'Good Russians' is Terrible Framing - Russia Will Defeat us Unless we Change Approach!

Silicon Bites Ep341 | 2026-05-19 | We have a habit of creating weapons, figurative and literal, that can be turned to beat us, manipulate us, and shape our cognitive space, in ways that betray our own interests. Social media is one – now the playground of grifters, tyrants, kleptocrats and tech fascists. Another is the concept of ‘Good Russians’. There are no good Russians – not because there are not some Russians resisting their regime, or others that take on personal responsibility for their regime’s crimes. There are some. I know many of them, and do not want to malign their efforts. There are no good Russians, because this is a horrible concept that cannot clearly be defined, and means different things to different people. It is subjective, emotive, vague and open to massive manipulation. I propose an alternative, useful versus useless Russians. Also, through brainwashing, learned helplessness, and the empathy bypass they have undergone over decade, no centuries even, there are very, very few Russians that can be called useful.----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.gofundme.com/f/scaling-up-campaign-to-fight-authoritarian-disinformation----------SILICON CURTAIN LIVE EVENTS - FUNDRAISER CAMPAIGN Events in 2025 - Advocacy for a Ukrainian victory with Silicon Curtainhttps://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasOur events of the first half of the year in Lviv, Kyiv and Odesa were a huge success. Now we need to maintain this momentum, and change the tide towards a Ukrainian victory. The Silicon Curtain Roadshow is an ambitious campaign to run a minimum of 12 events in 2025, and potentially many more. Any support you can provide for the fundraising campaign would be gratefully appreciated. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasWe need to scale up our support for Ukraine, and these events are designed to have a major impact. Your support in making it happen is greatly appreciated. All events will be recorded professionally and published for free on the Silicon Curtain channel. Where possible, we will also live-stream events.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SOURCES:Atlantic Council — Peter Dickinson, "Ukraine's military success is exposing the myth of inevitable Russian victory" (April 2026) Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) — Jack Watling, "Russia's Aggression in Ukraine Will Persist Through 2026" (February 2026)Mick Ryan's Strategic Notebook (Substack) — "Whose Victory Day?" (May 2026) Wikipedia / scholarly source — "Krymnash" entry — Russian "Crimea is ours" 2014 propaganda slogan; Ukrainian ironic reappropriation; scholar Mikhail Suslov on meme evolution; 2015 polling that 52% of Russians considered "Krymnash" a symbol of national "pride and revival"Al Jazeera — "Ukraine's latest weapon in the war: Jokes" (September 2022) The Conversation — "Ctrl-alt-defy: How Ukrainians have used memes to counter Russia's propaganda machine" (December 2025-February 2026)Wikipedia — "Executed Renaissance" (current) — Розстріляне відродження; Yuriy Lavrinenko anthology Paris 1959; 223 writers arrested or executed; ~300 Ukrainian intellectuals executed at Sandarmokh between 27 October and 4 November 1937; 30,000 intellectuals repressed; Soviet "nativization" policy 1920s collapse; 1930 Union for the Liberation of Ukraine show trial----------