Do any Americans support Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian War? If so, why?

38 comments

1. I’ve yet to meet someone who supports Russia, but I have heard some that say we should be helping Ukraine less.

   It usually amounts to “hurr durr muh tax dollars theft blah blah blah”.

2. I mean this is a country of over 300 million people so *some* people will support Russia. It’s very rare though and the vast, vast majority of the population is pro-Ukraine. Russia’s supporters are mostly the typical easily manipulated idiots that think COVID vaccines are a NWO plot and 5G will give you cancer.

3. There are some extremists on the far right who do, but most of them are contrarians for the sake of contrarianism

4. It’s not a commonly held view but yes there are some. No matter what the issue it’s a pretty good bet that in a country with 330 million you’re going to have people on both sides of it here.

5. I would be suspicious of anyone who supports Russia over Ukraine in this conflict. Like I try to see the shades of gray in as many situations as I can, but supporting an aggressor like Russia here defies rationality.

   That said, they’re out there, rare as they might be. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert both seem to be on Russia’s side and they’re elected officials. They’re also fools, though.

6. Unfortunately and it’s because of Fox News told them to. I’m not saying this cause the internet says it. I’m saying it because I personally know people who do. They go on about NATO being the aggressor and other shit.

7. I don’t think I’ve met anyone that seriously believes in Russia and their motivive met someone that said that stuff, but I’m not sure if he meant any of it or if he was just being a silly billy at work.

   The reason anyone would support Russia is because that person likes being objectively wrong and believes in victim blaming.

8. Sure. There are.

   Their reasons are going to range across a variety of reasons.

   Some of them are racists and they view Putin and Russia as the savior of the white race.

   Some of them hate gay people and transgender individuals and see Putin and Russia as the destroyer of the gays.

   Some of them are tankies and have deluded themselves into thinking the Soviet Union was actually good and that Putin is in some sort of position to revive that trash-heap.

   Some of them genuinely believe Russia is in the right.

   Some of them just hate the position the US takes no matter what.

   Some of them are just contrarians.

   Some of them are gay and transgender and somehow think Putin and Russia are their friends.

   Some of them are 14 years old and bought into the Russia Stronk Putin Manly memes.

9. A handful of psychotics, yes.

10. Of course there are some. There are 350 million of us – someone out there thinks this is all a cover for a secret war fought by Ukraine and Russia together against werewolves.

    You can Google Scott Ritter. He pretty strongly supports Russian and is not allowed around children because of his *convictions*.

    (For pedophilia, I mean.)

    You can Google a fine fellow named Gonzalo Lira, who is technically American and was sucking up to the Russians live from Ukraine. He had a former life as a “pickup artist guru” and is now a pathetic shell of a man.

    There was a Youtube *personality* beloved of Russian milbloggers called Armchair Warlord who was a former army officer claiming he didn’t support Russia but constantly and gleefully predicting its impending victory. He left social media after like a year of that not happening. Also a middle-aged man who has hentai and catgirls randomly windowed in his livestreams.

    Russell Bentley is an idiot from Texas “fighting” with the Russians. (Truthfully, he’s more just heaving himself from place to place in a helmet that doesn’t fit.) He may just be dumb enough to believe he’s fighting Nazis, but he’s in so deep that no one would let him change his mind and he’ll just have to ride that to his grave.

    John McIntyre is a former soldier (two years) who went to fight for Ukraine, then defected to fight for Russia. Bro just can’t commit to anything.

    We’re not sending our best.

11. Very very few do. Personally, I don’t know any. As for why, there is no logical reason, they’ve watched too much Fox News and let themselves be brainwashed to the point of regurgitating whatever talking points their 5-10 hours of watching the same channel that night has told them to believe in. No sane American supports Russia. I can’t imagine a sane person anywhere supporting Russia right now.

