Russian Imperial Movement, and a Tad on Kherson
One of the core constituencies of Vladimir Putin is the extreme far-right Russian Imperial Movement, RIM for short. This movement took shape after the mess of the 1990s and part of its vision is an empire reborn.
Yesterday I came across this extremely good summary of the goals and intents of the movement. Realize the irony since any nationalism, except theirs, is what militants do. Here is the full post, contextualized:
I think that nationalism has an exclusively utilitarian meaning for Russians. This is an ideology that in modern times is a good tool for protecting our interests. Moreover, the victory of Russian nationalism is also important for all other peoples of Russia, suffering from hopelessness caused by multinational politics.
One of the charges is that allowing the regions to find their own identity at the expense of Russification has led to weakness. I guess having the troops fight and die for Russia is fine. But don’t let them have traditional dances or their language. This is an embrace of what built Russia. If you wonder, it’s exactly what we see in Ukraine.
Bad for Russians — bad for everyone, good for Russians — good for everyone. I don’t see any other ideology capable of making life better for people in Russia. Sometimes they try to replace ideology with religion, but…