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Westerners don't understand Russia - Putin

RT
Wed, 26 Mar 2025 20:00 UTC

Russia wants to see more people who comprehend it and want to live in peace, the president has said

Some people in the West do not understand Russia, yet that fact does not hamper the country's development, President Vladimir Putin has said.

The Russian president made those remarks on Wednesday during a meeting of the supervisory board of the Movement of the First, a Russian organization for children and youth.

"There are people in the so-called West who do not understand Russia. But this does not prevent us from living and developing. This should only motivate us to increase the number of people who understand us and want to live with us in peace and friendship," Putin stated.

Such a goal could be achieved through extensive work with the youth in particular, the president emphasized. "Success awaits us in this area if we work actively and effectively with young people, with children, with teenagers, those who create the foundation of the country's future and value this country," he said.

Founded in 2022 with Putin's direct backing, the Movement of the First has grown into a major nationwide organization. According to the president, it now brings together more than 11 million members.

The main goal of the group is helping the country's young people become successful in their lives, Putin said. Helping a person find an "optimal" path in life is the key to success, he stressed.

"Almost every person wants success, even if they think that, in general, they do not need anything and everything is fine. No, in their souls, everyone strives for success. To achieve this success, you need to find your path in life and find a trade to which you are ready to dedicate your life. This is one of the reasons why the Movement of the First was created," the president explained.

Comment:
1)
It is possible to "increase the number of people who understand us and want to live with us in peace and friendship" but there are forces that try to scare people away from even trying. Another question is, how many, especially in the so-called western countries, would not only be capable of, but also curious enough to learn, and, who knows, gradually move toward a perspective on Russia that is contradicted on a daily basis by the steady stream of mass media headlines and so-called news reports? By the way, to understand Russia is not the same as moving from one black and white position to another. As always there will be nuances. Even Russian people view their history and life experiences differently. Below are some links to recent articles and some that lead to the history of Russia since Russian Revolution.

2)Some recent articles

3)Recent Russian leadership and spokespersons

Link to SOTT articles that contain Yeltsin - This was a difficult time:

Link to SOTT articles that contain Vladimir Putin

Link to SOTT articles that contain Putin in the title
Link to SOTT articles that contain Putin in the summary
Link to SOTT articles that contain "Putin interview"

Link to SOTT articles that contain Dmitry Medvedev
Link to SOTT articles that contain Lavrov
Link to SOTT articles that contain Zakharova
Link to SOTT articles that contain Peskov

4) Search link to SOTT articles that contain 'Russophobia'
Examples:

5) More links and some articles that connect to Russian history
Link to SOTT articles that contain Romanov (This was the last dynasty of Russian tsars)

The Russian Revolution

Link to SOTT articles that contain Lenin
Link to SOTT articles that contain Trotsky

The Soviet Union

Link to SOTT articles that contain Stalin
Link to SOTT articles that mention the Soviet Union
Link to SOTT articles that contain "The Soviet Union", and WWII
Link to SOTT articles that mention Stalingrad
Link to SOTT articles that mention Leningrad

Link to SOTT articles that contain Khrushchev, see also Krushchev
Link to SOTT articles that contain Brezhnev
Link to SOTT articles that contain Gorbachev

6) Names surrounded by political intrigues

Link to SOTT articles that contain Berezovsky
Link to SOTT articles that contain Litvinenko
Link to SOTT articles that contain Khodorkovsky
Link to SOTT articles that contain Magnitsky
Link to SOTT articles that contain Nemtsov
Link to SOTT articles that contain Navalny
Link to SOTT articles that contain Skripal

7) A few Russian authors:

Link to SOTT articles that contain Mikhail Bulgakov
Link to SOTT articles that contain Chekhov
Link to SOTT articles that contain Dostoevsky
Link to SOTT articles that contain Solzhenitsyn
Link to SOTT articles that contain Tolstoy

8) MindMatter shows related to Russia

Reader Comments

Peter Jennings · 2025-03-28T00:48:08Z

The people who matter, the people who run things understand Russia very well. It;s just the populations who don't understand each other because the only time they meet is during a holiday or a battle.

jcsmalz · 2025-03-28T05:36:51Z

I want to live in Russia but I won't be able to learn the language, cat least certainly not beforehand.

diminished7 · 2025-03-28T07:26:31Z

jcsmalz the sooner you start picking up bits and pieces the better.

The alphabet looks scary but it's not. 32 letters (33 if counting ё), and there are only 2 or 3 exceptions to pronunciation (что and the endings -ого/-его, which are so common, they're usually covered by the first 3 chapters of any grammar book). Aside from these, all words are pronounced like they are spelled. (where to put the stress accent is a different matter).

The grammar is intimidating at first, but it really only takes a 1-year course to cover all the forms you'll ever encounter. Russia takes in several thousand international college students ever year (most? from the southern hemisphere), and the Russians teach them Russian language in a 1-year pre-course, before launching these students onto their college degree studies.

