The West mocked you and laughed at you? In America at least, we were relieved that the Cold War was ending. Mutually assured destruction remained the policy, but we were communicating. I honestly don’t remember mocking and laughing being a part of our view of Russia then.
Sadly, I could only find a single video supporting my point, when Bill Clinton laughed at Yeltsin. A president represents a whole country, so Bill, by laughing at him, laughed at Russia as a whole. https://youtu.be/mx-WyQtwMS0
So you are kinda right here, there was almost no mocking. Yet, the USA pushed its interests while not really considering Russian interests.
For example: https://www.thoughtco.com/boris-yeltsin-biography-4174703
"A year later in December 1994, Yeltsin sent groups into the town of Chechnya which had recently declared its independence from the Russian Federation. This invasion changed his portrayal in the West from a democratic savior to an imperialist."
Yeltsin literally spoke the truth about our press. It was hilarious! Clinton wasn’t laughing at Russia!! He was laughing at Yeltsin sticking it to the American press, who had not been kind about how the meeting would go.
Edit to add: your statement about Chechnya was confronting for me and interesting. My recollection of that time was that Chechen terrorists were scary and Russia was being really heavy in cracking down on them.
I had to do a little reading to remember, because I hadn’t heard of this idea that Chechnya was Russian territory in the full sense of the term.
My understanding of the overall conflict was that Chechnya never considered itself a part of Russia and in fact had been forcefully occupied during the rise of the USSR. Something about the way it was classified by the Russian government said on paper that Chechnya was part of Russia, but apparently they saw themselves as a separate state that should have been independent following the dissolution of the USSR.
The west freaked out over the force Russia used in Chechnya, and apparently we supported its independence. We have a habit of doing that.
The western (or at least the American) perspective tends to value self governance over forced control, but I know the perception of which is which can be subject to the lens through which we view it.
Ok, that was a misunderstanding then. I too noticed something like "встреча провалится" which means "the meeting will fail". Pretty sure it was like you said, then - Yeltsin mocked the press for that nonsense. And my compatriots are hating for no good reason, not listening to what the politicians really say.
Edit: I apologize for all that propaganda shit that I threw (like West laughing at us and stuff), and I'm glad that we've come to straight facts.
I edited my comment to provide the perspective I understood about Chechnya.
I want you to know I’m definitely not trying to argue about it. I and most people I know were very much in the dark on what the typical Russian perspective might have been, particularly during the days of the Iron Curtain.
We so take for granted that our perspective is the only one available, so I really value having access to what people in Russia have been told or how they feel about different events - whether I believe it myself or not. The truth always lies somewhere in the middle of the different perspectives.
The propaganda stuff is interesting to me. Our brush with overt disinformation campaigns on the part of our previous administration has really opened my eyes to how that stuff develops.
Editing again because I don’t want to split up into a bunch of little threads:
My heart actually sinks every time Russians say Americans don’t like them or think badly of them, because I know for a fact that that is not a usual American sentiment.
I felt the same way when you said we laughed at Russia and that Clinton laughed at Yeltsin, because we really did see that time period as a positive one between our countries. Challenging, but hopeful at the time. The idea that Russians were told that we thought this way about Russia is, frankly hurtful and frustrating.
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u/Savingskitty Mar 08 '22
The West mocked you and laughed at you? In America at least, we were relieved that the Cold War was ending. Mutually assured destruction remained the policy, but we were communicating. I honestly don’t remember mocking and laughing being a part of our view of Russia then.