Gregory's Server
Many Russian nazis remained underground; some fled to neighboring countries—Belarus, Ukraine, and Baltic states. The war stroke a broad division in the ranks of post-soviet far-right extremists. Some (mostly of the monarchist wing) stood behind Putin’s aggression, while others (those of the more national-socialist vector) had become even more antagonistic towards the Russian government. Wars, justified or not, attract all kinds of violent ghouls—and thus, we now have lots of weaponized nazis on both sides.
I don’t want to be misunderstood—I can’t criticize Ukraine in this matter. This country is fighting an existential war in the circumstances of constant resource hunger. They can’t afford to get picky regarding their fighting ranks. But pedestrian takes of people uninvolved in conflict, those that watch from afar, those that for decades lived in different countries—these are just baffling…
The most peculiar thing is that it’s easier to witness ideological shades of grey in the takes of this war’s actual stakeholders—the people of Ukraine and Russia, whose future had been tainted by warmongering kleptocrats. But post-soviet emigrants, long-time citizens of other countries—they are en masse a different matter. They tend to consider this war as a monumental struggle between the ultimate good and the ultimate evil—no matter what you’ve done before, if you’re with the good guys, you’re a hero.