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[Strongpoint]

Russian opposition: Foreign governments, please don't recognize the "elections".

Also Russian opposition: Everyone, come to the elections and vote for anyone but Putin!

[Starver]

Not mutually exclusive.

The first is a message to beyond the borders. In reality, pragmatic, and/or realistic conclusions will have already been mostly decided upon, according to what works locally and bloc-wise for those in power, whether pro-Putinist Russia or anti-... But there may be still some private hedging of bets at the fringes...

The second is trying to get a message to Putin, and the house of cards he has 'built'. If they can pull a few of the staples out, rip off a bit of the sneaky sellotape, etc, then it shows up the rest of the structure. Yes, giving him Kim Jong Un levels of voter-support (all but an unprecedentedly high 0.13% of voters supporting him!) also ridicules the process to the outside world. But I've never been a fan of the "don't take part in these elections if you don't like how they're run" approach[1] that some regimes' oppositions go for. Putin's undoubtedly winning anyway, by hook or by crook (or even just by Vetinari Job Security), but every vote against erodes the internal credibility that little bit more. A lack-of-votes-for only really adds to a feeling of apathy.

Perhaps. Going by what I know of traditional roots in the Soviet-era psychology factors, and the post-Soviet ones, etc. (Which might be less than you actually know, from an actual former-Soviet state, I'll admit.. )


[1] Tricky, though. Is it easier to ballot-stuff to bulk up all the 'missing' votes or to just tactically miscount the 'wrongly voted' ones, if that's what you're worried about and have free reign to do whatever you want..?

[Starver]

(Addendum, on top the minor typo corrections I made: A stronger-than-expected vote-against is also an international message, even to those who weren't going to take the result at face value anyway. Putinisque-allies feel less comfortable about one of the major pillars of Authoritarianism in the world, whilst Putinisque-opposers feel some hope that whole country is not entirely irredeemable. (Maybe. This sort of international politics is complex, and tides change in all kinds of peculiar ways.))

[scriver]

I think the "everyone who don't like Putin go and vote at the exact same hour" was a smart thing. It gives lone sticks the chance to see that there are many other sticks like them and that they aren't as alone as they sometimes feel.

[Strongpoint]

So they lifted morale for... future inaction?

Showing an increasingly totalitarian government that you are one of those who dislike it is counterproductive. Times for open protests and playing election games are over in Russia. Options are - 1) fleeing 2) surviving 3) silent sabotage 4) armed resistance.

______________
Speaking about armed resistance. It is so bizarre that international media gives around zero Fs about the creeping advance of Russian armed opposition on Belgorod.  Sure they took like 1,5 villages but it is fighting on Russian territory. If anything, it is a good story to exaggerate.

[Starver]

I prefer news organisations that don't exagerate (or minimise) the news, personally.

(I think I'm getting decent verifiable information about that phase of things, via my own chosen outlets. It's not 24/7/"every column inch", exactly, but there are quite a lot of other news stories, so it necessarily has to be just a proportion of the bandwidth. Both metaphorically and technically.)

[EuchreJack]

I think the "everyone who don't like Putin go and vote at the exact same hour" was a smart thing. It gives lone sticks the chance to see that there are many other sticks like them and that they aren't as alone as they sometimes feel.

Yes, it was a good bit of organizing that could lead to future organizing. Journey of a thousand miles single step kind of thing.

[Strongpoint]

I think the "everyone who don't like Putin go and vote at the exact same hour" was a smart thing. It gives lone sticks the chance to see that there are many other sticks like them and that they aren't as alone as they sometimes feel.

Yes, it was a good bit of organizing that could lead to future organizing. Journey of a thousand miles single step kind of thing.

Common, they have been doing this kind of bullcrap "resistance" for decades.  They are using the same ineffective tactics again and again while their country becomes more and more totalitarian around them.

It didn't work when Russia was less fascist, it will not work with Russia becoming more fascist.

[EuchreJack]

It's perhaps more important that Western Media views it positively more than anything else.

[King Zultan]

I bet everyone was super surprise when Putin won the election, because no one saw that coming. It's almost as if he's the forever president or something.

[Strongpoint]

Oh, ABC news (clarification: Australian) is now translating Russian propaganda of Russian soldiers not being monsters and defending their motherland. Wonderful.

I don't know what is in the full piece (and have zero desire to know) but the trailer speaks for itself.

[anewaname]

The problem with "resistance" is that people need to feel that they have nothing to lose before they will throw themselves against that wall (where the wall is that social system of suppression that threatens your body and the bodies of your family).

That ABC trailer is probably just clickbait, to enrage or make curious.

[feelotraveller]

For anyone interested you can watch the full piece here: https://iview.abc.net.au/show/four-corners/series/2024/video/NC2403H005S00  (assuming no geo-locking shenanigans).

Far as I can tell critics are making fools of themselves via gross exaggeration but nothing new there.  Also it is a rescreening of an ITV documentary which was broadcast in Britain a month or so ago.  Not sure what brought out the clown car now rather than then.

Anyway better to watch and make your own considered judgement rather than having someone (whether me or someone else) feeding you a canned take (propagandised or not) methinks.

[Strongpoint]

The problem with "resistance" is that people need to feel that they have nothing to lose before they will throw themselves against that wall (where the wall is that social system of suppression that threatens your body and the bodies of your family).

It is not exactly true. Guys from that Russian platoon that defected at the beginning of the war and became the basis on which the Freedom of the Russia Legion had something to lose. Most of Russian nationalists who formed the Russian Volunteer Corps would be more than welcome in other far-right formations of Russia. Ordinary people from Siberia didn't really need to travel to Ukraine and join the Siberian battalion. Chechen Separatists could live in Europe in comfort. Some liberal Russians who live and work in Europe have around zero actual need to spend their money and effort gathering money for the Ukrainian army and making themselves a potential target for FSB assassinations.

I don't believe in desperation resistance. Desperation may bring riots and anarchy but for resistance you need ideals and beliefs not desire for self-preservation.

[anewaname]

The common attribute of those defectors and those in Europe, is that they are not in Russia. That woman who was arrested for $50 donation to Ukrainian charity, she was in Russia.

Just as some defected from Russia to fight, other Russians immediately cut ties with Ukrainian family members because they had no ability to emigrate and they had something to lose (job, kids, property). That is why the "bullshit resistance" does not grow larger than the efforts of people to vote at the same time. This is why many Russians accept the news propaganda.

These Russians have an agreement with their government, "do not conscript me to fight in this war and we'll express our joy over you being our leader". This is a paraphrase of something Vlad Vexar said in a vid, and his ideas have me wondering about the effect of America's changes to conscription laws 40 years ago and how it may be related to changes in American politics during that time frame.