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[Il Palazzo]

If Navalny was a president, Ukraine wouldn't exist anymore (or be in a much worse shape). Navalny's Russia would have a stronger less corrupt army, stronger and less corrupt economy and better relations with the West, making the war far easier for them.

I'd have to rewatch that discussion to make sure I got this right, but from memory his main point of contention with Girkin was that he was against the war.
Seemed rather unequivocally against rebuilding the Russian empire and instead wanting to focus on fixing things back home. He was castigating the other guy for his commitment to spreading the shit state of affairs in Russia to places abroad as if that was a value in itself.
By that time at least. His views did evolve. Perhaps he flipped back to his earlier self later on, and I'm just not aware of this.

[Maximum Spin]

Navalny certainly was never "against the war" in and of itself - he was a Russian nationalist who believed in returning perceived Russian territory - populated by ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers - to Russia. You're basically saying that Navalny wanted the war done better, which doesn't exactly weaken Strongpoint's, uh, point.

[Strongpoint]

https://twitter.com/cryptodrftng/status/1758733875142898037

To illustrate why Ukrainians aren't very fond of Navalny. Here is a small video from 2020 with Navalny's opinion on Ukrainian politics (with English subtitles).

Not that we love our politicians but calling ours worse than Russian is... magnificent.

What would he do if he was magically in charge? He would be curing Ukraine from corruption (and protect Russian-speakers from the worse-than-Putin mafia of course!).

[Il Palazzo]

Navalny certainly was never "against the war" in and of itself

That's almost literally what he said in that debate when they started talking about Donbas.

[Maximum Spin]

Navalny certainly was never "against the war" in and of itself

That's almost literally what he said in that debate when they started talking about Donbas.

What we're both saying is that he supported the ideology behind the war. If his position in 2017 was that Russia should focus on internal issues before invading Ukraine, then, setting aside for the moment that he was a politician who would say whatever worked, the most likely conclusion is that, if he had been in power, he would have focused on internal issues and then invaded Ukraine, from a stronger position. Just like Strong Sad said.

[Il Palazzo]

If his position in 2017 was that Russia should focus on internal issues before invading Ukraine

It wasn't. Listen to the debate.

[Strongpoint]

We won't be able to test Navalny's governing style anyway. Few days ago, his chances of becoming the ruler of Russia were close to mine... Now my chances are better.

[anewaname]

That twitter video clip was just a piece of a larger speech, where Navalvy was doing something subtle... He was attempting to stir up "Russian nationalism" to fight against "Russian corruption". Having supporters say "we are proud Russians who don't want corrupt politicians" is a strong political message. Consider the first words of that video clip, "because Ukraine is a wonderful country" and consider the last 20 years of Ukrainian political upheaval involving corruption scandals... Navalvy wasn't attacking Ukraine in his speech, he was attacking "corrupt Ukrainian politicians", and he was triggering Russian nationalism by saying "Ukraine's corruption is worse than Russian corruption".

So, Navalvy gives his speech in 2020 and the Ukrainian politicians, who had gained much political power by running on "we are proud Ukrainians who don't want corrupt politicians", did not like being called corrupt, so they used that video clip to stir up "Ukrainian nationalism" to fight against "Russian nationalism". They intentionally blacked out Navalvy's message to keep their own grift from being questioned.

[Strongpoint]

Current Russian propaganda also calls Ukraine a wonderful, brotherly country that needs help in curing Nazism...

Also, it is not a part of a speech, I have seen the full version (in Russian with no subtitles). It was an answer to a question about Zelensky and that was his view of Ukrainian elites, not politicians. Those are different things.

A typical view of Ukraine by a typical Navalny supporter can be summarized like this:

Ukraine is a corrupt shithole of rural idiots who don't respect proper Russians enough. They drove their country to poverty by their sheer stupidity (as if the war, first economic and propaganda one then a very real one has nothing to do with that). Even their dictator was weak, soft, and pathetic and it was the only reason why Ukrainians made him flee, ours is so much stronger!

And Navalny never deviated from that far away. But with some usual empty words like "wonderful country" or "brotherly people" or whatever.

[heydude6]

Hell, I'm Ukrainian and even I wouldn't call Ukraine a wonderful country

[Maximum Spin]

It wasn't. Listen to the debate.

Look, Navalny's political party that he founded literally calls for the reintegration of the territories of the USSR and Russian Empire. He endorsed this platform. I don't know what else to tell you.

