Tell HN: If You Are in Russia | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: If You Are in Russia

727 pointsjacquesm1,068 comments

Every Russian citizen and every Russian company that is currently relying on businesses in the West such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and so on for hosting, communications, connectivity and other services should expect those services to be cut off at some point in the near future, and plan accordingly. This also goes for stuff deeply integrated into services in your home country that you have come to rely on, which may stop to function.

Regardless, you won't be able to pay for any of these services at the next billing period so they will be terminated one way or another.

Back up your stuff, move your service while you can or you risk losing everything, this is not a drill.

Understand that the level at which this is currently playing out means that it could very well happen that governments will sanction businesses in the West that continue to work with and do business with Russian entities, businesses or individuals.

Some may decide to do this unilaterally for reasons all their own, some may give you warnings, some won't. Contrary to how these things normally play out the speed with which sanctions are being enacted and their severity should not be underestimated. Effectively threatening the world with nuclear annihilation has put the pressure on in a way that I have never seen before, leading to a degree of unity that is unique and which will speed up the process of ordering and implementing these sanctions to unprecedented levels.

Use the time while you have it.

If you are a private individual from a Western country get out while you can, even if that means a detour via Dubai or China. This could very well get ugly and you don't want to get caught in a country where lots of people are being made to believe that you and/or your country of origin are the cause for their hardship. Waiting it out is a risk you probably can not afford. Some Western governments have already ordered their citizens out of Russia.

I hope sincerely that all of this will be behind us soon and in a way that minimizes bloodshed on both sides, but I especially wish that for the defenders, who had no agency at all.

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You might want to check stuff like virtual office service, incorporation in an EU country, they start really cheap, as well as getting a VPS to bounce from. And stuff like Electronic Money Institutes for at least some really basic banking.

Fair warning though, some of these things look rather shady so use some common sense and be careful with your local legislation (See MrDisposables response)

edit: To elaborate on the last part see what happened in Kazakhstan recently. Their outage lasted luckily only shortly but you might not have to think about only western sanction but also Russias distaste for VPNs as well as the possibility for having your internet cut. Sure Kazakhstan is a lot smaller in terms of internet infrastructure, but there didnt seem to have been a way around their shutdown. You are then only left with satellite as well as maybe coverage from the neighboring countries. Both getting really expensive with a devaluing currency and at high threat of sanctions.

  > "incorporation in an EU country"

Illegal, due to the "КИК" law, and, if I remember correctly, punishable by a heavy yearly fine (about $50K ath the current exchange rate).

  > "Electronic Money Institutes for at least some really basic banking"

Outgoing transfers to foreign banks and electronic money institutions are now illegal, due to the yesterday's order that forbids Russian residents to transfer money to their own accounts abroad.

Thank you! Do you know if its only incorporation in EU countries? I am not quite sure about globally, but since Canadian and US Limiteds are likely out of the question as well that would (have been?) Hong Kong then?

For the banking, is that transactions out of the country or any transaction, so also from money you get from out of Russia? I was more looking through the sanction perspective

  > Do you know if its only incorporation in EU countries?

Anywhere abroad. It is illegal (and has been illegal since 2014 or so, can't remember) for a Russian resident to have a controlling stake in a company not incorporated in Russia.

  > is that transactions out of the country or any transaction

It's about transfers of funds from Russia to foreign bank (and "bank-like") accounts. Accepting money from abroad is still legal -- which is confirmed by the fact that they yesterday imposed a requirement of mandatory conversion of 80% of any foreign-currency revenue to rubles.

> Anywhere abroad. It is illegal (and has been illegal since 2014 or so, can't remember) for a Russian resident to have a controlling stake in a company not incorporated in Russia.

Do you know if that also applies for legal entities or only natural persons? That would mean a Russian holding company for the shares? Its a structure common even inside the EU as well for tax reasons.

  > Do you know if that also applies for legal entities or only natural persons?

Not sure (would adive to consult a lawyer), but it's quite possible that it applies both to physical persons AND legal entities.

1) It's not forbidden to control foreign company - you have to report it in 3 months time. And potentially pay taxes if there's no double taxation agreement. 2) That 80% is for corporations bringing funds into Russia as foreign currency. For an individual you'd need ruble to buy things in Russia anyway so it is not a thing to care about.

> It is illegal (and has been illegal since 2014 or so, can't remember) for a Russian resident to have a controlling stake in a company not incorporated in Russia.

How does this work with Gazprom owning Nord Stream 2 AG (incorporated in Switzerland)? Exempting legal entities would make the law extremely easy to circumvent, so I'm guessing that's not it.

Interesting.

JetBrains, s.r.o., producers of IntelliJ (and a bunch of other IDEs such as Android Studio, PhpStorm and CLion) are incorporated in the Czech Republic, but in practice, all the development is done in Russia.

