Obedient Russians

Memes about obedient Russians typically fall into two categories. The first points to the dearth of protests against the war by average Russian citizens. The second invokes the debasement of Russian people to their leaders, specifically President Vladimir Putin. Memes of this type will often employ the language of vatniks (Ватнік /Ватник/вата) - originally a word for a style of quilted jacket, it has now come to mean an overzealous Russian nationalist, in a pejorative sense.