Russians ‘Repeating’ Worst Aspects of Soviet Behavior in World War II But Not the Most Valuable and Essential, Gallyamov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 26 – When today’s Russian “patriots’ talk about “repeating” what their grandfathers did, Abbas Gallyamov says, “they thought they would be repeating the raising of the victory banner over the Reichstag” in Kyiv. But “instead, they have repeated the overconfidence, self-aggrandizement, sloppiness and unprofessionalism” of their ancestors.

            Their grandfathers made all these mistakes and more but they won because they proved capable of learning from their mistakes, correcting what they had done, and then, because they had done so, achieved victory (t.me/abbasgallyamovpolitics/9581 reposted at https://echofm.online/opinions/oni-vzyali-ot-dedov-samoe-hudshee).

            Unfortunately for Russia, the Russian commentator says, the current generation of Russians and their leaders have proven incapable of that; and so as Putin’s war in Ukraine has lasted longer that the USSR’s Great Patriotic War did, today’s warriors have not already won as they expected but are far further from any victory than they imagine.