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I used to lurk on r/AskRussia, and in the run up to the invasion most of the Russians there (who may or may not be representative of Russians in general, I dunno) were confidently saying that there was no way Russia was going to invade Ukraine, it was unthinkable they'd do that to their brothers and neighbours, and it was just Western propaganda. When the invasion happened they were in complete shock, you could tell that many of them felt completely ashamed of their government, at the lies, and that they'd believed them.
As an ethnic russian living in Germany this was exactly the way I felt. But afaik this sadly does not reflect the general russian population. I think people have always less problems to accept more lies than to accept that they have been fooled.
We all need to remember online spaces like reddit generally lean younger and more liberal. We never really get a holistic view of any situation. Just as people on reddit would say "we didn't want trump" and the response was "clearly over half of you did" from europeans, this is another example of how we have to realize we are in our own little bubble in these online communities.
That's somewhat debatable, though, considering Trump won by electoral votes but lost the popular vote by about 2%. The percentage of votes cast by eligible voters was also only something like 57-60%, so it's more like 27.5% of eligible voters directly voted for Trump (if I calculated that correctly).
While I agree, that is still a shitton of people who voted for an orangutan.
just wanted to point out trump lost the popular vote
However, most Americans worship the document that allows the loser of the popular vote to win the election regardless as if it was a holy writ.
I haven't actually asked everyone, but I'm pretty sure that most Americans want to change that part.
You know, it's really easy to look something like this up and determine that you're incorrect.
A majority of Americans favor moving away from the electoral college
But then "didn't want trump" is still literally true. It's just that enough did.
The vast majority of Americans have never read the constitution.
Except at the time it was a shock to most people. The consensus before the invasion was that Russia was just posturing. But then they went for it.
A surprise to everyone except anybody who listened to American intelligence agencies who were broadcasting (very loudly I might add) exactly when and how it would happen.
It just demonstrates how little a lot of the world trusts the American government and it's agencies.
It's also the conservatives kicking the boots of fascists and the liberal bias toward "reason will prevail" - in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
A distrust of the government and its agencies is healthy, but you need to consider what they have to gain/lose before dismissing them - there's a reason the US doesn't have healthcare.
For like 6 months they were broadcasting that it would happen any day, in the meantime they knew Ukranian artillery barrages were increasing exponentially, almost like they were trying to provoke a response
This article from Jun. 2022 states Ukraine hoped they could descalte with sanctions: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/11/biden-zelensky-russia-invasion-warnings-putin/
This article from Aug. 2022 states Ukraine knew it was going to happen but they down played it to prevent a financial crisis: https://www.newsweek.com/zelensky-reveals-why-he-didnt-warn-his-citizens-russian-invasion-1734268
I'm not sure if both are versions of the truth, where they were hoping to descalte and prevent a financial crisis. I'm sure either way they were hoping it wouldn't happen.
At the time I recall saying “they bought a hell of a lot of flowers to not hold the wedding.”