Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Oh I have heard that stuff from Russians I've known. Their propaganda "history" of World War Two is staggeringly daft in places. According to what they're taught out of the womb Russia never put a foot wrong in that and history is either spun as part of Stalin's grand plan(he tricked the Germans to come in such huge numbers to encircle them. Yep...), or like the examples you gave is completely omitted. The Allies did little save for the start and were corrupted by America's influence.

I also noticed, or rather fully fleshed out what I noticed in the past but didn't quite solidify into thoughts, but because of recent events see another pattern. Namely how Ukrainians were viewed and how this has been spun by the Kremlin and changed over time to their ends. I knew a Ukrainian woman ten years ago and she was friends with some Russians and other Russians I knew suggested I should bring her over for a get together(a housewarming IIRC). Fast forward to around five years ago and her name came up in passing with the same Russians and the tone had shifted. She was of Russian background herself and grew up in the West of Ukraine and the Russian line was "how can she live happily there? That's very odd" kinda thing. I thought it a bit strange at the time, but didn't really delve any deeper as I hadn't seen her in years. The impression I got was since the invasion and annexation of Crimea and after Maidan and the Russian stooge getting the heave ho, the Russian top down spin has gone from "Brothers in Little Russia" to "Nazis on our doorstep, whores to NATO". And these are all people living in the West, though they naturally as diasporas the world over do consume the media of the old country. Now imagine that same stuff being fed to Russians in Russia itself, especially beyond the urban western parts of the country and you can build suspicion, even hate quite easily.

That certainly wasn't the case not so long ago, at least in my I grant you limited experience. It's much more a new thing. The nazi thing is even more ridiculous as Mother Russia has her fair share of neo nazi and far right groups. Even Moscow's poster boys for nazis the Azoz had it's genesis in a bunch called Section 82, or something like that, a neo nazi group allied to the Moscow Spartak FC Ultras a Russian neo nazi group that masqueraded as football supporters. Far Right nationalists are not too hard to find in that neck of the woods.

The master race stuff in general when it comes to Russian, and something their autocrat promotes is IMHO more of an insecurity than anything. Their history is framed as being one of victims, attacked from outside 'foreign" forces and the plucky Russians defended their land and pushed them back. The fear of the outsider and the outsider's culture and deviat influence is strong. WW2 reinforced that and propaganda around that terrible event is and has been pushed heavily to the generations since. Well a fearful people are a more controllable people(I have had two Russians tell me Chernobyl was a CIA plot..). A technique used by autocrats even otherwise democratic governments the world over. QV the Reds under the bed paranoia in 1950's America.

Earlier in the thread somebody expanded more on this Russian arrogance thing and how they were all **** and my initial reaction was WTF? The more I thought on it the majority of Russians I've known have been women. All but one were perfectly pleasant people. When I think of the handful of Russian men I've met, yeah there was more of the arrogance thing alright. One guy was sound as a pound, another was fairly OK if mad as a march hare, the other two, were yeah arrogant. However, again I found that just below the surface it was a faux arrogance based on insecurity.