He and his parents were among the last in their village to take a Russian passport, but the pressure was becoming unbearable.
By his third beating at the hands of the Russian soldiers occupying Ukraine’s Kherson region, Vyacheslav Ryabkov caved. The soldiers broke two of his ribs, but his face was not bruised for his unsmiling passport photo, taken in September 2023.
It wasn’t enough.
In December, they caught the welder on his way home from work. Then one slammed his rifle butt down on Ryabkov’s face, smashing the bridge of his nose.
“Why don’t you fight for us? You already have a Russian passport,” they demanded. The beating continued as the 42-year-old fell unconscious.
“Let’s finish this off,” one soldier said. A friend ran for Ryabkov’s mother.
Russia has successfully imposed its passports on nearly the entire population of occupied Ukraine by making it impossible to survive without them, coercing hundreds of thousands of people into citizenship ahead of elections Vladimir Putin has made certain he will win, an Associated Press investigation has found. But accepting a passport means that men living in occupied territory can be drafted to fight against the same Ukrainian army that is trying to free them.
They don’t condemn Russia or the US leaders that push Putin’s agenda here - that’s how it’s support. How could it be anything else?
To answer that: political view has more options than condemn and support.
Of course, imo, they should condemn putin, his supporters, trum, biden, scholz, macron and the whole idea of those beeing the options of development of our societies.
But its not helpfull for us to tune in on 2 dimensional, under-complex concepts of social development/politics
I understand your point, but I think the logic you are presenting is what is enabling these people. Ask yourself - what is the nuance in the Ukraine war? Fence sitting, and talking out both sides of your mouth about how we should condemn Putin yet also accept there is nuance to these issues is dangerous. It’s not complicated. If you don’t condemn Putin’s actions, you are implicitly accepting/agreeing that Ukraine should be wiped out.
Putin relies on the populace accepting that there is “nuance” to the Ukraine war. Russia has conditioned (or at least is trying to condition) the population (in the west) into adopting this logic but the reality is that there is no nuance to this issue. What nuance could there be to an aggressor invading someone’s land?
Have you read that I said “of course they should condemn putin …”?
What I’m doing is not relativizing the invasion, but the opinions about it.
It’s a meta level. I’m not talking about nuances of the war, but nuances of political views. The article and the discussion is on that level.
I agree with your call for clear (and plain coherent/realistic) condemnation of the war. Nevertheless this should not be confused with analyzing how many and how and why people don’t see it that way.
Otherwise we give up a better understanding of what people think, which we need in order to find strategies to influence the discours on realities terms. (Reality meaning the reality of conciousness(es) about the war, not the war. That part we already agree on)
