Posted BY: Joseph Kulve
In 2015 in China, an American friend “Showman” (my nickname for him, similar to his real name), a self-styled expert on Russia, was always telling us fellow ex-pats about how Putin had done so much for Russia. He loved Russia and Putin. He spoke broken Russian and almost no Chinese (after 20+ years in Russia and China). At that time I spoke fluent Russian and good Chinese. But he was the acknowledged Russia and China expert by ex-pat friends and foreign visitors.
The only time I ever remember Showman losing composure was when a Finnish engineer, commenting on the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, recounted how his grandfather, a combat veteran of the Russian invasion of Finland, summed up how to deal with Russia. His grandpa’s words sum up perfectly the real Russia and how the West should deal with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
His grandpa killed many Russians in WW II (who were badly armed and forced at gunpoint to charge enemy lines just like now in Ukraine). He suffered greatly from what he did. Yet he told his grandson quite simply how to deal with Russians: “If they ever come again, kill them”.
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The Real Russia
I first arrived in Russia in 1994. I was shocked at the filth, poverty, and violence. I immediately understood that Soviet Russia had been waging war on itself (and its neighbors) since the Revolution, while playing the victimhood card for generations, claiming their military buildup was out of fear of NATO. When the Soviet “Union” collapsed (1989) their only fear was of each other. They needed NATO and their former Eastern European slave states to save them from themselves.
