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The way I see it, both things are true - European politicians and major parties have stirred anger by their incompetence, AND Russia has exploited this anger for their own purposes.

EU has huge flaws, but it's still better than Russia. Germans, French and the British may not understand it, but us unfortunate enough to live next to Russia do. There is a reason why Poland, Baltic countries and now even Finland and Sweden joined NATO. Russia is ruled by evil, murderous tyrants (as is always has been), while EU elite is merely lazy, greedy and incompetent.

I'll choose pro-EU parties over pro-Russian parties as long as EU is not bombing children's hospitals and massacring civilians. I can only hope citizens of other countries do the same, or otherwise there's a pretty good possibility my country will face what Ukraine has suffered.

It's unfortunate that so many alternatives to mainstream parties in big EU countries are also more or less pro-Russian. One should be able to vote against the flaws of European Union without voting for closer ties with Putin.

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> Russia is ruled by evil, murderous tyrants

Yes, and Stalin was Georgian, Kaganowitch was Ukrainian (and orchestrated the Ukrainian Holodomor), Breshnev was Ukrainian and so on.

The alternative parties are not pro-Russia. They want to trade with a totalitarian regime just like we trade with Saudi Arabia. And they'll break their election promises anyway just like Meloni and Trump broke theirs.

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Was Ukrainian really what was listed as nationality on the propiska?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazar_Kaganovich

Born in Ukraine, first Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev

Born on current Ukraine territory (unless you wish to argue that it should belong to Russia).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Brezhnev#Early_life_and...

"Brezhnev's ethnicity was given as Ukrainian in some documents, including his passport, and Russian in others."

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> macron has 16% approval rating, while 81% see him "unfavorably"... how shitty of a politician do you have to be to not step down when 81% of the country hates you?

When elections come due, following the natural order. Otherwise maybe some bad actor could influence polls - which are easier to manipulate than official elections - to make you resign.

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Calling them incompetent gives them the benefit of the doubt which they do not deserve.
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All that's being said is, "Russia is known to exploit political conflicts to harm their enemies".

WHY those conflicts exist is irrelevant.

No one is saying it absolutely, unquestionably was Russian interference. Just that it could be. EDIT: OK, at least one person is saying that. But most people are likely thinking, "Well, could be, might not be... dunno."

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Why those conflicts exist is actually very relevant when those responsible for them keep using "wawawa russians" as a diversion to avoid doing anything about the issues. If both my local politicians and foreign countries are working against my interests I am going to first vote for better local politicians because at least there I am supposed to have agency.
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This is a completely all over the place gish gallop. Both can be true: there's real reporting on acts of sabotage that aren't made up, and there are domestic tensions happening independently of that. The skill is keeping both things in your mind at the same time.
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You're being downvoted for a reasonable position. Both can be true.
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> But all those political divisions are a result of national politics of those countries.

Do you claim that Russia doesn't invest in disinformation campaigns against the West?

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They certainly seem to be implying it. And not only that, disinformation narratives often to to emphasize domestic political troubles that fan the flames of skepticism against mainstream institutions, and their reply to a topic about Russia was to go straight to that particular well.
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When the mainstream institutions are obviously divorced from reality ( Nordstream - "Russians did it themselves", or every mainstream news segment in spring 2022 starting with "unprovoked full scale invasion of Ukraine" where even a casual glance at numbers involved (~ 180000) pales in comparison with what US used in Iraq I or II), you don't need disinformation narratives to elicit skepticism against mainstream institutions. A bit of common sense is entirely sufficient.

One could even argue the mainstream institutions were involved in disinformation narratives (e.g., in the case of 40 beheaded babies or widespread systematic rape on Oct 7th: did not bother to check the facts before spreading it wide).

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