Lets hope that eventually Belarus and Russia will rejoin the European family.
That will take time.
The Russia is now politically about where Ukraine was around year 1970. And it took Ukraine until 2008 to start seriously becoming democratic, and even then it seemed to keep regressing again and again. Only the aggression by the Russia in 2014 stabilized Ukraine’s path towards democracy. This took Ukraine altogether about 40 years and the Russia won’t be able to be faster than that. The couple decades of extremely immense propaganda have taken their toll. If the propaganda somehow ends this year or the next, then the children born now will still be imbued by it because of their parents’ thinking, and the children of the children being born now are going to be reasonably okay, already. But still not really ready for EU. But the grandchildren of children being born in 2026 might really be able to feel European. So, when those are adults, then maybe. If the Russia ends the propaganda now.
But the Russian propaganda is something that has existed for several centuries and from conversations I’ve had with Russians in Russian language, I don’t really get a feeling that they will be letting go of that anytime soon. A Russia without Pushkin… What would that even be? Such a huge part of their literature is so toxic that whatever they try to achieve, their old literature will pull them back into what they have been for centuries.
We can always live in hope, but I really don’t think the Russia can become anything humanely thinking anytime in the next two centuries at least.
Also if Russia joins the EU, the EU would be 2/3 Russia in terms of land mass and a quarter of the EU population would be a Russian citizen. Not sure if that is a good idea. Would give this one country way too much leverage and power inside the EU, especially once the Russian GDP per capita matches Germany or Netherlands. Like we already see how much power Germany has in the EU.
Russia should defederate and fall apart first like every federal district or republic should become their own country before they join the EU.
A collapse of Lukashenko’s gangster dictatorship would be a welcome development. He’s propped up by Putin, but there’s not much Putin will be able to do to save his bacon if the Belarussian people decide it’s now safe to stand up to him.
What’s recently transpired in Moldova followed the same pattern, and Russia lost that puppet. And now they’ve lost their Hungarian fifth columnist too. Now, if the oil price drops back, Putin will be even worse off.
That will take time.
The Russia is now politically about where Ukraine was around year 1970. And it took Ukraine until 2008 to start seriously becoming democratic, and even then it seemed to keep regressing again and again. Only the aggression by the Russia in 2014 stabilized Ukraine’s path towards democracy. This took Ukraine altogether about 40 years and the Russia won’t be able to be faster than that. The couple decades of extremely immense propaganda have taken their toll. If the propaganda somehow ends this year or the next, then the children born now will still be imbued by it because of their parents’ thinking, and the children of the children being born now are going to be reasonably okay, already. But still not really ready for EU. But the grandchildren of children being born in 2026 might really be able to feel European. So, when those are adults, then maybe. If the Russia ends the propaganda now.
But the Russian propaganda is something that has existed for several centuries and from conversations I’ve had with Russians in Russian language, I don’t really get a feeling that they will be letting go of that anytime soon. A Russia without Pushkin… What would that even be? Such a huge part of their literature is so toxic that whatever they try to achieve, their old literature will pull them back into what they have been for centuries.
We can always live in hope, but I really don’t think the Russia can become anything humanely thinking anytime in the next two centuries at least.
Also if Russia joins the EU, the EU would be 2/3 Russia in terms of land mass and a quarter of the EU population would be a Russian citizen. Not sure if that is a good idea. Would give this one country way too much leverage and power inside the EU, especially once the Russian GDP per capita matches Germany or Netherlands. Like we already see how much power Germany has in the EU.
Russia should defederate and fall apart first like every federal district or republic should become their own country before they join the EU.
A collapse of Lukashenko’s gangster dictatorship would be a welcome development. He’s propped up by Putin, but there’s not much Putin will be able to do to save his bacon if the Belarussian people decide it’s now safe to stand up to him.
What’s recently transpired in Moldova followed the same pattern, and Russia lost that puppet. And now they’ve lost their Hungarian fifth columnist too. Now, if the oil price drops back, Putin will be even worse off.