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Comment by legerdemain | Hacker News Reader

LOL. Is that the Ukraine that has an active war zone, multiple provinces annexed and mostly abandoned by Russia, and a comedian who played a president on TV... actually serving as president? The Ukraine that's mostly used as a punching bag in disputes between other countries?

If someone would rather live in the third most corrupt country in the world than in Germany, well, they can have it.

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After tax income for software engineer in Ukraine and Germany is about the same and Ukraine is much cheaper place to live. Most of the country is pretty nice and corruption will most likely play in your favor (small bribe for speeding) if it affects you at all.

I was amazed at how low quality of life is for engineer in Berlin where all you can afford on avg salary is shoebox, you have to look at prices when shopping for food and raising family on one income is very hard.

Speaking from family experience, here's what actually happens: someone driving an expensive car drunk hits you. Then they pay a small bribe and get away with impunity.

In Germany you don't even need money to only get probation for such a deadly crash incident:

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https:/...

To make sure we're on the same page, the grandparent is describing this as a positive part of living in Ukraine.

It's not a war, but a frozen conflict. Even Wikipedia says that:

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

I'm not sure I understand the point of this hair-splitting. There is a front line with land mines, ongoing armed conflict, and recent soldier casualties.

Saying that what Ukraine has is a "frozen conflict" and not a war zone is like a real estate agent calling a crappy house a "renovator's dream."

Ukrainian army only had 75 casualties in 2020... and this is on a very small area near the Russian border. The rest of the country is absolutely fine.

This is a continuing misrepresentation of a grim reality. The entirety of the US armed forces, in all of its "ongoing contingency operations" (euphemism for combat) around the entire world, has lost less than 75 people over the period of the last several years. "We've only had 75 people die in active combat on domestic soil last year!" is not a great sales pitch for Ukrainian quality of life.

"A very small area near the Russian border" is literally moving the goalposts. Until Russia stepped in and redrew the border of Ukraine, the front lines were a hundred miles from the border.

Not really sure the point that you're trying to make here. You seem to be implying that anyone living anywhere in Ukraine (such as Kyiv) is under constant threat of getting bombed by Russia, while jjjei3 is saying that Ukraine is relatively safe.

If you're so sure its so dangerous there, maybe you can pull up statistics about number/rate of shooting deaths there compared to the US?

I think what you're doing is called "sea-lioning" online. I mentioned numerous ways in which living in Ukraine misses basic first-world standards. Then you come along and say, no-no-no, you need to demonstrate this other statistic that I find more interesting.

100 people were murdered in Chicago in July (just one month) last year so does it mean US as a whole is dangerous? No, my suburban town had zero murders for last 4 years, there was one homicide in 2016 (domestic dispute) and then no murders for 10 years before that. On the other hand it’s unclear which one is safer - South Chicago or Kabul.

Donbass in Ukraine is dangerous and a no go war zone. Downtown Kiev/Lviv are peaceful and have an excellent quality of life with amazing restaurants and nightlife.

You can’t average big countries.

Oh for goodness sake... there were government snipers shooting dozens of people in broad daylight in Kyiv just 6 years ago.

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