Disappointment? Something Else?

Nadin Brzezinski
5 min readMay 31, 2022
Notice the looted stuff on the hull of the turret

This text was posted on Telegram at Reverse Side of the Medal, and I am going to go through it for study because it speaks to the anger from pro-invasion forces within the Federation. No, I do not speak Russian, but Google translate works great. So consider this a nonexact translation, but good enough to get an impression.

text Reverse Side of the Medal May 31, 2022

📢 🤷‍♂️ The effectiveness of Kremlin propaganda is its own myth. She is not able to create an attractive image of the future, capable of inspiring a feat, Abbas Gallyamov, a political scientist and ex-speech writer of Putin, writes in a column for MO.

This is a screaming explanation as to why people are not dying to enlist and go die in Ukraine. This is as clear as day. This is on a site written by far-right mercenaries for far-right mercenaries. So they are indeed on the front lines and perhaps feel they are freer to grouse and complain. The short of it, is our propaganda, like our military, sucks.

It has long been noted that people are ready to shed their blood not so much for the sake of the present, but for the sake of the future; not so much guarding what they already have, but trying to get what they don’t have yet.

The mass heroism that the Ukrainians have demonstrated over the past three months speaks better than any words that they have a bright and understandable image of the future, for which they are ready to endure any difficulties and even sacrifice their lives. And vice versa: the low fighting spirit that we see in the performance of the Russian army and loyal groups of the population once again confirms the fact that they have no attractive image of tomorrow.

The mass heroism that the Ukrainians have demonstrated. Let me repeat these words. There is a grudging admiration for what the French at one point called Elan. This is something that Russians are recognizing now.

It is not just Ukrainians, it is a heroic nation. Contrast below with what they say about the Federation.

Such an unsatisfactory state of affairs is due to the fact that the powerful outburst of emotions that followed immediately after the Crimean events of 2014 went into the whistle. After all, nothing serious has happened in the country after the…

Nadin Brzezinski

Historian by training. Former day to day reporter. Sometimes a geek who enjoys a good miniatures game. You can find me at CounterSocial, Mastodon and rarely FB