I remember reading Dead Souls and was fascinated over Nicolai Gogol’s life as a Ukrainian in the early 1800s, where everyone migrated to Moscow and the description of experience, treatment, had similar resemblance between Northern Italians and Sicilians, the later compared to the Ukraine. This of course was before communism killed creativity and ruled for over a hundred years till now - over time Ukraine picked up democracy but then the issue of the borders, ports, funds and all the past promises with Russia. That and US influence .

With regards to your post and Russia, the problem with dictatorship is that people in the country get tired and don’t fight back anymore - the world suppresses them, their own gov’t suppresses them. If they get to leave, they leave. If not, they just survive.

I’m surprise the world is not going upside down with US drone attacking Kremlin.

Reckon Finland joining NATO sends a bigger signal on might happen ? I wasn’t expecting it