He could have, until his very much put-upon subjects started noticing the citizens of their neighbouring country, with its similar history and culture, thriving in a way that’s denied to them. (It’s one thing for Russians to see Poland or Estonia, former imperial dependencies with different languages, alphabets, religious observances and such, become affluent liberal democracies and shrug it off as ineffable cultural difference, but Ukraine’s history is a lot more closely intertwined with Russia’s, and arguments that The Ukrainians Are Not Like Us would ring hollow.)
The funny part is that Ukraine, Estonia, and Latvia had their own problems and I would prefer living in Russia pre-2022 than in pre-2022 Ukraine or Latvia. If we forget, of course, about the unpredictability risk of having a madman as a ruler
He could have, until his very much put-upon subjects started noticing the citizens of their neighbouring country, with its similar history and culture, thriving in a way that’s denied to them. (It’s one thing for Russians to see Poland or Estonia, former imperial dependencies with different languages, alphabets, religious observances and such, become affluent liberal democracies and shrug it off as ineffable cultural difference, but Ukraine’s history is a lot more closely intertwined with Russia’s, and arguments that The Ukrainians Are Not Like Us would ring hollow.)
Meh, he still could have easily ridden that out. This reality is demonstrably the worse narrative for him.
The funny part is that Ukraine, Estonia, and Latvia had their own problems and I would prefer living in Russia pre-2022 than in pre-2022 Ukraine or Latvia. If we forget, of course, about the unpredictability risk of having a madman as a ruler