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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31762 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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Thanks for the sources will definitely check them. I am generally very skeptical of enthusiasm for post-maidan Ukraine. Economic indicators don’t show a developing country at all, their demographics are still collapsing at East Asian levels and my only personal experience with Ukraine in the last decade has been the white woman trade in Turkey shifting from Russian to Ukrainian sourced.

I have strong suspicions most of this enthusiasm comes from a small group of well connected well educated people who suddenly received a flush of western NGO money and political power. I am very familiar with the Turkish version of this class of people and I see everyday how their views of the country influence foreigners so much. Creates a strange echo chamber where an average German is getting reflected back the views their own government is paying those locals to hold. The difference is those people are constantly limited and hindered by the Turkish government while they have free rein in Ukraine.

I have no illusions about Russia’s power of winning hearts and minds either. Their economic recovery miracle failed to take off and now indefinitely cancelled. What sensible person would want to live there instead of the “West”? Especially if they don’t even have to leave home and the west comes to their country. Turkey was supposed to be “almost” entering the EU recently as well so I get that feeling of hope for a better future very well. It’s quite likely the Kremlin boomers finally realised that they are definitely going to lose all influence in Ukraine soon and got scared of what might come if Ukraine with a fully NATO trained army and very hostile population decided to solve the Crimea problem once and for all. Then they fucked even that up…

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