12. There’s sympathy at both poles – right wingers who view Putin as an ally and a fellow right wing christian nationalist, and leftists with residual sympathy for the soviet union and a world view that sees American imperialism as the fundamental factor at play in world politics (conveniently ignoring the history of Russian imperialism), and view the Ukrainian war as an unfortunate outgrowth of that. The latter view mostly doesn’t support the war, but also is skeptical of western support for ukraine. There’s a final group I’d guess of Russian Americans sympathetic to Putin, but to be clear most Russian Americans do not support the war as far as I know.

13. We have a lot of people here, so you can always find people who will follow or believe anything.

14. We have people who believe the earth is flat. We absolutely have people who support the Russia invading Ukraine. The one I spoke to gave a reason but the longer he explained it, there more it became apparent that it was just a combination that they had some connection to Russia such as a long dead relative and had been there a few times and a strong distain for democrats. Their position is largely out of a desire to be contrarian.

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16. There have been many admirers of Putin and his brand of Christian Nationalism in the reaches of the far right– plain, simple folk who see his penchant for corruption and atrocity is just part of being a strong man, as opposed to the weak, *cosmopolitan* leader of Ukraine, who is no doubt a pawn of the decadent West, or George Soros, or both. Then there are those politicians and talking heads who could know better, but find that having access to that sweet, sweet oligarch cash can make any sin seem like a minor peccadillo. The leading contender for the Republican nomination for President, whose name seems to escape me now, falls into that category.

    But this is a pretty fringe position to take publicly. Not even DeSantis, Carlson or Greene can be full-throated in their support for an action almost cartoonishly evil and against all international norms. Instead, they will merely say that we shouldn’t take sides, because it’s not our fight, and that money would be better spent on lowering taxes on the rich and making sure the poors don’t bother them with their requests for justice, secular education, and respect. Therefore, peace at any price is their motto. If Ukraine loses a huge section of its land– well, they were corrupt, too.

17. I’m sure there are. We’re a big country.

    But as someone from the ol’ Soviet-American community, I can comfortably say that I don’t even know any *Russians* that support Russia right now. I’m this country, anyways. Like, the folks that streamed Putin’s New Years Eve bash every year turned their back to that faster than Kid Rock turned against Bud Light.

    There’s still some controversy around the state of Crimea, especially among seniors. But even the die-hards believe there’s a diplomatic solution to that. What’s happening now is very cut and dry.

    The only person I know that supports Russia lives *in* Russia. She watches state TV all day. It’s so sinister, because when we talk to her – I think she *knows* she’s in the wrong, but can’t admit to it. It’s as if not supporting her government would be a betrayal against an integral part of her identity. The propaganda is extremely effective. The really wild thing is that she openly protested the Soviet Invasion in Afghanistan back in the day… as if this war isn’t in fact worse.

18. A lot if you go on twitter

19. I think that is a really hard question to answer. When the war started, there was kind of an amazing out pouring of support for Ukraine. A lot of people put up Ukrainian flags, took up donations of various kinds by various groups, and a number of refugees were let into the country.

    There is a dance school in our area that is mostly run by Ukrainians. They took up a number of collections and a large assortment of donations were sent to Ukraine. They also had several new instructors join that are recently from Ukraine.

    While there are also many Russians in the area. It would probably be very difficult for them to express overt support for Russia. Given the continued attacks on civilians and the reports of war crimes, the whole Z thing is considered to be similar to displaying a swastika.

    While I think many Russians, and probably some Americans support Russia, holding a public protest in their favor would probably result in a much larger protest group that is hostile.

    You do see some activity by “peace groups” raising concerns. And, some pro Russia people do speak at these events. This is an unfortunate example, because Scott Ritter is a convicted sex offender, but he did speak for a Peace Group in the Albany area.

    [https://cbs6albany.com/news/local/heated-forum-over-war-in-ukraine-bringing-dozens-to-bethlehem-public-library-friday-night](https://cbs6albany.com/news/local/heated-forum-over-war-in-ukraine-bringing-dozens-to-bethlehem-public-library-friday-night)

    So, I would say at this point, support for Russia is still mostly hidden, but there is some discussion indirectly through peace groups. I haven’t seen anyone sporting a Z on their vehicle or Russian Flags, I would think that would result in unfortunate damage to the vehicle.

