As russian, when I encounter people comparing the state of media in Russia to the worst excesses of government influence in media in US like they are comparable - I think to myself “what a bunch of fucking idiots”.

It’s the same ignorant halfwit crowd that compares minor inconvenience to Holocaust, having to follow an HOA rule to Stalin’s repressions, and anyone telling them what they don’t like to Hitler.

I live in US now and I complain periodically about various imperfect, unfair, annoying things that are associated with any society. Humans suck. They are selfish and dishonest in large proportions, some of the time. But what is happening right now in Russia has brought back into focus for me and reminded me just how much better the West is. Fucking treasure it while you have it.

As a person with Polish heritage, it's interesting how we see things differently. Best of luck to you.

Edit: I live in Australia.

Perhaps the difference is having heritage vs having lived for a large portion of life and still having ties and relatives there?

Also, please elaborate. How does does having come from Poland figure into this conversation? You yearn for Soviet rule and hate what capitalism stands for? Or sympathize with Russian justifications for their aggression against a neighbor state and their own people? I can only speculate lacking any detail.

Take a look at a map and Australia's geographic position. Australia is far from most of the world and shares borders with no one. It has almost no reason to enter any war. Now look at Australia's history and you will discover that ever since modern Australia, it has followed the British empire, and the American empire since WW2 into every war to prop up empire.

How does Poland fit into it? Poland has been burned by war, something I'm sure you're aware of. America sits between Canada and Mexico, neither of which will ever pose any kind of threat to America. And yet the wars continue. I don't care about communism or capitalism; I care about people dying. Look at the timelines of all the wars the US engages in and it's hard to see, empirically, why I'm supposed to cheer for the US. It's just colonisation.

As to this particular war - the US agreed at the end of the cold war not to expand NATO east and yet it did, breaking the agreement. William Burns, in 2008, then a diplomat, now director of the CIA knew that expansion of NATO into Ukraine would trigger a war and wrote a memorandum 'nyet means nyet' more than a decade ago. NATO went ahead and expanded knowing this. At multiple points during this war, the Russians have offered to negotiate. Instead, the US has responded with "to the last Ukrainian". At present, the Ukrainians have lost, and yet the West continues the charade - either due to political blowback, or more likely, they simply attach zero value to dead Ukrainians and figure any dead Russians is worth it.

In 2002, US argued for pre-emptive war against Iraq due to weapons of mass destruction. Everyone at the time knew it was a lie but it went ahead anyway. Today, Russia is essentially also arguing for pre-emptive war but the reasoning - putting American missiles and forces in Ukraine - is a hell of a lot plausible.

The fact that there has been not one effort to negotiate by the Americans shows that the West isn't interested in peace or the interests of Ukrainians - they simply want a country naive and suicidal enough to throw themselves against the Russian subhumans.

The sheer amount of whataboutism, lies, and deflections your just wrote is staggering, truly.

First, no-one promised to expand NATO to russia; this been rebuked by Gorbachov himself.

Second, have you ever considered that countries want to join a defensive(sic!) block not to appease "the West", but to safeguard against what happened in Georgia and what is happening in Ukraine right now?

If russia sees the expansion of NATO as a problem, then why did both putin and his establishment deny this as being an issue? Why did russia empty its Finland border and send equipment and soldiers from those bases to Ukraine?

Third, russians never attempted to "negotiate" in good faith; all their inane "demands" - denazification (aka killing all Ukrainians who disagree with us), demilitarisation, etc etc - remained the same.

Fourth, "at the present the Ukrainians have lost" is simply incredible. Let's see how this year played out: "special military operation to take Kyiv in 3 days" is now reaching its second year; Ukraine regained more territories this year than russia ("world's 2nd army") gained in the same year; russia having to beg North Korea for artillery shells; rouble in free-fall; finally, a warlord's private military company nearly completing his march to Moscow in actual 3 days.

Fifth, the conditions of any peace negotiations remain the same: russia gets out of Ukraine. This has been Ukraine's position from day 1.

Finally, I can assure you the majority of Ukrainian population despises russia after what you've done. There is no "Perfidious West" forcing anyone to fight.

P.S. Quit LARPing. Your first comment on HN is literally about Poland wanting to partition Ukraine. Every accusation is admission with you lot, every single time.

You are repeating russian propaganda and there are people far smarter than I that have repeatedly tried to explain why it is such and failed, and I won’t bother trying.

> As to this particular war - the US agreed at the end of the cold war not to expand NATO east and yet it did, breaking the agreement.

This is a persistent myth, there was never an agreement to not expand NATO with the USSR, and the one person who would know at the time Mikhail Gorbachev has said as much.

> At multiple points during this war, the Russians have offered to negotiate. Instead, the US has responded with "to the last Ukrainian".

The Ukrainians where negotiating regarding the war then the Russians where pushed out of a number of cities that they held and we saw the horrific scene they left behind.

That is likely the point that the Ukrainian's decided that there would be no negotiating.

> Today, Russia is essentially also arguing for pre-emptive war but the reasoning - putting American missiles and forces in Ukraine - is a hell of a lot plausible.

Yet theres no war against Finland is there, and there will be US soldiers in Finland far before they are ever in Ukraine.

> The fact that there has been not one effort to negotiate by the Americans shows that the West isn't interested in peace or the interests of Ukrainians - they simply want a country naive and suicidal enough to throw themselves against the Russian subhumans.

There has been an effort to negotiate by the Americans, which ironically angered a large number of people as it happened behind the backs of Ukraine by using back channels.

>Today, Russia is essentially also arguing for pre-emptive war but the reasoning - putting American missiles and forces in Ukraine - is a hell of a lot plausible.

The Russian government invaded Ukraine because they consider it a fake nation that was illegitimately carved out of Russia. The "neo-Nazi NATO" excuses were just lies they made up for naive Westerners.

At this point it’s a chicken an egg problem - do russians really believe what you said, or are their beliefs a product of decades of internal propaganda?

I mean, yeah, probably many of them believe it now.

Personally, I lean towards this - after 20 years in power Putin is a defacto dictator perched on top of a government machine he constructed to keep him there. A machine composed of various pieces of corruption, propaganda, repressions, and bribes.

And like many dictatorships before - having to pressure relief valve of changing people in power, he has to deflect discontent elsewhere, external enemies, NATO, etc, and ply his population with achievements they can soothe themselves with while submerged in poverty and corruption. And justifications are made up as needed by the machine of the state.

You mean Austria? People often mix them up.

He's rude but right though.

Nothing in the West is even closely comparable to what is happening to Russia nowadays let alone the First and Second World War. People that say the West is about as bad as Russia really don't have any sense of what is really going on in the world and really can be defined as "idiots" in the context of this discussion.

A person actually from Russia that also lived in the West usually has a bit better perspective on these matters.

US does dirty stuff whenever needed, just see how trump is treated vs Biden. And they will get as dirty as needed to protect the system The fact you can say anything in US just suggests you are insignificant to the system

You are making analogies between things that are not alike. A person comparing an HOA rule to Stalin's repressions is consciously being hyperbolic. I think your issue with OPs comparison of media influence by the US and Russian governments is you think OP believes them to be similar.