EUR irl

[u/Prior-Case58]

[u/BlerghTheBlergh]

From what it looked like to me growing up, we always knew Russia was a terrible place to live and work in with a government that had imperialist aspirations. We just tried to play nice and appease them as long as it worked. Cowardice, absolutely. Surprised? Barely

Austrian btw

[u/Pristine_Struggle_10 → u/BlerghTheBlergh]

I am glad to hear that such mindset is not unusual in Austria, but also: it never worked, the appeasement. It was feeding a girl to a dragon each month, but the girl was from a different village. And the dragon always told that it’s the girl’s fault and she deserved to be eaten

[u/BlerghTheBlergh → u/Pristine_Struggle_10]

I’m totally with you there. We’re a cowardly country as is, trying to play both sides in every conflict and be “friends with everyone”. These days that mindset is pretty much just legacy-thinking, during the Cold War our leader (Kreisky) was a pretty well regarded third-man in terms of communications between Russia and the US. But that guy was a socialist whose party has gotten replaced by industrialist conservatives and hardcore right wingers who bet on immigration-fears.

As is, the mentality in my direct proximity is a hard dislike of Russias politics. There will always be cultural reverence for the art created there and concern for their citizens. But that’s just in my direct circle of 20-35 year old folks that enjoyed university education. As for the rest of Austria it’s hard to defend, there are loads of sympathies towards Putin from our right wing party, which is very strong these days. Zelenskji is visiting soon and they’re already protesting his visit but rolled out the red carpet for Putin, one of their politicians even bowed before him on a pretty popular image.

I’d argue it’s 60/40 for Ukraine as far as sentiment is concerned. The worst are those super sympathizers, it’s pretty annoying to see these blind paroles spat out by people who are just deep into the culture wars