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Comment by VincentEvans | Hacker News Reader

The fact that Russian websites are still on internet seems like a failure of serious response to me.

Cut their circuits.

Having to rewind their VHS tapes before returning them or facing paying a fine will teach em lessons “targeted sanctions” are unlikely to achieve.

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Russian aggression will likely end when the Russian populace gets fed up with their psycho leader. That is a lot less likely to happen if they get cut off from the Internet.

In fact, during the Cold War, the US policy was to try to connect the USSR to the world to force regime change - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Libert...

Having grown up in Soviet Union I am not entirely ignorant of these facts.

However, times have changed and new generations have grown up knowing nothing of the experiences of the past. They watch Avengers, Naruto, and Game of Thrones, they play Call of Duty on Xbox live, they travel to Europe and Turkey for vacations. And yet 70% of them support Putin’s government.

Perhaps waking up one morning and finding the Iron Curtain drawn once again will convince them much more effectively than watching a Youtube video will, that this isn’t the course they are willing to continue to support.

given that Russia has serious aspirations to take itself off the internet, it's questionable what effect cutting Westerners from Russian sites is supposed to have

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50902496

Imagine your government doing something you don’t like and the international response being to cut your internet connection, destroying your financial security and jeopardize the supply chains allowing you to get food every day. Does that sound like the proper balanced response to the actions of your government? Does it affect your view when it’s not about punishing “them” but about you being punished?

While I made the original post somewhat in jest and laughed off expected downvotes, I would like to say that I find your reply especially either naive or somewhat detached from realities of this world.

You don’t believe that the citizens of the country acting as a belligerent aggressor should suffer any inconvenience as a consequence of the actions of their government, such as change in living standards?

How do you think warfare is conducted? Do you not believe in the right of victim of agression to strike back? Does it not quite register that there are people now losing their lives in Ukraine?

Do you think Ukraine would be within their right to conduct a strike against Russia?

Consider that perhaps in contrast to a potential retaliatory strike - a prospect of Russians waking up to a new world where they are no longer part of the modern civilization would be preferable and may in fact result in them thinking that this isn’t the kind of life they want to return to?

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