Navalny has always been a supporter of a concept referred to as "Russkiy Mir"[1] and has spoke at length about it. It is a weird ethno religious philosophy which shows the bounds of the russian country extend far past the borders of teh russian federation. The closest I can easily describe it is as a weird western version of jihad where they want to assume all other cultures and erase them in favor of expansion of their own via multiple methods.
In 2007, in a Russian "Gun Rights" video, Navalny compared the Chechen muslims to "cockroaches and flies" and said he wanted to exterminate them. A picture of a Chechen muslim appears on the screen and he shoots it with a pistol. In another [2] video it featured Navalny dressed as a dentist, presenting a slightly confusing parable that likened interethnic conflict in Russia to cavities and argued that fascism can be prevented only by deporting migrants from Russia. Navalny closed his monologue with “We have a right to be [ethnic] Russians in Russia. And we will defend this right.” This is an allegory to killing all non-ethnic Russians.
In 2008 when Russia invaded the country of Georgia. He said[3]:
Of course, there is a big desire to fire a cruise missile at the General Staff of the [derogative name for Georgians], but they are just waiting for this.
Years later, he apologized for the ethnic slur denoting Georgian people, but never for his support of the Russian war on Georgia.
In an interview with Echo of Moscow radio station in October 2014, Navalny admitted that the peninsula had been seized through “outrageous violations of all international norms”, and yet asserted that it would “remain part of Russia” and would “never become part of Ukraine in the foreseeable future”.
His statement was not simply an assessment of the developments around Crimea. When pressed on whether he would return Crimea to Ukraine were he to become Russia’s president, Navalny wrapped his “No” in an odd question: “What? Is Crimea a sandwich or something that you can take and give back?” His position on Crimea was basically, "finders keepers."
Also in 2014, here[4] he is using one of the worst ethnic slurs for Ukrainians making fun of them.
In 2016, Navalny said that he intended to hold a "normal" referendum in Russian-occupied Crimea if he won the Russian presidential election. Note that Russia has forcibly killed or deported many/most ethnic Tatar peoples and native Ukrainians from Crimea. They've allowed Russian people to come occupy it and settle the lands, so by definition, any referendum would be with invaders on invaded territory. It would be a sham.
In 2023, he offered a 15 point "manifesto"[5] where he changed tac quite a bit, but this was after some prominent navalnyists were pissing off western journalists with their staunch anti-ukraine message, all in line with Russkiy Mir.
I can go on and on and on, but his support of violence and cleansing the world of non-russians goes back a long time. I just spent a few minutes to find these but if you dig in you can find the same and more.
He did all of that, true, but all of that no longer matters. Nobody cares about Che Guevara personality or political views, when they wear a t-shirt with his portrait. He became a symbol of resistance and Alexey will become another one, an iconic figure who was poisoned, but returned home to continue his fight.
I concur. What he stood for was a more free, open, and democratic Russia. In reality, if Russia was more friendly with the west, it would be 100x more prosperous. It is really a shame the old Chekists are still in charge. As large as the Russian Federation is in people and land mass, their economy would be an order of magnitude larger if it was ran better. Such a shame.
Most Russians would disagree with you. The worst time (economically) for the vast majority of people was peak friendliness with the West under Yeltsin. Economically Russia was actually doing very well just before 2022.
Sure but that was right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Takes some time and Putin himself was outwardly more cooperative with the West back in the day.
Also in the USA congress makes the budget but the president always gets blame or credit for the economy(it's more complicated sure, but it all falls on the POTUS).
Economically significant part of Russian population is doing quite well right now, thanks to generous military spending. Inequality dropped, working class is earning the money they have never seen before. Nevertheless I do not think this would in any way imply that they want to be in a state of war forever.
My point was that Russia is a large extremely natural resource rich country. It has a lot of culture and a lot of people. It would be much better off exporting goods to the west instead of continuing the Cold War.
It should in theory be able to export much more than just energy products to the west. America has a virtually infinite appetite for consumption and labor costs in Russia are quite low due to different standards of living.
The problem of course is infrastructure rot and corruption have gutted much of the non Muskovy areas of the Russian federation. It’s a pipe dream that will never happen, but it would be a wonderful world where Russia is actually friendly with the west and loses their imperial ambitions.
>The problem of course is infrastructure rot and corruption have gutted much of the non Muskovy areas of the Russian federation.
Export infrastructure is in a very good shape (e.g. railroads, which are used for export of coal, grain etc, pipelines and container terminals) and there’s plenty of new manufacturing capacity there across the country. Russia does have industrial policy for import substitution since 2000s and managed to localize some production, so this is not really a problem.
The real problem is the shortage of labor, the unemployment is already very low there. Just like in USA and Europe it is partially solved by the immigration from Global South, in this case from Central Asia. But this also means that skilled labor is not super-cheap. Russia can be a strong partner on some markets (energy, aerospace, IT) and can bring a lot of value in entrepreneurial culture and customer service (unknown to the West, but superior to anywhere else in Europe).
