(russian ridicule of ukraine)
What’s your point? That we shouldn’t hire foreigners? We have a government saturated with people paid off by the Kremlin. That’s why we’re engaging in lustration – to purge them and their pervasive corruption. So we are hiring foreigners to help with lustration.
Ukraine has decided it is European. Muscovite Russia has decided it is Mongolian. We all retreat to our roots under pressure. There may be 140M Muscovites, but there are 1B+ westerners, 1B+ Chinese, 1B+ Muslims, and 1B+ Hindus. Russians cannot reform. Russians cannot build a diverse economy. Russia cannot join modernity. We understand the choice. However, we do not want to be prisoners of Russia’s bad decisions.
Russians are foolish. They could have ruled the world. The west wanted them to. Putin was becoming the most influential man in the world. But instead of just saying ‘no democratic revolution here’ they attacked Ukraine, and broke the postwar consensus. All out of fear of spread of democracy.
We don’t necessarily think democracy and hedonism are good things either. On the other hand, almost anything is better than ongoing Russian despotism and poverty.
Haven’t Russians harmed eastern Europe enough for one millennium?