Comment by fortran77 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fortran77 | Hacker News Reader

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I'm not saying they're holy. They took advantage of a misfit kid, to have him do some entry-level intelligence monitoring chatrooms. I don't think they held him in high esteem either, likely knowing his allegiances to anyone in particular weren't very strong, other than some misguided sense to help the "underdog."

But there's no reason to think the FBI had anything to do with his Russia adventures. And I'm not sure how much responsibility the US has with bailing out Americans who want to pursue women who want to fight in Syria, etc.

The "FBI" didn't lose their son. Their son got lost on his own.

> Moments later, Agent Waters phoned. He asked what happened. “You murdered our son,” Mrs. Reilly yelled. “Don’t ever talk to us again.”

It is unfortunately very easy to get yourself in serious trouble, if not murdered in Russia. Their anger is _very_ misplaced, though I'm certainly sorry for their loss.

I only go with a skilled guide and personal driver, and I'm only going for boring business reasons! I've had a business associate who was kidnapped just for taking the wrong cab. (Basically, they get driven somewhere while the cab driver negotiated a fee for their return with their company.)

When was the last time you were in Russia? I've lived here for a few years now, almost intentionally trying to get into trouble, and I've yet to ever have any real problems. The biggest issue I've run into is food poisoning.

You probably aren't running headfirst into a warzone

Where in Russia can one need to run head first into a warzone?

Wherever the guy in the article was going. (Donbas region is a part of Ukraine that's currently controlled by the Russian-backed combatants).

I'm from Ukraine, and I traveled there last year.

It's very safe in most places, and my hometown of Odessa is especially friendly for tourists these days (to the extent that I think that it's becoming too much tourist-oriented). I've helped a Korean tourist find a way to the sea (she asked me in English) in the middle of November, long time before the tourist season begins.

Most cities in Ukraine are great tourist destinations.

Except for anywhere in Donbas, which in 2015 was a literal effin' warzone, and where people still die during the "ceasefire".

All reasonable people that could stay the fuck away from Donbas did so. That's about two million people, just to give you the scale of things. Still, the area attracted some people. The kind of people that downed that Malaysian airliner.

I doubt that guy made it anywhere close to combat. There's still law in Russia, but the moment he crossed into Donbas, he was a goner.

A remarkable investigative job by the parents and the journal, though.

> All reasonable people that could stay the fuck away from Donbas did so. That's about two million people, just to give you the scale of things.

Did all the people in different villages just leave leaving their farms etc? I was seeing travel vlogs of "Bald and Bankrupt" and I see elderly people in former Soviet Union countries living alone in extremely remote places. Most of the places are sparsely populated with supplies coming once in a week or so.

In these conflicts do they harm the village population or is the fight limited between the armies in the region? What would they gain by harming elderly people?

The battles happened where they happened; nobody was specifically targeting small towns, but nobody took much care to avoid them either. There aren't any really remote places in Donbass, it's not that big of a territory - and most people live in the cities or large towns.

A lot of elderly people did stay. Ukraine does pay the pensions (which they absolutely rely on), but one needs to travel outside of DNR-controlled areas to get them. DNR also pays pensions, and some people, apparently, get two pensions; both DNR and the Ukrainian government are not happy with that, and so that won't last long. Russia is being more active now with giving the people there Russian citizenship, but one would need to go to Russia to get the pension.

All in all, it's a complicated mess, and the weakest get the worst of it; those people who live alone in villages are screwed.

Nobody gains anything by harming the elderly, but they are a liability that nobody really wants to take on. For Ukraine, it's dumping money into territory occupied by the enemy. It's a burden for Russia, which their citizens aren't too happy about either. DNR has little need for the elderly, but has to pay up if they are playing the "we are an independent state" game.

There is a mounting pressure to resolve this situation, but the whole point of this mess was to make it complicated (Russia didn't play a Crimea scenario in Donbass so that it remains a long-term unresolved slow conflict, like Transnistria in Moldova and Abkhazia in Geogia).

> The "FBI" didn't lose their son. Their son got lost on his own.

The FBI didn't give it their best shot to bring back their son. However, that is also not necessarily in the FBI's primary interests. The parent is mistaking the FBI's primary interests to be in line with their own.

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