20. Contrarianism. Leftists that hate the US, right wingers that hate the Democrats, etc. It’s not common, but people will share stupid shit they see on the internet without thinking about it because it “owns” the group they’re opposed to.

21. There are some, most likely, sure. A population as large as ours means *someone* has to hold that view. I’ve never met one, but that doesn’t mean anything. My guess about those poor souls would be stupidity, ignorance, ignorance driven *by* stupidity, or mental instability.

22. There are some strangely pro-Russian people out there, yeah. Not many though.

23. Tucker Carlson supports Russia because of some nonsense about Putin protecting his border

24. I know a few….far left and far right types. Horseshoe theory.

    Nothing new, honestly. You had these same groups cheering on the Nazis back during WWII.

25. Donald Trump has signaled support for the Putin regime multiple times, both as President and post-invasion in order to protect his business interests in Russia which he has had since 1987.

26. In a large county you’ll find people who support anything so, I’m sure some people do support Russia.

    However the pro war group tolerates no dissent. A lot of bad faith commenters think that “should we spend $100bn on a proxy war with no end it?” Is the same as “I want Putin to win”. Just like Bush in 2004 said you’re with us or the terrorists, modern voices say you if you don’t support the war you must love Putin.

27. Yup. I was watching a youtube show that was talking about foreign propaganda. One of the examples was a Chinese made propaganda interviewing an American supporting Russia and calling him representative of the average American (he wasn’t). The guy was from the midwest and worked in the US for a Russian state run media outlet, so he believes in Russia’s rightness strongly enough to devote his career to it.

    I have no idea why he believes that, but I’m inclined to believe it’s because he shut his mind to any evidence Russia is in the wrong.

28. I’m not saying no American supports Russia, but I personally don’t know anyone who does.

29. This guy I guess 😂 https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/tqp5zl/this_man_who_claims_is_from_texas_brags_he_is/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1

30. I support neither

31. Many on the far left support Russia because they believe anything that opposes the US government is good.

    Many on the far right support Russia because of some moral agreements.

32. There are definitely some idiots that do.

33. There might be a few people. I don’t support Europe freeloading on American taxpayer money either though.

34. There’s a regular poster here that posts pro-Russia propaganda although I don’t think they necessarily support Russia

35. I found that a bizarre pocket of alt -right types do. These are the same folks who accused everyone of colluding with Russia, and now they’re in support of Russia because the democratic president Biden took sides with Ukraine. I know one of them, it’s really bizarre – treating Putin like a victim and simultaneously a hero(somehow the war is for our good and to save us, here in the US?). Anyways, long and short of it is that there’s lunatics everywhere.

36. I dont think very many people “support” Russia, I think most of them just don’t support Ukraine or the idea of sending Ukraine aid. That then gets viewed as “supporting” Russia

37. I don’t support Russia or Ukraine. I support America.

    I want our troops to completely withdraw from Europe and NATO.

    I want our military to focus on Asia or the Pacific.

    I view other European countries with disdain because they pretend to be allies. Not to mention European countries have an Anti-American culture.

38. I know a slavic nationalist, who sees Russia as a key instrument by which the slavs will one day be united under one nation.

    They’re willing to waive pretty much all crimes Putin has committed, if in doing those crimes, he succeeds in reuniting Ukrainians with the slavic motherland. Also helps he’s one of those right-wing allied people.

    They were pretty enthusiastic at the onset of the invasion. Finally, Russia would show the world we can’t be bossed around and all that. But now they’re huffing huge amounts of Copium, hoping beyond hope that Putin can pull something out of his ass to turn this around, or at least hold what he’s taken so far.

    I imagine most Russians think like this too. But I have no way of knowing.