Hurting the Russian nation state through financial and technological sanctions is one thing. Vilifying Russian culture or the Russian people is more slanted towards fascism--the same thing the Russian government is doing in Ukraine towards Ukrainians.
What you propose is also pretty ironic seeing that the majority of civilian casualties and destroyed cities in Ukraine are from areas that have majority of Russian speakers. Not really fair towards those people I suppose :).
> What you propose is also pretty ironic seeing that the majority of civilian casualties and destroyed cities in Ukraine are from areas that have majority of Russian speakers.
This is the terrible irony of this war! I've had many colleagues in eastern cities like Kharkov. They would all identify as Russians. It wasn't a big deal, ever - they were Russians living in Ukraine, speaking Russian just like everyone else, of course knowing some Ukrainian but not caring about that much. And most of them would welcome joining Russia just like many people in Crimea did.
But a few days or weeks after the war they realize they are just insignificant pawns in the hands of cruel people: their own kind were shelling them, killing their families and so on. They realized this way too late, it's a tragic situation. (Fortunately most of my colleagues managed to escape, but not everybody was able to, especially old people.)
There's a huge gap between villifying Russian culture and not wanting to watch Russian movies in the current climate. You're pushing it to an extreme that was not in the discussion.
Also, do you really draw a line between hurting "Russian nation state" and the actual Russian people's everyday life ?
I can't imagine the current sanction has no effect on the regular population's everyday life nor near-future prospects, and it's a choice we're making as we have no other lever to pull. I understand the trade-off and am not comfortable sugar-coating it in "nation state" denomination.
Of course the sanctions are hitting the pockets of the citizens of Russia, but that was not the point I was making.
I was saying that there are a lot of Russians not living in Russia, some of whom are currently the victims of the current war that the government of Russia started. So isolating these people, making them double victims is to me really dumb.
Culturally isolating Russians in Russia is also a dumb move as this is a goal of Putin as well.
I can't stop you from actively helping Putin, I can only point out that what you are doing is counter productive, if what you are doing is done out of ignorance :).
> the same thing the Russian government is doing in Ukraine towards Ukrainians.
It is so fun to see how this whole thing was turned upside down.
Just a small advice: when researching this topic and googling for information, consider setting a time limit on before the conflict, before propaganda machines had been turned on at full power.
It is just very insightful to see what people had to say on some matter, before it became politically significant.
What you propose is also pretty ironic seeing that the majority of civilian casualties and destroyed cities in Ukraine are from areas that have majority of Russian speakers. Not really fair towards those people I suppose :).