I would simply recommend everyone to travel a bit and see for yourselves.. I'm not a huge traveller myself, but I've seen that:
Scandinavia > Most Western Countries > Recovering Eastern Europe > Ex-Soviet > Russia.
In wealth, fairness, security, quality of life.. And the biggest problem is not the poverty, it is the corrupt way of thinking, prevailing in those countries.
Take Poland, together with Estonia one of the countries who did best after the fall of USSR. They don't have much resources, but the ones they have are often wasted in ways not imaginable in the west. In my school, every teacher has an assistant teacher, usually not doing anything except sitting obediently next to the main teacher in class, and sending emails/organizing things which in any normal country, the teacher himself would do. They build a brand new "Media" building because of a supposed lack of classroom space, when the room space they HAVE is used extremely inefficiently. In Norway the room usage would probably be on 80%, but here it can't be more than ~30%. The departments are fighting in between themselves, and the teachers are capitalizing on it. In a class that could easily fit a 100 students, they rather fit 15, 7 times a week, so that teacher can have more work.. There is of course ZERO transparency, and the schools budget is a closely guarded secret that very few have seen.
Anyway, there are no protests, teachers are hired for life, and they are also powerful decisionmakers in the industry relevant to my studies, so all students do is suck their dicks, and no one wants to put their ass on the line. Any single teacher has the power to fuck a student out of school almost on their whim. (I was kicked out at some point, but a friendly teacher thought me how to suck dick polish way, and I got back in.)
NOW.. The farther into ex-soviet you go, the worse this shit gets, and Russia itself is the worst. (ok maybe Bialyrus)
To give an example, on a school I was in in Norway, the student leader went straight up to the headmaster and demanded to see the school budgets. And he got it straight away.
In Norway my father once let himself be arrested because the post office closed in front of his eyes, while he still had a queue ticket. That started a major debate in the local newspaper. 2 months later, the post office changed their queue policy and their opening hours.
That is how it should be.
Back to Ukraine.
While I do understand Putins personal motives, I think the strategy is really really bad for the People of Russia. They have managed to brainwash them into hating the west, while Europeans as a people, really are very similar. And the western system, definitely with its problems, have shown itself to be completely superior. There is no comparison.
The reason people here don't see this is because they haven't gone to see for themselves. There is too much noise in all channels, there is no truth to be found, and arguments supporting anything can be easily found.
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