ANOTHER TRY AT EXPLAINING RUSSIA

 The Perched Eye blog is 12+ years old,  from 2009 with President Obama's election. Our focus has been eclectic ...  the ways and directions of American politics and culture, and occasionally commenting on the potential impact of new technologies. Pericles21's observations sometimes attract a critical eye, but the 'pen' remains unblunted. 

Russia’s Ukraine misadventure, Putin's "Special Operation", has transformed Russia’s aura from perhaps a somewhat romantic mystery to just plain national psychopathy.

Today, October 31, 2022, I, fortunately, stumbled across James Sunderland’s 2018 Medium piece, Twelve Reasons Why Russia Sucks, (Medium, June 9, 2018), … his grim picture of Russian culture and people from his years in Russia. (Is October 31 apropos for the decrepitude Sunderland observed in Russia?)

I wrote a ‘reply’ to Sunderland’s piece, below.

I had no knowledge of Sunderland’s 2018 piece before I wrote my own Medium, August 24, 2022, ‘Russia’ article - SOMETHING ABOUT RUSSIA: A LOOK AT ITS EMBARRASSING, SELF-DESTRUCTIVE INVASION OF UKRAINE… , (Medium, August 24, 2022).

Sunderland’s 2018 observations on Russia’s dark culture, alcoholism, and the hopelessness of its people eerily reinforce my August 2022 perceptions of what Russia might be made of (op cite). My perceptions are formed in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February 24, 2022, and the in-country behavior of Russian troops in their rape of Ukrainian women, girls, children, men of all ages…and their drunken rampages through the occupied Ukraine territories.

My reply to Sunderland’s 2018 article (op cite):

“This is a frightening, depressing (and more), yet terribly apt piece in the current 2022 context of Vladimir Putin’s national mobilization forcing “300,000 patriots” to go fight against Ukrainians in Putin’s ‘Special Military Operation’ that doesn’t even barely disguise Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. This piece [Sunderland’s] clearly explains for me the war crimes Russian soldiers (and Wagner Group mercenaries) have committed on innocent Ukrainian citizens during the last 8 months of 2022. No wonder Ukrainians refer to the Russian troops as “Orcs” [as Sunderland also uses]…, demons from Hell driven by dark forces and blind drunk rage to kill and maim.”

Russia’s Ukraine misadventure has transformed Russia’s aura from perhaps a somewhat romantic mystery to just plain national psychopathy. (Russia seems to resemble a lost soul that wanders and blindly stumbles among modern nations that are striving to move on to the future.)”

Meanwhile, Russian citizens sheepishly bleat weak protests, allow themselves to be herded into cattle cars to deliver them to the Ukraine front lines…without training (a few weeks or even just a couple of days), with no uniforms or medical supplies, and even family-provided food … and obsolete, rusted weapons (or none) from WW2 (or even WW1), and 20–40 bullets that may explode in the barrels when ‘fired.’

That picture of the grossly inadequate preparation of Russian conscripts for front-line battle is even worse than I predicted in my recent September 2022, Medium piece, HOW UNPREPARED CAN NEW RUSSIAN CONSCRIPTS BE? I WAS SO RIGHT! SADLY (Medium, September 30, 2022).

My September 30, 2022, perception of how grossly under-supported Russian conscripts are going into battle in Ukraine: “I did not expect my September 20 exaggeration to fall short of just how rediculously pitiful their plight mught accturally be. I underestimated the idiocy and social debacle Putin’s ‘Mobilization’ has started.”

The best for the Russian people, and of course for Ukrainians, is for Russia to cease hostilities and leave Ukraine (intact).