“The emperor only values his throne and will do anything to protect it, while all others are mere resources to be exploited,” writes Aleksandar Đokić, a Serbian political scientist and former lecturer at RUDN University in Moscow. “In other words, the Russian empire is knowingly throwing its own people, people of its own nation, into a meatgrinder, a virtual abyss.”
Yes, already in the title we can read of " Putin’s empire" and it’s clear all over the analysis that the author doesn’t refer with “empire” to the Russia before 1917. I guess @Johnny Wild misinterpreted the text (maybe intentionally? Unfortunately there are some people here on Lemmy who are intentionally misinterpreting some content, although recently this is becoming more and more better imho).
Having lived in Russia for more than two decades, and having ancestors who lived in Commie times and Empire times I can say said labeling the current tyrannical regime with “Empire” is a misinterpretation. With the same level of success almost any country in the modern world, even if it hides behind the words “republic” or “democracy”, can be labeled as an “Empire” too.
I dunno how many people would take issue with that, I think a fair number of people here would agree that America is an empire too for example
America’s done some fucked up things in the last 20 years, don’t get me wrong, but absolutely nothing comes even close to the horrors of the genocidal war of imperial expansion Putin’s currently waging in Ukraine. There’s absolutely no moral equivalency between the modern US and Putin’s Russia.
