More likely a case of "confidently being paid to lie"

As an ethnic russian living in Germany this was exactly the way I felt. But afaik this sadly does not reflect the general russian population. I think people have always less problems to accept more lies than to accept that they have been fooled.

We all need to remember online spaces like reddit generally lean younger and more liberal. We never really get a holistic view of any situation. Just as people on reddit would say "we didn't want trump" and the response was "clearly over half of you did" from europeans, this is another example of how we have to realize we are in our own little bubble in these online communities.

Except at the time it was a shock to most people. The consensus before the invasion was that Russia was just posturing. But then they went for it.

Sorry I responded to the wrong person!

This article from Jun. 2022 states Ukraine hoped they could descalte with sanctions: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/11/biden-zelensky-russia-invasion-warnings-putin/

This article from Aug. 2022 states Ukraine knew it was going to happen but they down played it to prevent a financial crisis: https://www.newsweek.com/zelensky-reveals-why-he-didnt-warn-his-citizens-russian-invasion-1734268

I'm not sure if both are versions of the truth, where they were hoping to descalte and prevent a financial crisis. I'm sure either way they were hoping it wouldn't happen.

At the same time that they always learn, when the leopards are feasting on their faces. Sometimes, not even then, honestly.

If the tankies were less stupid, they wouldn't be tankies.

For a lot of us, Russia and Ukraine were literally parts of the same country when we were growing up, and we used the terms Russia and the USSR pretty much interchangeably. I wasn't aware until pretty recently that places like Baikonur, Minsk, and Chernobyl are not in Russia. Actual misdeeds committed by Russia in the Soviet era were described in vague terms and were very hard to separate from exaggerated fear mongering about communism, so I ended up knowing very little about that era. Even big things like the Holomodor were just not part of the public consciousness.

So yeah, we were very ignorant of the situation, and in many of our minds Ukraine may as well have been southwestern Russia. But those of us who aren't idiots do at least know that the possibility of going to war with a neighboring country is inherent in the existence of separate countries, and we know from our own civil war that people of the same or similar ethnicities will absolutely go to war with each other.

Shooting their brothers.

What is Russia doing?

Always bugged the shit out of me that he actually says "mother freaking" in that scene

Completely ruined my suspension of disbelief and I still cringe when remembering it.