Igor Eidman: "Who is Russophobe?"

“The word “Russophobia” became popular in Russia during Gorbachev’s perestroika. Then it was used mainly by crazy anti-Semites - bearded degenerates from the Memory society. They called the Jewish liberal-cosmopolitan intelligentsia Russophobes,” the sociologist writes on his Facebook page.

“Putin’s authorities have taken a lot from the marginal discourse of Russian chauvinists. Now the word “Russophobia” is in use. Its meaning, however, is different. Russophobes call everyone who opposes the current Russian regime. It’s like the old joke about logic. You don’t like Putin , that means you don’t like the Russian state, that means you don’t love Russia, that means you don’t like Russians, that means you’re a Russophobe. Well, in general, it’s just a childish trick with substitution of concepts.

With particular bitterness, the authorities hang the label “Russophobes” on those who oppose attempts to revive the Russian empire and Russia’s seizure of adjacent territories. This is also a scam. With the same success, anti-fascists and opponents of the revival of the Third Reich can be called Germanophobes.

I knew only one real clinical Russophobe, who hated and despised Russians as a nation (not an empire, not a regime, not a set of archaic traditions, but an ethnic group - from small to large). This was an oligarch under the KGB roof, feeling great under Putin. Judging by the policy of the authorities, directed against the interests of the majority of the population, it is precisely such Russophobes who are in power in Russia today."