[anewaname]

A politician is an elite... that politician's role is to represent a group of elites and to give the public a good impression of those elites.

You cannot gain political power if you deviate far from the Overton window of what most common people will accept. The Russian people have been trained for centuries to have certain cultural views of sub-Russians and glorious military conquests, so Navalny would never deviate from those common Russian views in his quest to gain political power. He had to stay within the Overton window on those topics, which is why "anti-corruption" was his primary focus. I did not say Navalny was a nice guy or he wanted to be friends with Ukraine. He wanted political power and he was attempting to stir up "Russian nationalism" to fight against "Russian corruption", which is exactly how the current Ukrainian political groups took power from the groups that administered Ukraine 20 years ago.

The two differences between Ukraine's current politicians and those from 20 years ago are that the new ones commit fewer political murders and have fewer family/business ties to Russia. If you compared your perception of how corrupt Ukrainian politicians are today, to your perception of the corruption from 20 years ago, about what is the ratio? These new politicians included "anti-corruption" in their political platform, but do you really think they reduced corruption significantly? Maybe there is 20% less corruption and fewer political murders of commoners?

[Il Palazzo]

I don't know what else to tell you.

This discussion:
- Navalny dead
- Ackshually Navalny bad
- Navalny shades of grey
- No, Navalny bad. I don't know what else to tell you.

You made a strong claim: that he was never against the war. There's a clear counterexample to this in his discussion with Girkin, where he explicitly says otherwise. So, like, at least from this angle he'd be an improvement, eh?
Then there was some hedging of bets, arguing that never mind the guy, his party is shit. Which is moving the goal posts. And besides, we all know in Russian centralised presidential system the political platform controls the president, right?*
Your other argument is that as president he'd fix Russia before doing pretty much exactly the same thing Putin does, only with more oomph and less self-exploding. Which 1. is a hypothetical 2. seems somewhat unlikely given what he actually said about the war 3. in worst case could take years to accomplish, given how broken Russia is, upending the ruling system in the process, so that twenty years down the line the whole imperial expansion ideology could just not be on the cards anymore. But hey, maybe he'd just build more ammo factories, who's to say.

I know he wasn't a saintly edifice of sparkling sugary western values. No shit, man. Anyone who ever spends more than a moment skimming the headlines gets that, despite your tiny bit arrogant protestations to having a unique insight into his character. And yet, he was the closest Russia had to taking a step in a different direction than where it's been headed.

So I'm going to take my imaginary hat off over the killing of this deeply flawed man, thank you very much.

*the joke is it's actually the FSB, and any discussion of what would a particular person's qualities and professed ideas result in should they be elected is moot.

[Maximum Spin]

You made a strong claim: that he was never against the war. There's a clear counterexample to this in his discussion with Girkin, where he explicitly says otherwise.

Okay, so, you're just misunderstanding my claim. I said he was never '"against the war" in and of itself'. As in, he may have opposed going to war in favor of domestic issues in the context of what he perceived to be a broken Russia, but it isn't for Ukraine's sake, he was absolutely not at any point opposed to Russian imperial ambition as a concept, but a matter of priorities. Opposing the war in practice for domestic reasons is not being against it in and of itself.

This isn't an argument about whether he's good or bad or shades of grey or shades of unicorn pink, I'm just saying that you've misinterpreted his position about the war to be "against" when he is only saying "we can't do this right now".

You're also being stupid if you think I said "never mind the guy, his party is shit". He WROTE that platform and endorsed it. I am adducing it as evidence of his beliefs, not as a distraction.

"What he said about the war" was literally a propaganda effort to appeal to westerners, such as you, and Russian dissidents in order to improve his party's standing both globally and among the anti-war youth demographic at home.

I'm not trying to convince you he isn't a sparkly edifice or that you shouldn't doff your fake hat. I don't care about those things. I am literally just explaining that you have a wrong impression of his specific position on Russian imperialism. What you do with that is your own business, but you just keep repeating that he PWOMISED to be against the war in one particular statement, as if that matters. Everything else you are hallucinating in that response, that's all you.

[Il Palazzo]

"What he said about the war" was literally a propaganda effort to appeal to westerners, such as you, and Russian dissidents in order to improve his party's standing both globally and among the anti-war youth demographic at home.

You can't know that, can you?

My position is his views evolved over the last decade+.
Yours is his earliest view are the real thing and anything after was a cynical smokescreen.