The vocabulary seems to be the biggest snag, IMHO, which is why the sooner you start learning, the better. Russian language has a huge vocabulary (similar in size to English). But for a basic walking-around tourist vocabulary, you could probably get by with a first 1000 words.

There IS a language requirement for residency. They'll let you in on a tourist visa for a visit, but if you think you want a residency permit, then you need to pass the (pretty basic) test.

There's something like 250 million Russian speakers, and for nearly a third of these, Russian is not their native language. Which is to say, that Russians are used to and welcoming to people of various degrees of Russian proficiency. They will happily work with you to communicate, even if haltingly.

The best news about "learning Russian" is that there is a huge amount of material available over the internet. Not all languages are created equal, in that once you learn Inuit or Old English, there's not a lot you can do with it (not a lot of books, movies, websites). For Russian, the opposite is the case. There are freely available books and movies in Russian, and the runet (Russian Internet) is the 2nd largest corpus after English. (German has more web-pages, but Russian has more actual content.) Russian is the 7th most spoken language in the world, and probably the 2nd most spoken language in space, depending on the week.

For a pocket dictionary , get the Collins Gem, or the Oxford Mini. The Collins is much more consistent in detailing irregular forms of verbs and nouns. The Oxford Mini subgroups entries by roots and word-formation, so it's easier to build vocabulary by seeing all the related words together. (like "instruct", "instructor", "instruction", all being together)

translate.yandex.com [Link] is fabulous for Russian <--> English translation, and has a ton of example sentences at the bottom of the page. These are really helpful for catching nuances in meaning that dictionaries too often leave ambiguous. It also has an audio button to pronounce the Russian for you. It's an amazing tool for learners.

toipup1 · 2025-03-28T07:43:24Z

diminished7 thats great thanks for that, would love to visit Russia,

codis · 2025-03-28T08:44:24Z

diminished7

The alphabet looks scary but it's not.

A large part, and especially the part that "scares" Westerners most, is basically identical to Greek. Although I'm sure this alphabet is not of Greek origin, but Byzantine. I am convinced it spread out from there to all parts of the Byzantine empire, of wich Greece and Russia had been a part at times.

The vocabulary seems to be the biggest snag, IMHO, which is why the sooner you start learning, the better. Russian language has a huge vocabulary (similar in size to English).

Yes. Although there is some overlap with Germanic languages, and quite a few loanwords.

But to extend that, the grammatics (cases, declension, conjugation) are different, and consequently the rules to form sentences.

But even I did manage to learn it, and millions of Russians do as well ...

letscit45 · 2025-03-28T13:02:52Z

diminished7 Thank you

codis · 2025-03-28T06:30:20Z

Some people in the West do not understand Russia, yet that fact does not hamper the country's development , President Vladimir Putin has said.

Translation : "Most Westerners hate Russians, but we don't care. They can go pound sand."

ReRan · 2025-03-28T20:13:57Z

codis And they can have a good life without us caring!

diminished7 · 2025-03-28T07:36:45Z

Russia is far too valuable to the western elites, as a Boogieman with which to terrify their own sheeples. Factor in the profit-motive of the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) : they will never allow Russia to come in from the cold.

Read this analysis [Link] "The Secret American Plan to Make Russia Great Again" to understand the West's interest in keeping Russia as the scary "Other".

ReRan · 2025-03-28T20:15:53Z

diminished7 "Russia is far too valuable to the western elites, as a Boogieman with which to terrify their own sheeples."

And it works for said elites (liars).

codis ·

Ты́ мне не панимаешь !

· 2025-03-28T16:25:20Z

Eventide · 2025-03-29T14:30:57Z

There's a slight hint of anxiety in Putin's words and actions here. That unfortunately tends to put blood in the water, and attracts predators. He's done a very good job of maintaining equilibrium over the past few years - staying above it all and refusing to take any bait or become defensive or reactive - even in the face of over-the-top demonization. He needs to stay the course. So why is he a little bit rattled-seeming now? Could it be the saber-rattling by the EU? No, that's bs. Could it be China backing into the shadows? That's more possible. That would make him feel more exposed.

Putin is no saint, but I do think he's smart and has Russia's best interests at heart even while he's selling his country down the river to the globalists. He does what he thinks he has to do, and one of the things he's felt he had to do was help put a stake in the heart of the US Empire. China is supposed to be helping with that, but maybe China thinks its own interests require keeping a lower profile right now. Just guessing.

codis · 2025-03-29T16:10:26Z

Eventide

There's a slight hint of anxiety in Putin's words and actions here.

That depends.

Even RT is viewed with a certain suspicion in Russia for it's liberal slant. And more than once they published their own translations of such statements, which were later found to substantially deviate from speaker's intention. Not to mention, a lot of Russian websites in English language use auto-translation services.

In other words, you can't take these words too literally - except you refer to the orignal Russian language ones'.

Eventide · 2025-03-29T19:54:09Z

codis I hope you're right.

codis · 2025-03-30T08:32:36Z

Eventide Me too.

But I'm pretty sure the Russian government will not budge.

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