My guess is they make more than $50k/yr.

Russia is certainly about to lose some serious technical talent. I can't imagine any devs would want to stick around in that country. Hope Putin doesn't block all ways for them to emigrate.

He basically aims to reinstate the Soviet Union "glory" days so reinstating the iron curtain isn't a big stretch...

I still hope this can be settled. If Ukraine gives up the areas that were basically constant civil war anyway... Continued escalation is to nobody's benefit. I don't think the Russian population wants this war either.

PS for what it's worth I also was really opposed to my own country helping the US to invade the middle East (eg Iraq, Afghanistan). But two wrongs don't make a right.

It was never a civil war; from the beginning, it was a Russian invasion implemented partially with some locals as a proxy.

And for more info lookup "little green men" on Crimea and the history of trying to transfer Russian population to the region. This video was linked in some other comment (although on youtube) and I found it interesting: https://invidio.xamh.de/watch?v=nK-yJD_fAtk

And lets not forget that guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Girkin

True, I was following the official wording because even us in the west didn't want to call that an invasion for fear of inciting Putin. Of course that ship has sailed so we can now call it what it is.

But basically the status quo is that these areas would be no good for Ukraine anymore because they're shot to crap and full or armed rebels (or green men). It's not like it's actually useful territory for building housing or running commercial activities etc. It's also pretty clear Russia would keep playing that game even if they retreat.

I would assume they'd gladly give up this territory (and Crimea) at this point for the war to stop. And then go full NATO or at least EU for future protection. I don't think Russia will ever give up the war without some kind of compromise because they would lose face.

Either way, I hope a consensus will be reached soon because this BS war is killing real people.

There are huge coal deposits that Ukraine relies on. Some export of coal was going on even during years of Russian occupation. Ukraine needs them to be energy-independent.

Donbass got a lot of coal, and we still need coal. Donetsk was a very rich city before 2014, and we want to restore that. Donbass history is rooted in Ukrainian and German history, not Russian.

Good point but I wonder if this is achievable at this point.

Energy independence is a great thing to have but not relevant if you have no country left :( I doubt Russia will give up without any kind of compromise. And the rest of the world can't make this into WW3 by intervening.

It would be great if you could kick Putin out altogether but he does have a lot more spare rersources. I just have a feeling that soon there will be nothing left to fight for :( Hope I'm wrong.

We're a lot more optimistic. Everyone thought Russia is a superpower, until this reality check.

https://3dnews-ru.translate.goog/1061104/mintsifri-predstavi...

It assume it depends on how things are structured. If you are effectively running everything from Russia and are just using a EU corporate entity on the "frontend" with no actual business operations within the EU, that type of setup would likely be illegal in most countries.

But if you have two separate entities with clear split responsibilities things should work just fine. For example the EU-based company takes care of running the the product and contracts development services from a Russian company.

It's fairly common to have multiple businesses to reduce the blast radius. Often staff are employed by one company which has zero assets in case an employee tries to sue.

They have like 100 people in Prague, another 100 in Munich and then 1000 in Russia. Safe to say they are a Russian company with an EU "presence" for tax purposes.

It's amazing how much people will close an eye if they like the product!

JetBrains should be boycotted too.

> Outgoing transfers to foreign banks and electronic money institutions are now illegal, due to the yesterday's order that forbids Russian residents to transfer money to their own accounts abroad.

Break this law if you can. Weigh the probability of being prosecuted in the mass of others breaking these laws versus the probability of facing real hardship from the economic sanctions. Doubly true if you have a family you're taking care of.

With the focus on "IF YOU CAN". Dont do something stupid. If you break any laws be very very sure about what the consequences can be and how you protect yourself from that. Put bluntly, dont be a blindly gambling idiot.

Is it also illegal to buy Bitcoin?

Sweet. I would recommend checking on stuff like “do I know how to grow and harvest potatoes” and “ensure I have firewood and a wood burning stove for heating”. These will be much more useful for survival than a virtual office space.

Yes, hierarchy of needs. But not loosing your livelihood makes the other problems easier to deal with. And like OP said, the time window is closing fast, some of that might not be possible in the future. Having pointers to potential problems and solutions can be helpful and save time. Even if its just by being able to rule them out fast.

That's cool and all, but you need to have a house outside of the city for a lot of that as well.

Mind you, thanks to the rise of remote working - and virtual office spaces, I guess, begrudgingly, although I'm confident those are aimed at extroverts that need to see people and wave their arms and stuff - living in a city is no longer a requirement for working at companies you want to.

I hope this loopholes would be closed and Russian economy crumble. Stop supporting warmongers, then we can build businesses.

