With the stroke of a pen, Russian President Vladimir Putin formally enacted a series of anti-LGBTQ+ amendments banning marriage equality and transgender adoptions, and centering “a belief in God” as a core value of the country. The homophobic and transphobic amendments were passed last July in a national referendum, with over 77 percent of voters casting their ballots in support of the measures. According to a report in the AP, the new rules also reset Putin’s term limits as president, meaning he can serve an additional two six-year terms in office.
Putin is a thorn in the eyes of the US empire and he is good at trolling the west. Sometimes he even makes a good point. But he is a really horrible chud lord that had moved Russia far to the right.
Western libs might condemn him for this display of homophobia and they would be right to do so. But keep in mind that the West's chosen successor for Putin is Navalny who is even more nationalist and awful.
At the end of the day, and I'm sure you'll agree with me on this, Putin is not against imperialism, he is just against imperialism that is not done on his side or otherwise gets in the way of his imperialism.
What is "his imperialism"? I don't think Russia is in a position to go invading other countries or wants to.
Well, there is Russia's attempts to gain more control in eastern Europe and its military having a presence in the Middle East.
"attempts to gain more control in Eastern Europe" is a weird way of saying pushing back against aggressive NATO crap constantly trying to pull coups and whatnot everywhere. it's the same stuff that happened during the Cold War, just more lame because it's all capitalists. It's also entirely different than western imperialism because those places are right next door to Russia whereas western Europe and the US have to go out of their way to carry out their agenda.
I would say that it is imperialism, even if it is occurring fairly closer to the country in question.
It was imperialism when the United States interfered in Latin and South America or it would be if they ever interfered in Canada.
Yeah it's still imperialism to carry out territorial expansion for more resource extraction, but Russia isn't really doing that. Like, what can you even list that they're doing? They support Assad in Syria (the war has basically been won and most people just want the war to end and probably don't want an American-backed leader), and annexed the part of Ukraine that from what I understand basically wanted to be part of Russia, and the rest of Ukraine got coup'd by the US previously and became extremely anti-Russia with NATO stuff of course. Whatever else they're doing is probably run of the mill capitalist stuff which you could chalk up to imperialism maybe (?) but isn't remotely on the same scale as western governments.
In a lot of cases, Russia wants more influence in eastern Europe, which could include having governments that favor them and economic policies that benefit them.
Now, I am not saying that they are the only government that has, is doing or will do this, but I would consider it imperialistic, they are just not a power at the same level as the United States, China or even the European Union.
I'm not defending Putin. Being opposed to the US empire doesn't make him an anti-imperialist. Russia is known to meddle in the affairs of their neighbouring countries. Although the situation is a bit more nuanced than western Russia bad-propaganda would have you believe, especially regarding Crimea, Russia certainly tries to project power beyond its borders.
As I said, I didn't think you were trying to defend Putin. I agree that Russia's foreign policy is nuanced in the sense that they see most other countries in eastern Europe turning against them and more towards the west, so they see the need to take action.
Personally, I think the current Russian Federation would be much more imperialist if it were an actual world superpower (like the Soviet Union before it being a superpower that could be considered imperialist). However, they are not to the level of the United States, China or even the European Union currently.
Yeah. Russia is a capitalist state. The reason they are not as bad as the US is that they doesn't have the same economic and military power to be evil, not that they are inherently more moral. The Russian political system is also really dogshit nationalist and chuddy, so there is no push from that for the state not to be evil.
There's also the fact that the "democratic system" in the country is a facade.