Although I don’t live with them, the topic comes up every time I am on the phone with my father. He keeps yapping and yapping about how great the motherland is, until I snap. It seems it’s all he ever wants to talk about - Putin this, Ukraine that.

Thank you for your advice, I’ll try setting up some boundaries next time he calls.

Disappointed and upset is exactly how I feel! Thank you for your input.

Thank you for your advice. Unfortunately though, I don’t live with my parents anymore. They seem to consume information mostly through telegram, news articles and Russian television. I wouldn’t know how to shield them from those influences, I don’t have access to all their accounts or devices.

Germany

Diese Kommentarsektion ist nun Eigentum der BRD /s

Ironically, my mom’s husband is from Odessa, Ukraine, yet he still sides with Russia. They’re small business owners and would likely profit from AFDs tax reforms. Their clients are also mostly “Russland-deutsche” and apparently most of them are also AFD voters. No wonder they were influenced towards this direction. Hard to tell if they have spoken to Ukrainian refugees, doesn’t seem too unlikely given their clientele.

I think your tip with money is right on the nose. I would also describe my family as opportunistic, now that you mention it, it sounds like a fairly accurate description.

They don’t seem fearful at all to me. My father for one thing believes Russia is the land of the free, where the government protects its citizens from evil NATO. I asked him what he thought about all those opposition journalists who disappeared or got jailed, or what about the laws forbidding to criticize the government on social media. His response was “nobody got jailed! It’s all fake news! My colleague criticizes Putin all the time and nothing happened to him! It’s those foreign agents and business crooks who got jailed, and rightfully so!”

It’s very frustrating, I feel you bro.

Do you happen to have any resources on how to counter pro afd/ pro Putin arguments? I remember seeing a YouTube channel debunking Putins propaganda in Russian, but I don’t know what they were called.