Apparently Putin’s landslide victory means Russian morale is low.
Other bangers from this collective of intellectual giants include claims that the massive turnout victory for Putin in Russia in fact demonstrates “things are not well”, "the economy is collapsing, “the military is resisting orders”, and “the population knows he is a thief”. Seriously they are literally writing this on Twitter…
Resident Slav here. There is far from a consensus or rally behind Putin, most people also don’t care at all about the things he’s fighting against, they care more for their material conditions and how they have improved under Putin. It’s not a utopia, or even entirely “good”, but a far cry from the disaster and humiliation of the Yeltsin years.
Collatz was more correct as Putin as seen more as a figurehead against the worse liberal opposition, not someone particularly to look up to or agree with.
Point taken. In your estimation, what kind of president would Russian people actually “look up to or agree with”? If neither Yeltsin nor Putin?
Someone who could allow them to feel proud about their country and see themselves as reclaiming Russia’s former glory. Not through campaigns of militarism or war even, but ushering in an age of scientific progress, socialist ideal that both improves the living conditions of the average person, and create a long term future for the country while truly embodying the national spirit of Russia and the Soviet Union. Instead of someone who simply improves their material conditions a tiny bit.
Putin uses the Russian empire and the Soviet Union to create a sort of nationalistic rally point so that people will back him, but it’s very empty and hollow. No one cares when Putin talks about the tsars, or how big the Soviet Union was, or more or less fighting the “woke”. They want to feel proud in their nation.
For that reason, even in a victory, Ukraine will harm Putin’s position in the long term, as it is seen as a Brothers War and scrabbling in the dirt, much like Chechnya.
TLDR, they want a Lenin or Stalin. Hell, people will take a Khrushchev at this point.