Are any countries accepting refuges from Russia that seek asylum? I know some Russians that are wholly against their Government's actions. I hope some provisions are being made to allow those who wish escape to do so...

>Are any countries accepting refuges from Russia that seek asylum?

This is an important topic. Some EU countries like Czechia are even blocking visas for Russian citizens now and I think this will be a trend in other EU countries.

AFAIK, since Russia is the aggressor here and is (on paper) a democratic country (but not really), then its citizens are not considered yet victims of the war, and are most likely not falling under the rules of refugee status, unless they can clearly prove that the Russian government is a threat to their life, which would be a bit difficult (like if you're in political opposition to Putin).

I honestly don't envy the Russian people now. They're forced into a conflict they don't want to be in, and are suffering the consequences.

> They're forced into a conflict they don't want to be in, and are suffering the consequences.

Ukrainians are also forced into a conflict they don't want. Unfortunately, it's up to both the Ukrainians and Russians to do something about it, not Ukrainians alone.

The Ukrainians clearly made their decision. Now it's up to the Russian people to make theirs.

> Now it's up to the Russian people to make theirs.

There's nothing we can realistically do. It's up to the military to start a civil war.

The Euromaidan also started with normal civilians. It seems they just didn't accept no for an answer. Later they indeed threatened to involve the reserve army since they were on their side. But the army was not required.

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

>> Now it's up to the Russian people to make theirs.

> There's nothing we can realistically do.

Then you get to collectively carry the responsibility for that "inability"; for, by not rising up as one against the dictatorship, passively allowing it to continue. That's what was seen as appropriate for the nation you fought in your Great Patriotic War, so why shouldn't it be appropriate for yours?

Many awful dictators have been toppled by civilian revolts. Waiting for the military to get involved is not at all required.

When enough citizens revolt there will be a point where police forces realize that they are on the wrong side, either for moral or self preservation reasons. Once they start refusing to defend the dictator, that dictator's power is done.

> The Ukrainians clearly made their decision. Now it's up to the Russian people to make theirs.

Russia is a non-democratic country...

Ukraine was also a non-democratic country, until the people decided otherwise. And yes, it was pretty brutal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

> Ukraine was also a non-democratic country, until the people decided otherwise

That's not true. The President of Ukraine who was overthrown in 2014 (Yanukovych) was democratically elected in 2010 in an election that international observers called fair, truly competitive, and an impressive display of democracy.[1]

That President was supported mostly by the people of eastern Ukraine and opposed by the people of western Ukraine.

1: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/08/viktor-yanukov...

True that he was democratically elected. But it's hard to call a government democratic when they shoot and kill protesters.

Walling themselves off from (edit: potential) protesters at taxpayer expense is still good, though?

I'd say instead that it shows that being democratic doesn't preclude being corrupt and authoritarian.

I like to think its a step wise progression with the ideal being leaders can change without requiring a revolution or war to happen.

Democracy is first and foremost about peaceful transfer of power after elections. Anything on top of that is luxury. The only alternative is a series of civil wars.

Oh well, that's too bad. I guess it'll stay that way until the Sun swallows the Earth.

It's an incredibly difficult thing to do, and it can't come from the outside. Russians have to collectively decide that they don't accept the situation anymore, and that they're prepared to pay the price with their blood. They did in 1918, and I wish I could support them to do it again.

Of course it's easier said than done. And yet I'm not claiming that it's easy, quite the opposite.

> Russia is a non-democratic country...

So was Nazi Germany. Everyone there still had to accept thorough "de-Nazification" after WW2, though.

(This makes it doubly ironic how exactly that is what Putler claims to be doing to Ukraine.)

CNN finds that twice as many Russians believe it would be right for Moscow to use military force to prevent Kyiv from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as say it would be wrong.

One out of every two Russians (50%) says it would be right, while only a quarter (25%) say it would be wrong. The other quarter (25%) are unsure, according to the survey.

But the poll also found that more Russians think it would be wrong than right to use military force “to reunite Russia and Ukraine” – two countries with a long and complicated history of being intertwined.

It’s a close call, but 43% of Russians said use of military force against Ukraine to join it to Russia would be wrong, while 36% said it would be right. (The rest of the respondents said they didn’t know if it would be right or wrong.)

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-uk...

Anecdotal but...

I was recently chatting with an old coworker. Their mother is still in Russia. The mother watches state run TV and listens to state run news.

She doesn't really believe this is happening because the news says otherwise. She may believe there is some fighting but not that Russia is the aggressor.

Obviously this is one relayed experience but it's important to keep propaganda machines in mind when talking about volumes of support.

Spending effort on convincing their family and friends that the state propaganda is not to be trusted is probably the best middle-term investment a Russian can make right now.

