Not all “Russians” are thrilled to be Russian. Here is a map of the major languages in each area in Russia.
And here is a map of the percentage of ethnic Russians in each area.
The problem is obvious. There are large regions within the country that are not Russian. Many of them didn’t and don’t want to be Russian. They were subjugated militarily in tsarist times. They are tired of the ethnic Russians exploiting their natural resources and sending them to Ukraine to die.
Their historical problem is that they have nowhere to go. They do not have the resources to survive as independent states. All of their trade routes go through Russia. They do not have the military means to resist Russia. Chechnya, one of the largest of them (lower left in language map), tried valiantly in the 1990s. The Karelians (upper left) were hacked off from Finland, where they would have preferred to remain, in 1939. About the Ukrainian-speakers there is little question.
These groups constitute a built-in fifth column, people who are inclined to support Ukraine in its fight. By comparison, although Ukraine itself shot through with Russian spies left over from Soviet times, Russia does not have a similar advantage here. Russian puppets and sympathizers are regularly blown up in the occupied territories. In the areas controlled by Ukraine they are identified and imprisoned.
Russia’s problem is that they have always been unlovable. They have nothing except vlast. Brute force and money. Here is what Soloviev wrote five decades ago in Homo Sovieticus. In my mind, the “other peoples” to be outclassed must be us Ukrainians:
"Until the Russian people become the best educated, the most cultured, the most prosperous and the most privileged within the country, there can be no thought of world hegemony. More than that, once the Russian people have really become the most privileged and dominant nation in the country, they will still have to outclass the other peoples in all the most important nonmilitary spheres of life. And for this decades will be needed, if not centuries.
Whereas the actual position of the Russians in the Soviet Union is that they are not even allowed equality with the other peoples, let alone preeminence. Incidentally, those Russians who have somehow raised themselves above their fellow nationals, will not permit the regeneration of Russia as a nation.
In short, I so summed up my reflections, one can construct supremely felicitous plans, but one can't implement them because of a trifle that seemed hardly worthy of attention. Even before the war, my father told me this story. In some institution a routine meeting was in progress. There were two points on the agenda: 1) the construction of a barn; 2) the creation of an abundance of consumer goods under communism. As they didn't have enough planks to build the barn, they moved on at once to the second question. Moscow would be able to build a grandiose world Empire. But alas, it doesn't have the planks to do it with."
I recently posted a link to a June piece by Edward Slavsquat asking what would happen if Russia won. Going right to Soloviev’s observations above, victory would bring them nothing but trouble, as it did at the time of the Russian revolution, in the 1930s and after victory over Germany. Ukrainians do not want to be Russians. We look down on the Russians. Our contempt infuriates them. The only thing that could make them feel better than us is genocide. The world is waking up to this reality.
We have no choice but to persevere. We can hope that along the way we set an example for, and get support from others who want to be free of Russian tyranny.
' We look down on the Russians. Our contempt infuriates them. The only thing that could make them feel better than us is genocide.' Is this it? Is this the real reason for the war? A furious sense of wounded pride and a desperate sense of inferiority on the part of the Russians? That in their heart of hearts, they know that they are crass, brutish, vulgar peasants and they can't bear it?