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Comment by lwneal | Hacker News Reader

I was surprised by this, until I realized that one of Namecheap's offices is in downtown Kharkiv. Today, the Russian military bombed Kharkiv with cluster munitions [1]. Civilians were killed, possibly including children [2].

Given the severity of the situation, I'm surprised that Namecheap has not opted for more drastic measures- for example, redirecting Russian web traffic. Simply transferring Russian businesses to other providers might be among the less-drastic options they considered.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e42F1V3AOq4&t=150s

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/28/kharkiv-rock...

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They don't just have one office there; elsewhere in this thread, numbers indicate Namecheap is ~95% Ukrainian by headcount.

> the Russian military bombed Kharkiv with cluster munitions

That's a war crime, right? I hope that the field commanders who carried out these orders are brought to justice.

Unfortunately not. The majority of countries have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but this doesn't include Russia, or Ukraine, or the US.

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

> That's a war crime, right?

There are videos of Russian troops killing unarmed Ukrainian civilians online, war crimes are committed since day 1

While there are treaties intended to limit the usage of cluster bombs the Russian Federation is not a signatory on any of those. Neither is the United States for that matter.

so dropping cluster bombs on civilian population centers is ok if you didn’t sign an agreement not to?

It's okay as long as you win the war.

The winner won't find themselves guilty of war crimes, but the loser will be.

Just a passing thought: the same incentives exist for extremist terrorist groups, if they win they achieve sovereign immunity absolving all past indiscretions, and maybe a cool new emoji in the next iOS update. when people have nothing to lose they have all to win.

That's only true if you win the war against those who would judge you. Ukraine isn't the judge.

Yep, same with landmines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty

That’s how the world works, unfortunately. NATO did the same thing in Yugoslavia back in 99. No one was held responsible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni%C5%A1_cluster_bombing

Legally, everything is ok for a sovereign nation to do unless there are signed agreements prohibiting it. That's how law works.

Based on what?

it's the common basis of international law. Sovereign nations aren't beholden to anyone else. It's what sovereignty means: they get to do whatever the fuck they want according to their own made-up rules, unless a treaty they have signed explicitly outlaws the thing in question.

There are a lot of treaties governing proper rules of warfare. Russia is entered into many of them. But Russia has not signed any of the treaties outlawing the use of cluster munitions.

That does need indeed put it into perspective.

This was a decision made by someone who has heard horror stories and seen their cheery teammates turned into shells of themselves.

Indeed. I would've been sorely tempted to post all Russian customer information including payment details to Ukrainian social media to exploit as they are able. Until this is over I regard every single entity inside the borders of the Russian Federation as persona non grata. Public, private, living or dead. I'm not about to be the guy who postured about legality and politeness when it turns out some of my customers were history's next SS.

That is a terrible idea. As it will certainly out some NGO's, protesters and opposition who are trying to change Russia from within.

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