The Russians are a Christian and Euro based culture. They are ethnic Slavs, which are Euro.
Eastern Orthodox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church
Slavs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs
You go to great lengths to try to pretend you’re better than someone else.
The sad thing is that it’s not that Russia became so liberal (they moved a little bit in that direction) but that we moved in their direction towards a centralized government. It’s us today that are all about equality/equity, secular at best and outright atheist at worst, globalist (”workers of the world unite” was the commie slogan and we’re the ones pushing that crap today).
This could practically be a recruiting poster (all the different races etc) for any US government agency today, just add some women and replace the hammer and sickle with a US government agency emblem: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/342766221623847371/
The US today is a nation no different than Russia. We’re little better off economically. But, we have surrendered true freedom for security (none of the first ten amendments/Bill of Rights mean anything anymore), centralized power in our bureaucracy and capital, have elections about as real as those in Russia (even though we mock the Russians our elections are a joke too), a government share of the GDP that is about the same as Russia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP, we have side stepped the US Constitution in procedures, adopted policies and MO’s that are similar to Russia (we torture, kidnap assassinate), mass censor, mass propagandize our own public, use our intel services heavily inside our own country...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test
But sure, we’re entirely different because it makes you feel better. (sarc)
You’re Brad Pitt. You’re a democracy, human rights and sovereignty warrior, in shining silver armor anointed by God! (sarc)
Here’s the truth and it won’t make you feel good. People are people and we Americans are able and willing to do EVERYTHING the worst Nazi’s did, the worst commies did, in fact what Saddam and Mao did.
People are inherently bad, full of sin, including you and I. What kept us straight in the past was that we had a society that had some semblance of morality (that’s gone today) and a government that was impotent (weak -confined by a US Constitution). Yes, our government did NOT have the power and ability to do these things and that’s why we were a little bit better historically. The Constitution is a document that basically confines government (no longer the case either), sets limits to it’s powers, etc. It’s not that we didn’t have the same ideas, the same type of people, willing to do the same things, it’s just when they wanted to practice Eugenics in the US we couldn’t do it quite as efficiently as the Germans did in the Holocaust: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
Russians are EASTERN Slavs, who are not European. Their culture is central Asian, overlain with a sort of Christianity imposed by the Byzantines.
WESTERN Slavs, (Poles, Czechs) acknowledged the Pope. And as such have always been much better educated, and considered Europeans by other Europeans.
When they opened the archives of the Kremlin (which they have since re-closed), we found out that many orthodox priests were killed resisting the communists. I repented not having faith in my eastern brothers. Today the Russian orthodox church sells itself to Putin for a few lousy pieces of silver. Cathedrals with stained glass windows featuring Lenin, Stalin and Putin.
God will not be mocked.
You must be ignorant, or think I am, about Russia. Ethnic Russians share the vast Russian Federation with many other people. For a time, some federal subjects were allowed self-rule including in language. But, no more, Putin has taken away the rights of the Republics.
The Russians are Europeans but not western. They are eastern Europeans. (This is basic knowledge. You must know this.) Russia traces its cultural lineage to Kiev and prior to that to Constantinople. In the west, the cultural lineage goes something like this, from Rome to the Holy Roman Empire, to Protestantism, liberal government and capitalism. The Poles easily align with the west, even though subjugated by Imperial Russia and by the Soviet Union for many centuries. Other eastern Europeans, such as the Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Romanians, have their own national stories; and, being sovereign nations, they are able to reconcile their national histories with their present.
Over here, in America, we were “conceived in Liberty,” as Lincoln put it, and don’t have a shared national history.
There are effectively no opportunities for alternative leadership in Russia. Hence, there is no meaningful opposition party or opposition leaders. Your man is a dictator who has consolidated power even more completely than any Party Secretary during the Soviet era. Russia, therefore, will have to collapse because it cannot change. Of course, collapse is what Russian has been doing the past century. You collapsed during WWI and you collapsed after Afghanistan.
You will collapse because of your stupid war in Ukraine. Well, unless Putin blames his generals for misinforming him, and seeks some kind of a deal from the west.