After listening to Rachel Maddow’s history lesson on the Winter War between Russia and Finland in 1939-40, it occurred to me that maybe there was a debilitating lack of resolve among the invading Russian troops, since they were being told to invade a sovereign nation that had done nothing to them except to have the bad fortune of sharing a border.
The Finns held their ground until the sheer volume of Russian troops tipped the scales a few months in. They were defending their homeland from an army that was just following orders, who were fighting without a certain animus or “inspiration.” Or any real reason for being there other than Josef Stalin wanting to gobble up more land for Mother Russia (how much more land do they need? They possess the largest landmass on earth!).
The Russians hadn’t been attacked or provoked, so how could the average recruit feel like what they were being told to do was a good idea, somehow morally justifiable? Tough position to be put in, for anyone with a conscience. Yet they were compelled to do their jobs. To be order-following soldiers.
It might make one wonder if a similar dynamic doesn’t exist in the current unprovoked invasion. This might be our only hope—that Russian troops, en masse, awaken to the contrived purpose and the grotesque depravity, then rise up and flip Vlad the bird.
3 Cents' 