Moscow’s actions in Ukraine have exposed a deep-seated latent racism toward the Russian people that a number of Western institutions – not least Hollywood and the legacy mainstream media – have been cultivating for far too long.
Of all the major military operations that have been undertaken since the start of the millennium – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, to name but some of the broken places – Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine already stands apart for a very peculiar reason, and that is the ugly backlash it has generated against ordinary Russian citizens.
By now, many people will have heard the stories circulating online of Russians enduring discrimination in Western capitals – from famed conductor Valery Gergiev losing his job at the Munich Philharmonic, to children being bullied in school, to families being denied service in cafés and restaurants. Not even medical facilities are immune from the lunacy. Last week, the Iatros Clinic in Munich, Germ...