Oh “the west” is not without their demons, for sure. It’s just a lesser of two evils thing. There are many aspects of both foreign and domestic policy that I’m highly critical of. The difference between the “west” and Russia is that I’m allowed to be critical of the government without being sent to a gulag/falling out of a window/being sent to soak up bullets in Ukraine.

You know I actually know quite a few Russians where I live and weirdly, none of them are too eager to return home. One colleague of mine told me that the border guards can confiscate his passport for any imperfections no matter how small and arrest him for trying to enter the country on a false passport.

He seemed convinced that the possibility is high enough that he said he wasn’t going to see his family until the war was over.