That is not exactly true. Telegram and the Russian media have wholly embraced characterizing the Ukrainians as less than civilized - even less than human. The term most often used is "Kohkhol." We should also not forget that much of the Ukrainian population initially welcomed the German Wehrmacht as liberators in 1941.
https://www.historynet.com/a-warm-welcome-turns-cold-in-nazi-occupied-ukraine/ Ukraine had just gone through the "Holdomor" in 1932-33- a Stalin created famine that may have killed as many as 12 million in Ukraine and Belarus. Fortunately for the Soviet Union, the Nazis quickly disabused the Ukrainians that they were their saviors.
There are indeed a lot of ethnic Russians in Ukraine - the major factor in the effort of separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk to break away from Ukraine. But that has tended to fuel divisions rather than bring the two cultures together.
Finally, there are not a lot of ethnic Russians in the Russian army. The vast majority of both contract and conscript troops deployed in Ukraine (and also the casualties) come from east of the Urals. There is no sense of cultural identity between them and Ukrainians.
What the Russian media/ certain state sponsored writers on Telegram claim does not necessarily represent the views of the average Russian. People there tend to have a fairly strong skepticism towards what the government/media say. As evident by the mass desertions and refusals to fight. Contrast this to America where the public has a tendency to gulp up whatever the media/politicians say. The reaction of the American public to the invasion of Iraq is a good example.
There were also some Russians who welcomed the Nazis. This fellow was a particularly unsavory character:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Vlasov
Two things to note about the Holdomor. First of all Stalin or the Soviet Union does not equate Russia. Stalin was actually a Georgian. Khrushchev and Brezhnev, for example, were ethnic Ukrainians. Soviet=Soviet, Soviet does not equal Russia/Russian. This is what some African countries who support Russia in this current war get wrong when they view Russia as being synonymous to their Cold War Soviet ally.They forget that during the Cold War Ukraine was also their Soviet ally. But I digress. The starvation/murder of wealthy peasants also happened in southern Russia. The Soviet famine of 1930-33 hit all grain producing areas especially those with wealthy peasants pretty hard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovie...oviet famine of 1930,to have lost their lives.
Ukrainians were not the victims of this because of their ethnicity. People of many different Soviet ethnicity perished during this famine. This is part of the reason why many Soviet people, including ethnic Russians, initially welcomed the Nazis. This was not just limited to Ukrainians
However it would also be wrong to say that this was the only reason why these people welcomed the Nazis. Anti-=semitism was probably a strong motivator as well. The only problem was that the Nazis considered East Slavs to be "sub-humans" or "untermensch" as well.
I must say I find the bolded part almost impossible to believe. I assume by Siberia you mean the territories of the Russian federation east of the Urals? Because in Russian and in English terminology Siberia has somewhat different meanings. What English speakers call "Siberia" can actually be divided into the Urals, Siberia and the Far East. But once again I digress. Slavs/Russians account for about 85% of the population living in "Siberia" or east of the Urals:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Siberia
So I would be extremely shocked that the majority of "Siberians" in the Russian army are indigenous Siberians. As they make up a minority of Siberia's population. Siberians, regardless of ethnic group, are probably sent to the front lines as they are seen as being the most "expendable". Due to the fact that they may come from remote regions and are often from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
I believe I'll go with my assessment rather than that of a Danish correspondent. I would also note the thrust of my analysis was the clear historic basis of Ukraine's perception of Russia rather than Russia's perception of Ukraine.
Moreover, Russia's blatant disregard for the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the casual infliction of mass civilian casualties hardly argues for deep and abiding benign feelings toward its Slavic brothers.
As of mid-July 2022 approximately 5000 Ukrainian civilians were killed:
https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2022/07/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-12-july-2022
This probably represents an underestimate but nonetheless it probably gives a good general picture/idea. Now lets look at the Iraq War. A conservative estimate is that around 200,000 civilians were killed
https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/. Although this likely represents an underestimate as Lancet puts the number of Iraqi civilian deaths at over 500,000. Coalition forces directly killed about 35-40% of those civilians. Now unlike the Russian army, which uses "dumb", in some instance WWII era munitions, the US army has access to much "smarter" and more precise munitions. This is not surprising since the US spends 10x more on defense than Russia does. I also assume the American defence industry and military is less corrupt than the Russian one. Yet the amount of civilians that were killed in Iraq is quite high. Would you say the US showed a blatant disregard for Iraqi lives as well ??
www.breitbart.com
