Comments by "Marcus Aurelius Antoninus" (@marcusaureliusantoninus2597) on "Why Russians Die for Putin–The Harsh Reality Behind the War in Ukraine" video.

@emjizone the answers is easy: they don’t. There were not “meat-wave assaults”, nobody entered coordinated of hospitals (unless they actually hosted military personnel instead of patients).
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@lv8920 the absolute majority of Russian soldiers fighting in the Ukraine are professional military and volunteers. Some were indeed drafted when there was a limited draft in the autumn of 2022, but they are a minority. The flow of volunteers is there to this day. My relative volunteered a while ago. In the Ukraine it’s different. Their population is much smaller, so they have to drag men from the streets and their houses to drive them to frontlines and die God knows what for.
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@patrickrutherford1934 no, they don’t. The absolute majority of Russian soldiers fighting on the frontlines are professional military and volunteers, for the army of the Ukraine it’s about 25%, the rest were drafted
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@Daized21stCenturyEccentric don’t you think people may genuinely be eager to fight for their country? Other Europeans would do best to care for their own countries, not Eastern European struggles.
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@Daized21stCenturyEccentric there’s no difference. Wars will always happen, this is the human nature. Of course it’s better to defend your country’s interests in the foreign soil, not your own, but it’s not always the case. Anyway, the current war is a domestic issue of Russia, not the business of other European countries. Why? What “poverty aid” do you mean, why should one country care for the poor in another country? What do you mean, “your own”? The Ukraine is not in a political or military alliance with other European countries. If you are speaking about a broader idea of being culturally part of Europe, then the Ukraine and Russia are both “your own”. There’s no “intercontinental threat”. Russia has neither desire nor means to fight NATO or NATO-aligned European countries. This whole idea that “If we don’t stop Putin in the Ukraine, Russians will come to us next” is preposterous. If anything, it’s Russia who needs to worry about the EU invading. It’s what the history shows us: united Europe be it under Napoleon or the Austrian painter, always brings war to Russia. Not the other way around.
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@paolalucchet there’s no nightmare. Life in Russia does not differ much from life in other Western countries. I would not pay much attention to self-hating Russians living abroad. Especially if they left Russia decades ago and form their idea of modern Russia on the basis of their memories and media funded by USAID.
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@therealuncleowen2588 a “different path” being just hand over your sphere of influence to NATO? Thanks, but no, thanks. To tell the truth, I am always amused by the strange obsession of many Western European and American talking heads with Putin. Putin or no Putin, major countries usually act on the international scale in the logic of power and influence. The nature of a regime, let alone the personality of the current leader does not affect much in that aspect. If one thinks that the current policy against the Ukraine is entirely Putin’s personal preference, they don’t know anything about Russia or international politics. Moreover, such would be the policy of any leader in Putin’s shoes. Any country in Russian place actually. If we imagine “independent Aquitaine”, such would be the policy of France towards it. Of Germany — to “independent Bavaria”. Of Spain — to “independent Catalonia”.
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@ if the Ukraine that was an undisputed part of Russia for centuries, suddenly became “not a part of Russia”, so too can Bavaria become “not a part of Germany” or Aquitaine “not a part of France”. Those countries are no better that Russia and can likewise be the subject to separatism.
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@Nowherenear-w1d it’s not about attacking Russia directly. We see that imposing a conventional war on Russia while supplying its enemy with all kinds of advanced NATO weaponry can work just as well. It’s obvious that using nuclear weapons is the last resort, and all major countries can be pushed to significant lengths before they would even think of using it. We see that the EU has taken dozens of adversary steps against Russia, but none was serious enough to warrant a declaration of war, let alone a nuclear strike. Bleeding a country dry by inflicting thousand little wounds can be just as deadly for a country such as Russia as a direct war.
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@ of course they are heroes. They are fighting for their country, many of them die refusing to give up or lose their lives while saving their comrades. No matter what you think of this war and Russia, at least have some dignity to give credit where a credit is due.
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@Nowherenear-w1d Poland’s been an independent country for centuries before the Third Partition. And it was partitioned and annexed by force and regained its independence in a war. The Ukraine, outside of a short period of semi-independence in 1917-1920 as the UPR, has never been an independent state before 1991. Ferocious resistance? Lol, is it called ferocious resistance when men are being rounded up as cattle in the streets and sent to the frontlines to die? When millions have fled to the EU and Russia (I would remind you that Russia is the country that accepted the most Ukrainian refugees)? Not to mention Ukrainians fighting in the ranks of Russian armed forces, many of them since 2014. Again, speaking about Aquitaine and Bavaria. They too may find themselves “independent countries” in the future, who knows. Catalonia, too. I’d like to see Germans, the French and Spaniards treating these countries as “just any independent state”.
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