Should Russia be abolished?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Resize your image, thanks.

[Cassius]

It's a strange question. Russia can be abolished only as a result of total nuclear annihilation, which no one will do, not even Medvedev, who constantly threatens to do so. We can only talk about the breakup of Putin's structure or, at most, the breakup of the Russian Federation into new states, for example, the formation of the Russian Republic.

That's not true at all.

After all, the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore and it wasn't the result of "total nuclear annihilation"

The Soviet Union had constituent states with their own borders to split into. Present-day Russia doesn't seem to split nearly as easily along regional lines. The break-up would be messier, and there is also far less public support for it.

It's quite conceivable to imagine Russia retreating from the various occupied regions and perhaps losing territory to separatist movements in the Caucusus, but this would still leave the state with the vast majority of its land, population and national character. Claims to the contrary are necessary for the state to frame its imperial project as existential and therefore continue it, but it is generally unhelpful for anyone who opposes the Russian war machine to pretend the nation is at serious risk of disintegration.

The federal districts are nothing like the Republics of the Soviet Union. Those were specifically created to represent the various national identities (in spite of the obviously factitious nature of many of their boundaries) in existence at the time. The federal districts exist purely as a tool of central control and are not representative of discrete political and cultural divisions within Russia, thus they are not a basis for separatist movements.

[HillGoose]

Yes, Reagan said it best: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

Too bad the leaders of our nation today are too cowardly and pussified to actually take down the Evil Empire.

[oldtimer]

Russia should be divided by the Ural Mountains between West Russia and East Russia, where West Russia is occupied by a confederation of EU states who maintain Russia's unique and distinctive cultural heritage and way of life, but eliminate its capability for military action while slowly weaning its people off their predilection for hyper-aggressive masculine authoritarian strongmen.  East Russia can become another administrative zone of China (presumably necessary to get China on board since they wouldn't want a western state setting up nuclear weapons in Nizhny-Novgorod).  All nuclear weapons are destroyed under joint oversight of the remaining UN-recognized nuclear powers (not Israel or North Korea).

People who aren't White don't think as territorially as White people, China would never go for it.

The practical choice is for simply Ukraine to annex the whole of Russia, instead of trying the Lebensraum.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Russia should be divided by the Ural Mountains between West Russia and East Russia, where West Russia is occupied by a confederation of EU states who maintain Russia's unique and distinctive cultural heritage and way of life, but eliminate its capability for military action while slowly weaning its people off their predilection for hyper-aggressive masculine authoritarian strongmen.  East Russia can become another administrative zone of China (presumably necessary to get China on board since they wouldn't want a western state setting up nuclear weapons in Nizhny-Novgorod).  All nuclear weapons are destroyed under joint oversight of the remaining UN-recognized nuclear powers (not Israel or North Korea).

People who aren't White don't think as territorially as White people, China would never go for it.

The practical choice is for simply Ukraine to annex the whole of Russia, instead of trying the Lebensraum.

The fact is that in the 19th c., on the sly of the Opium Wars, Russia took vast territories from China, and China still maintains these territorial claims against Russia. In 1969, Mao tried to restore justice, but the then secret BM-21 "Grad" horrified Mao, as a result of which the conflict had to be frozen indefinitely.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, Reagan said it best: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

Too bad the leaders of our nation today are too cowardly and pussified to actually take down the Evil Empire.

He regretted doing that not long afterwards, and came to see nuclear war as an extremely bad thing.

[oldtimer]

Yes, Reagan said it best: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

Too bad the leaders of our nation today are too cowardly and pussified to actually take down the Evil Empire.

He regretted doing that not long afterwards, and came to see nuclear war as an extremely bad thing.

Holywood had an impact in making all kinds of things seem real and making people understand what it would look like and how it would affect them personally:

Nuclear War.
Artificial Disease.
Artificial Intelligence.
Alien Invasions.
Political Conspiracies.
Natural Disasters.
Man-made Disasters.
Plain War.

Unfortunately most young people experience most of those through video games instead of movies these days, so for them it's real life impact is reduced to button clicking.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Hollywood has portrayed nuclear incidents as ridiculous, and video games continue that tradition. The metalheads riding mutant mice aren't nearly as scary as real radiation sickness.

The problem with videogames is that grown men continue to think its are just as dumb as its were on arcades. Whereas its audience requires more effort than the audience of movies, just because videogames are interactive. You can easily get drunk on a beer after work and fall asleep to Transformers, whereas an average videogame will require you to sober up and strain your sweaty fingers.

I hope to live to see the day when videogame creators stop acting like Pierre Boulle's apes and realize that videogames are a full-fledged alternative to cinema and literature.

[Lord Halifax]

"The Russians have succeeded in worthily implementing the non-life of their nation, the unborn nature of its society. This non-culture has indeed borne fruit that is worthy of itself. For a long time to come, humanity will taste it even after it descends from the global arena into darkness and oblivion, where it belongs.

In this, ultimately, lies the main difference between how a Russian and a sentient Ukrainian see and understand the problem of the existence of a state like Russia. Russians, both “good ones” and “bad ones,” both so-called imperialists and liberals, do not see the further progress of world history without this state formation. Meanwhile, we, Ukrainians, absolutely know what Russia and the “great Russian culture” are, and we are certain that something fundamentally new must replace them. May this be not simply a vague locality with swamps and rivers in which the peaceful Chinese settler is fishing. May there arise some kind of state, or a number of national state entities with their own constitutions and order. Be it as it may, the way it is now Russia has no right to remain on the world map, because Russia means war and killings, darkness and collapse. For the “great Russian culture” is an utterly tried-and-tested method for selling one’s soul to the devil — to give in to irresponsible sentimentality, behind which stands empirical chaos that refuses to submit to the light of existence."

https://krytyka.com/en/articles/how-dead-russian-culture-kills-ukrainians

[mileslunn]

Autonomous communities breaking up would be only one that is logical and even in most of those Russians either majority or very large minority.  I believe Chechnya and Dagestan only two where the Russian population fairly small and there has been some talk of a Caucus separate republic.  But many worry it will be under Sharia Law and controlled by Islamists thus why I think even in West not many keen on that as much as may not like Russia.  Worry is Chechnya and Dagestan would fall into orbit of either Iran or Saudi Arabia.  For whatever reason, it seems those two have a lot of a fundamentalists unlike neighboring Azerbaijan which is extremely secular or even Tatarstan and Bashkortostan where Muslim population largely peacefully coexists with Russian Christian population.  So realistically since ethnically Russians majority in most places, seems unlikely.  Sure they are Slavs that initially came from the western part but Eastern part was always sparsely populated and nowadays Russians majority even if they maybe were not 500 years ago.

[gerritcole]

Third Rome shall never fall for there shall not be a fourth

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Third Rome shall never fall for there shall not be a fourth

The Russians are far from the only ones who claimed to be the successors of Rome. I would even say they are the most causeless contenders for this. For example, the Germans had the Holy Roman Empire, while the Russians only had this Moscow-priestly slogan.