@kravietz
That is precisely why I've been telling you that you should never let them apply anti-colonial agenda to Russia as is — they don't seem to realise that "priviledged" Russian man is just as disenfranchised in his own country as any member of a minority — unless he's a cop or a government official. Yep, there are ethnic minorities in Russia — and yes, their culture is often being erased, but this doesn't mean that most Russians ever benefited from it as serfdom pre-dates all that.
I don’t have any problem with applying the “anti-colonial agenda” to Russia, I just strictly separate the beneficiaries of this system, the “siloviki”, Kremlin-linked elites, and everyone else :)
And the usual disclaimer - Russians are today disenfranchised in Russia exclusively because they did nothing to prevent Putin’s circle from tightening the collars on their necks consistently for 20 years, and many actually welcomed it.
@kravietz
I'm against using it not because I want to present Russians as victims, but because it doesn't describe the true nature of what's going on, once you start using anti-colonial vocabulary familiar to the western audience, their line of thinking falls into that groove that it can't get out of: they start thinking that being Russian means being privileged, as if Chechens or Buryats fight in this was for their Russian masters — but it's not even remotely like that.
@kravietz
Russians from poorer regions die in this was just as Buryats do — with nothing to gain from it. Whose fault is that is a different question.
Just as US conservatives seem to believe that Pooteen claiming Russia having "traditional" society implies that being male means having some privileges, and they don't seem to realise that you can't… e.g. have divorce rates like that in any traditional society (in their sense).
@kravietz
Russian propaganda and disinformation campaigns use words having completely different meanings in Russia and to the audience in developed countries, and I think this is being done on purpose.