AdamGhostTrapper

Most European countries would benefit from bringing conscription back

Russia’s neighbors fight back against Russian invasions because they know what being colonized by Russia means, and they would rather die fighting against it than live under that again

If your definition of anti-colonialism stops where Russian expansionism begins, you are not opposing imperialism. You are just hating the West. Anti-colonialists should not give Moscow a free pass, but far too many do. Because Russia built its empire across land borders rather than oceans, millions of people ignore one of the most brutal colonial projects in world history. Selective anti-colonialism is one of the greatest intellectual failures of modern political debate. Too many commentators remain blind to Russian imperialism, treating colonialism as if it were strictly a Western enterprise carried out against the Global South. Why does this double standard exist? First, it is a hangover from the Cold War, when Western leftists idealized the USSR as an anti-capitalist counterweight, ignoring its imperial subjugation of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Second, modern "campism" leads people to believe that the enemy of the West must be a friend of liberation. This reflexive anti-Americanism causes observers to deliberately ignore Russian and Chinese aggression. Finally, Moscow actively fuels this blindness by funding populist movements on both the far left and far right, buying political silence and echoing anti-Western rhetoric. The historical facts of Russian colonialism are undeniable. Moscow built its empire through land conquest, robbing neighboring republics of their resources, deporting indigenous populations, and murdering millions through manufactured starvations like the Holodomor (and in other ways too). Non-Russian cultures were systematically suppressed through forced Russification and political purges. That same colonial impulse drives Russia today. In Ukraine, Moscow is attempting a classic war of colonial re-conquest, stealing land and attempting to erase local identity. In Africa, Russia uses mercenaries and political interference to extract mineral wealth and prop up autocratic regimes, wrapping its neo-colonial resource grab in anti-Western slogans. If your anti-imperialism ignores Russian colonialism, it is not anti-imperialism at all. It is merely partisan bias. True anti-colonialism opposes imperial conquest everywhere, not just when the aggressor speaks English