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[Strongpoint]

All you’ll say is “oh those succeeded because of the threat of violence” with no evidence, however:

Georgia

Ukraine

You can't be real... You simply can't, aren't you? It looks like you went for some list of "peaceful revolutions" and used them as your argument without thinking for a second if they are comparable to Russia 2022.  Other examples are also dubious at best but I'll start with ones I kinda know well.

Georgian Revolution... A group of Georgian established MPs defected from the ruling party and started an opposition anti-Shevardnadze movement. Election came. There was attempted election fraud. The opposition called for people to go on the streets AND Saakashvili went to the parliament session disrupting it. Shevernadze ordered military to disperse the crowds, military said him "fuck you". Quoting damned Wikipedia.

Supporters of two of those parties, led by Saakashvili, burst into the session with roses in their hands (hence the name Rose Revolution), interrupting a speech of President Eduard Shevardnadze and forcing him to escape with his bodyguards. He later declared a state of emergency and began to mobilize troops and police near his residence in Tbilisi. However, the elite military units refused to support the government.

There are no true opposition MPs in Russia. Putin doesn't even need to start with the military, he has army B (national guard) that will be involved first.  How would Georgians peacefully proceed if troops instead said "OK, we'll disperse the crowds?"


Ukraine 2004

Kuchma was an unpopular president for years and was kinda tolerated because of upcoming elections. Many established politicians united against him including a very popular former Prime Minister as a leader. Kuchma chose a successor (he did consider going for unconstitutional 3rd term but decided against it). Fraud elections followed. Opposition leaders called people to the streets. Using the pressure of people on the streets opposition negotiated a compromise resulting in the constitutional reform and cancelation results of the elections with 3rd round of voting.

And yes, damn it. There were freaking "vague" threats of violence. Security Service of Ukraine was on the side of the opposition and placed freaking snipers on the roofs in the center of Kyiv with a subtle hint that if Kuchma will order the police to disperse the crowd, Security Service will protect the crowd with lethal force.


You can't compare a political crisis in which political elites with real power are divided and one of them used popular support (in form of peaceful gatherings) with a totalitarian country in which the opposition has no (at least legal) political power whatsoever