Yeah I wouldn't say it would be 100x more prosperous. Look at the 90s under US puppet Yeltsin. That was the time to show how good cooperation with the west will be but didn't happen. Russia was treated as any South American or African country was treated. I'm not from Russia but heaps of westerners (not only US) came to buy up businesses and spread Christianity. They literally did nothing in terms of investments and creating institutions except for capturing mining rights.
Although I would add that I personally think Russia has not really developed much in the last 10 years under him. He really needs to invest into changes.
This is a very inaccurate picture of that period. Yeltsin wasn’t anyone’s puppet for sure and Russia was not treated as a colony. All economic struggles of that period happened for several purely internal reasons: transition from planning to market economy cannot happen instantly - a lot of processes had to adapt and recalibrate; rule of law was not established, because the legal system and law enforcement had to be reformed and a lot of new laws had to be written (e.g. modern law on bankruptcy was enacted only in 2000s IIRC); dissolution of USSR broke a lot of economic ties. The West actually helped a lot in that period of time, offering credits, even sending humanitarian aid. Western investment from major consumer brands like Unilever, Coca-Cola or P&G brought management skills and standards of work, entrepreneurial culture was heavily influenced by America etc.
"He did all of that, true, but all of that no longer matters."
Because he is dead.
"Nobody cares about Che Guevara personality or political views, when they wear a t-shirt with his portrait."
But I have never seen anyone wearing it, without them thinking it is somehow connected to good socialism and revolution. Mostly in ignorance of the actual person and events, sure, but not ignoring the political views.
I don't see how Russia is culturally part of "the West" in any meaningful way.
We can debate whether, say, Poland or Hungary is, but Russia is, to me, surely not part of any meaningful definition of the West (in a cultural sense)
"but Russia is, to me, surely not part of any meaningful definition of the West (in a cultural sense)"
Why not? The roots are probably in norse/viking people mixing with the locals and it later became a christian country by force, like the rest of europe, though orthodox (like greece is for example). It always was more off, sure, but for example Alexander II greatly invested in connections into the rest of europe. Russian thinkers and writers were greatly influential in europe, like Tolstoi and Dostojewski, or more to my liking: Bakunin and Kropotkin.
The whole east and sibiria always was and is different, but west of Ural traditionally had strong connections with the rest of europe.
Yes, actual Russians (??????) are from Russia tower, now Old Russa tower (?????? ?????), which was on Russia river, now Porussia river, but Russians renamed their country to Ukraine, to avoid confusion with Russian (Moscow) Empire.
Russian (Rossian) Federation doesn't contain a region named "Russia". Russians (Russish, ???????) are believers of Russian Orthodox church and not a nation at all, like Catholics are not a nation. Rossians (????????) is.
Many nations, such as Tatars, Mordva, etc., were turned into Russians (Russish) by a process called "Russification", when stolen Russians Orthodox Church was used as tool to enslave peoples and erase their identity by giving them Russian names and forbidding to use their native language in favor of Russian Church Slavonic language. Scratch a Russian and you find a Tatar[1].
Note that Russia has forcibly killed or deported many/most ethnic Tatar peoples and native Ukrainians from Crimea.
— where is the reference for that please? I am from Crimea and have both Russian and Ukrainian friends there, I have never heard of anything like that happening.
Agreed with most of your points on Navalny though.
Wrong - I am actually Tatar with Ukrainian passport, but it’s a long story…
Just read the article you quoted. Are you referring to 1944? We can go all the way down to Crimean war if you want. Your original statement made an impression that you were referring to recent events?
Thanks for those links. Let me address them. As a side note, it is interesting to see how you were not satisfied with the official western media coverage of Navalny but suddenly referring to them - Spectator, Times - when it comes to Crimean Tatars.. Putting this aside
The article refers to human rights violations documented by Crimean Tatar Resource Centre. I had a quick look at this organisation and here is the list of its “partners” - all openly stated:
https://ctrcenter.org/en/o-nas/nashi-partnery - NATO Information and Documentation Centre, USAIDS, PACT Ukraine, etc. - all huge friends of Russia, obviously seeking unbiased views on the situation. Can you trust that source? Maybe. I remember those “human rights organisations” from my teenage years when they suddenly started to pop up all over the peninsular after the USSR collapse, telling me about my rights that were apparently violated. I had not invited any of them and never appreciated any of their business, all targeted to destroy the state rather than protect human rights. Personal opinion of course.
As for those cases mentioned in the article
1. Roman Osmanov is currently facing an administrative charge of online petty hooliganism. Sorry, this is neither killing nor deportation. Not even a criminal offence.
