A few years back on one of my many visits to Cyprus I made friends with a former Russian fighter pilot and his very pretty partner. We saw the New Year in together, drank loads of Vodka, and I was able to show him some genuine Cypriot places to visit. We have kept in touch by email, social media was not his thing, and yesterday I sent an email just asking how he was in these troubled times as I suspect communications could be monitored.
His reply was that there were no problems in Russia and that the war was necessary to prevent a nuclear one.
It seems that 90% of Russia only views/listens to the state media, which reports a highly different view as to what is actually going on. I will give it a few weeks before I communicate with him to find out if the economic sanctions have had any effect on him. He loves to travel around Europe, which will be extremely difficult for him now, plus the fact the rouble will probably be next to worthless soon.
Yeah, likely a victim of his own country's propaganda. Sadly, he probably doesn't trust news from other countries. Though I suppose you could ask.
With the very hefty sanctions, America has placed on them, I'm sure that in a couple of weeks a lot of questions will be asked by the ordinary person.I will leave it for now.
@Dave Sutton - We can hope.
He probably has to be a politically correct Russian especially a military guy. What else could he say? Our emails are not private even in the US.
He's a good guy, he confided in me about things over a few vodkas, and he really thinks Putin is excellent for his country. I see Russia has blocked social media sites now and the list of people withdrawing their services to Russia grows bigger every day
@Dave Sutton Putin has nothing to gain but everything to lose in this war. What's so great about Ukraine that Putin must have it?
@Craig Long According to my friend, Ukraine would have nuclear capabilities in 8 to 9 months time and would have started a nuclear war with Russia.
I keep getting spam about Russian women wanting sex. Things are getting hard up there.
Don't you mean things are getting hard down there, I'm proud of you at your age.
@Craig Long - Yeah, I get inane sexual spam from fake people. What's the sense? Are people really that desperate or dumb to click a link in one of those emails? Don't answer that.
@Dave Sutton - Ha!
@Dave Sutton Haha. There's another idea for an animation!
The software video editor that I use and like so much is made in Russia.
As a radio amateur, what always struck me about the Russians was that many of them built their own radios, they are true amateurs, unlike the Brits and Americans who just buy a transmitter,