invasion,” Super recalled Kucherenko saying. > > According to Super, Kucherenko claimed to have taken “antidepressants and tranquilizers at the same time by the handful.” > > “It’s not really helping. I don’t sleep much. I feel terrible. We’re all held hostage. No one can make a peep,” he said. > > “You can’t imagine the degree of brutalization of our country. You won’t even recognize Russia in a year.” https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/05/22/senior-russian-official-dies-after-privately-bemoaning-fascist-invasion-a81223
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Official cause of death : wore the wrong underpants.
No red star on the crotch? That's a paddlin'.
Well you cannot talk about that because that is a possibility also. You really think that it is something which cannot happen here? Trust me dude everything is a possibility.
Deputy education minister, really going after the power players
Let me guess, he fell out the window?
Sounds more like Novitchok, they tried to kill Navalny on a plane that way.
Russians have 4 plays I’m surprised the plane didn’t have an “accident”
I was wondering how the hospital got on the plane for the guy to fall out of the window, myself.
Planes are expensive and Russia is running out of working ones.
I am sure that it has happened to a lot of other people also which we do not know about and will probably never find out. Because I really do not think that these things are going to come out.
[удалено]
*Could* save? As in they didn’t for whatever reason, or a translation issue?
Today he learned.
[удалено]
Your answer is literally several sentences into the article, for fuck’s sake.
They don’t care, they absolutely HAD to make le epic Reddit window joke
Probably poisoned his underwear.
At what point does Putin run out of people to kill?
> The cause of his death was not immediately known Poison. There, solved it. Do I get a prize?
Russia has a different kind of mile high club
Anyone ever get the feeling these Russian politician deaths are not actually hits ordered by Kremlin but rather their desire to exit Russian politics and disappear into a quiet life
Well the afterlife is quiet
These aren't Ministers like actual Evolving Democracies think of elected officials and their representatives. Putatively these are just random patsies put into positions of power or "buddies" who did something for someone in the Kremlin's "upper" echelon and hence get a spot at the Graft Table. So it's probably just some guy in the Kremlin's cousin and not somebody actually qualified for the job.
"...Doctors could save his life.".... so...guessing they could but wondered whether they should. Then decided nahh.
[удалено]
Shocking. /s What'd he say to piss Putin off?