For some of us from excolonies, this is starting to feel like neocolonialism.
We see our elected leaders bending the knee to the new east India company.
It looks like we have been recolonised before we could decolonise.
We see our elected leaders bending the knee to the new east India company.
It looks like we have been recolonised before we could decolonise.
Then imagine how it feels for people in countries that were never a western colony -- quite the opposite, under Russia's shoe.
It's like, if some aliens from another descended upon us and forced their morals.
USSR invested billions to build infrastructure, schools, factories, power plants, hospitals, irrigation systems, etc. in the middle of deserts.
These countries still continue to use Soviet infrastructure. They lack resources (including human resources) to build their own. Not a single big project, even something like a power grid or a new hospital was ever built there since USSR collapse.
Also, under USSR every nation had equal rights, even more, USSR invested into building national schools, publishing books in native languages, promoting national culture (musicians, poets, writers). There was not a single Western country that ever did that in the colonies. E.g. when India was liberated, about 90% of the population didn't know how to write. Some american visiting India in the beginning of the XX century, said that the whole colonial budget for education in India is smaller than budget of one school in New York (I don't want to look for original quote, it should be easy to find).
Now, quite on the opposite, Baltic states and Ukraine made it explicitly forbidden to speak Russian, for example. I don't know where else in the world it's explicitly forbidden by law to speak some language. I think that wasn't even true in Nazi Germany, so they surpassed even their masters (Baltic states and Ukraine supported Hitler and still celebrate soldiers that joined German nazi army)
A better comparison would be how the USSR handled its foreign occupations. Like Afghanistan for example, where they managed to kill 10% of the population to prop up a fraternal socialist government.
Also, USSR didn't try to occupy Afghanistan. It was a pointless war, but reasons for it are not as simple as "prop up a fraternal socialist government" and it wasn't fought to occupy Afghanistan.
Also, where the number "10% of the population" originate from? It definitely seems and exaggeration.
BTW, unlike US, USSR build roads, tunnels, power plants and hospitals in Afghanistan. Some of them are still used today.
The US and allies have done that, with varying results.
https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1871/201...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_in_Afghanistan
https://www.wsp.com/en-US/projects/afghanistan-infrastructur...
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/in...
The USSR was quite literally an evil empire which rightfully belongs in the trash bin of history