Out of fear but in the vain hope that the Country Email List official version of events will turn out to be, somehow, way, miraculously true (at least in part). Because that would free her from the horrible prospect of moral failure and the terrible need to speak Country Email List out against the facts. The government is trying very hard to use this moral dilemma, effectively blackmailing people out of fear. "A true Russian is not ashamed to be Russian, and if he is ashamed, he is Country Email List not Russian and he is not with us," said the president's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov.
But there is a vulnerable point in this tenuous Country Email List contradictory reasoning: it cannot be sustained for long. No amount of draconian information control measures can shield citizens from the monstrous reality. First of all, about a third of Country Email List Russians have relatives in Ukraine. No censorship can prevent millions of phone calls and messages between them. My phone is filled with the most desperate pain. "We've been sitting in the basement for four days." "They are bombing. We are experiencing a blockage. No one can get in or Country Email List out." “Today I stood in line for 5 hours to buy bread.
They didn't bring anything." I can quote those Country Email List messages by the hundreds. And there are millions like me in Russia. This testimony of the catastrophe is much more persuasive than the political debates. It is dangerous for us to discuss the Country Email List number of casualties suffered by the Russian army in the Ukraine. It is the most sensitive issue for the government, which closely monitors these discussions. The government has officially acknowledged that more than 500 soldiers have died during the "operation". Even this number is monstrously Country Email List high. In ten years of war in Afghanistan, the USSR lost just over 14,000 soldiers and officers.