2. Leniye Umerova – from what I understand from the article, she didn’t accept the choice of the majority of Crimean people on the referendum and fled to Kyiv in 2015. Her parents are still in Crimea. Again, nobody deported or killed. In the same article the author says that she freely crossed the border to visit her parent in Evpatoria (eastern Crimea) and had been doing so since 2015 until she was eventually detained in December 2022. So she crossed the border freely every year until that detention when FSB accused her of having sensitive information about Russian forces locations in Kyiv region on her phone. True? False? Who knows.. It’s a wartime and so entirely possible. No killing or deporting still.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/5/7400834/https://www.interfax.ru/russia/901646
3. Appaz Kurtamet - According to the investigation, he transferred 500 hryvnias (US$13.67) to a member of the Krym Battalion. Krym Battalion is an interesting one, it was created by Ukraine to perform terrorist attacks in Crimea and is declared a terrorist organisation in Russia. Did the Russians have rights to arrest him? Sounds like it. Was it too much for a young boy? Probably. No killing or deporting.
To your second article
2. https://spectator.org/the-unseeing-years-russias-ethnic-clea...
Ervin Ibragimov was probably exactly what it says in the article. What can I say? Appalling and disgraceful behaviour of Russian DPS. Bless this guy. Situation in Crimea in 2014 was very very dangerous. It was a miracle that the war didn’t break back then. It does appear that this was a violation.
3. times.co.uk - apologies the page won’t open without registration, and I am not prepared to subscribe to Tories’ propaganda.
Crimea is a complicated case. Ukraine has always tried to play on the tension between us and the Russians. Especially so after 1992 when Crimea declared independence and tried to adopt its own constitution. Among other things Ukraine allowed organisations like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hizb_ut-Tahrir (recently declared a terrorist organisation by UK btw) to operate on the peninsula.
Since 2014 Crimea has three official languages - Tatar, Ukrainian and Russian. Before that it only had one – Ukrainian. We were granted amnesty for “unlawfully seized” lands and were allowed to privatise those territories. I am not trying to say it’s black or white, but I do believe those Tatars who chose to remain on the peninsula are a lot better off now compared to pre-referendum time.
What about this summary of the current human rights situation in the Republic of Crimea, from Wikipedia:
United Nations monitors (who had been in Crimea from 2 April to 6 May 2014) said they were concerned about treatment of journalists, sexual, religious and ethnic minorities and AIDS patients.[115] The monitors had found that journalists and activists who had opposed the 2014 Crimean referendum had been harassed and abducted.[116] They also reported that Crimeans who had not applied for Russian citizenship faced harassment and intimidation.[115]
According to Human Rights Watch "Russia has violated multiple obligations it has as an occupying power under international humanitarian law – in particular in relation to the protection of civilians' rights."[117][55]
In its November 2014 report on Crimea, Human Rights Watch stated that "The de facto authorities in Crimea have limited free expression, restricted peaceful assembly, and intimidated and harassed those who have opposed Russia's actions in Crimea".[118] According to the report, 15 persons went missing since March 2014; according to Ukrainian authorities 21 people disappeared.[67]
In 2007, in a Russian "Gun Rights" video, Navalny compared the Chechen muslims to "cockroaches and flies" and said he wanted to exterminate them. A picture of a Chechen muslim appears on the screen and he shoots it with a pistol. In another [2] video it featured Navalny dressed as a dentist, presenting a slightly confusing parable that likened interethnic conflict in Russia to cavities and argued that fascism can be prevented only by deporting migrants from Russia. Navalny closed his monologue with “We have a right to be [ethnic] Russians in Russia. And we will defend this right.” This is an allegory to killing all non-ethnic Russians.
In 2008 when Russia invaded the country of Georgia. He said[3]:
Years later, he apologized for the ethnic slur denoting Georgian people, but never for his support of the Russian war on Georgia.In an interview with Echo of Moscow radio station in October 2014, Navalny admitted that the peninsula had been seized through “outrageous violations of all international norms”, and yet asserted that it would “remain part of Russia” and would “never become part of Ukraine in the foreseeable future”.
His statement was not simply an assessment of the developments around Crimea. When pressed on whether he would return Crimea to Ukraine were he to become Russia’s president, Navalny wrapped his “No” in an odd question: “What? Is Crimea a sandwich or something that you can take and give back?” His position on Crimea was basically, "finders keepers."
Also in 2014, here[4] he is using one of the worst ethnic slurs for Ukrainians making fun of them.
In 2016, Navalny said that he intended to hold a "normal" referendum in Russian-occupied Crimea if he won the Russian presidential election. Note that Russia has forcibly killed or deported many/most ethnic Tatar peoples and native Ukrainians from Crimea. They've allowed Russian people to come occupy it and settle the lands, so by definition, any referendum would be with invaders on invaded territory. It would be a sham.
In 2023, he offered a 15 point "manifesto"[5] where he changed tac quite a bit, but this was after some prominent navalnyists were pissing off western journalists with their staunch anti-ukraine message, all in line with Russkiy Mir.
I can go on and on and on, but his support of violence and cleansing the world of non-russians goes back a long time. I just spent a few minutes to find these but if you dig in you can find the same and more.
[1] https://dgap.org/en/events/russkiy-mir-russian-world
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICoc2VmGdfw
[3] https://navalny.livejournal.com/274456.html
[4] https://twitter.com/navalny/status/505215151961014272
[5] https://twitter.com/navalny/status/1627632098608644099
reply