r/worldnews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 21h ago

Russia/Ukraine ‘We Were Mistaken’: Putin Admits Russia Was Unprepared for Ukrainian Strikes on Oil Refineries

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/83674
26.2k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

3.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

25

u/MyUsername2459 18h ago

This is the same civilization that brought us "We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us."

That sort of "we all know this is BS, but let's just pretend it's normal" is baked pretty deeply into their society after generations of Tsars and dictators.

3

u/vladikusi 18h ago

Funnily enough, my Russian university teacher (she was teaching workplace ethics/psychology or something along those lines, but absolutely loved to share her political opinions for whatever reason) attributed this phenomenon to Russia's rapid westernisation and transition to capitalism in the '90s. She argued that the newly established system didn't fit the Russian spirit and only encouraged the things you're talking about, bringing out the worst tendencies of people. She also recounted some anecdotes about first Western factories in Russia facing the harsh reality of the local workers. (Though, of course, NOW Russia is heading in absolutely the right direction!!!)

I honestly disagree with the notion of it being something "cultural" and deeply ingrained, but for what its worth, I find it interesting that even the Russian patriots would kinda agree with you, just with a different idea of who/what to blame.