Interesting conversation with a local Ukrainian man.
Because of my wife I know a large number of local Russian speaking Ukrainians. I was talking to a 29 year old Ukrainian man Saturday that came here when he was 9 years old. Very nice articulate young man. His parents moved here and decided to move back to the Ukraine to start a couple of business's. One of his brothers also moved back to the Ukraine. He is talking to his parents and brother every day keeping in touch to know if they are still ok. They are telling him what is really going on.
He said the Russians are idiots. (Like I didn't know this! 😂) He said the Russian soldiers completely bought Putin's propaganda. They are looking down gun barrels saying things like "But we were told you would welcome us as rescuing hero's!" They have been telling him the Russian soldiers are so bad and unmotivated as to be an embarrassment to their country.
The Ukrainian's HATE Russians so getting a Russian in their sights is considered a fun thing to do. He also said this wont be over even if Russia takes all the cities because the Ukrainians will just keep fighting.
An interesting conversation.
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Things that make you go hmmmmmm.
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Much like the Irish and the English (talk to @Henry0Reilly about it), there is no love loss between Ukrainians and Russians. Yes, they are a related people, but the Russians have never treated Ukrainians as equals, much less as bothers. Prior to WWII, Stalin (who was a Georgian) engineered a famine which killed millions of Ukrainians (some claim it was tens of millions). When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union many Ukrainians greeted them as liberators and many Ukrainian men joined in with the Germans to fight the Soviets. When Germany lost, you can imagine how well those Ukrainians who fought for the Germans fared.
Following the end of the war, Stalin, who had a special hate for Ukrainians which defies my understanding, cracked down even harder on Ukraine. It wasn't until 1953, when Stalin died, that Ukrainians began to be treated as partners in the Soviet Union. Even so, memories in these countries are long- not measured in years, but in centuries. As soon as the Soviet Union broke up, Ukraine was anxious to go its own way. They have had some very bad governments during the early years- some of them quite corrupt, but steady progress has been made in moving Ukraine towards taking it's rightful place in the EU.
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Again, please watch Winter on Fire on Netflix, YouTube, and other Streaming media about the Ukrainian uprising in 2013-14.
It will give some perspective
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