Have tried it with my parents, unfortunately, they eat all this crap from Putin's TV. People who are brainwashed can't really be talked into reason. Politics start and end wars, but a person can break ties with his family irreversible because of those in-family political discussions.

Note that convincing them that they're wrong is less important and much harder to do than convincing them that new things they may see in state media may be wrong. It's about instilling doubt, not about arguing with your parents about politics. The propaganda is most likely going to go into scary territories now, so any doubt will be helpful.

Tell them things that will scare them. Anything that will scare them. How much they will personally come to suffer because of the the sanctions of Russia because of the war in Ukraine. How Russia is not able to import anything. How poor they will become.

These polls paint a somewhat different picture. I'm not claiming that they're more accurate than yours. Just that it's difficult to understand the situation as an outsider. Sample size is at least 1600 people and was done by the independent Levada Center.

> Who do you think initiated the aggravation of the situation in eastern Ukraine?:

50%: U.S., NATO countries

> In the event of an outbreak of hostilities in eastern Ukraine, should Russia engage in armed conflict on the side of the DPR/LPR? (percent of respondents)

Exactly split down the middle, 14% said it's difficult to answer.

> How, in your opinion, would the attitudes of Russians change toward Vladimir Putin in the event of a full-scale war with Ukraine? (percent of respondents)

8% net bias towards thinking that it would make him less popular.

> Do you think Russia needs to improve relations with the U.S. and other Western countries? (one response allowed)

Overwhelming yes (79%)

source: https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/5-polls-contextualize...

>> Who do you think initiated the aggravation of the situation in eastern Ukraine?:

> 50%: U.S., NATO countries

What would have been somewhat encouraging would have been if the other 50% were like 45-49% "Russia" and 1-4% "Undecided" or "Other". Turns out, though, that:

> 16% think that Ukraine was the initiator. Meanwhile, only 4% named Russia

So, either they are pretty much deluded nationalists, or Putin's state-media brainwashing has been overwhelmingly successful.

(Any particular reason you left that bit out of your comment?)

Imagine answering "don't know" to any question that starts with "would it be right to use military force", let alone those questions.

Keep also in mind their view (whether self determined or propagandized) is that joining NATO means joining a coalition that may want to attack Russia. So the actual question in their mind is somewhat similar to ours — is it right to use preemptive military action, if the alternative is a bigger war down the line? It’s not an easy question to answer.

This is an opportunity that The West is probably going to miss for ideological reasons. We should accept Russian engineers, scientists, doctors. Don't forget that during the Soviet era, they had to build walls to keep their intellectual capital from leaving. Take them!

@pwnallthethings on Twitter makes exactly this point and I find it quite convincing. Link below. If (and this seems increasingly likely) this war drags on, we should try to attract and welcome as many Russian mathematicians, scientists, and engineers as we can before Putin forbids them from travelling.

This is why I find the recent cancellation of many public Russian individuals concerning. We should be offering them citizenship (I exaggerate!), not shaming and dropping them. Rossophobia against normal Russian citizens is counterproductive.

Thread: https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/14979877099686051...

In Europe you can generally only get political asylum if you are considered personally at risk of persecution. So just disagreeing with the government would not be enough.

The current refugee crisis is going to be a challenge for Europe. I think most countries would rather spend their resourcing on helping the direct victims of the war rather than Russians fleeing from the consequences of the sanctions.

You're absolutely right.

Worth mentioning that even though Binance was founded by a Chinese guy and is banned in the US, they're saying they'll cooperate with sanctions. So if your savings are in Binance, maybe move them to a wallet where you hold the keys, not some server overseas.

They have a US entity.

Binance said they will freeze accounts of sanctioned persons. Not all Russians are under sanctions, only a small subset of them.

Who will be sanctioned is unpredictable. A week ago nobody was sanctioned.

Can we sanction Putins orgs on blockchain? Ask HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30510973

If we were looking for ways of storing and exchanging money where popular groups can confiscate the holdings of unpopular groups with impunity, we already have one; it's the banking system. We don't need a blockchain for that. It sounds like what you want is for cryptocurrencies to not exist, which is a reasonable point of view, one I held for many years.

> maybe move them to a wallet where you hold the keys

Something you should be doing anyways by default, war or no war.

Self-custody is one of the pillar of what makes crypto interesting.

Exchanges, as the name implies is a place where you move your crypto temporarily to perform an exchange. Once that is done, you get your funds out.

If you leave your crypto (or fiat for that matter) on an exchange, what happens next (confiscation, hack, exchange owner runs with the money, etc ...) is the result of you ignoring this basic tenet:

Not your keys, not your coins.

I agree, but this is a moment when it's especially important.

Not all services have local replacements, but I strongly recommend storing your backups in the ru segment. In the case of shutting down cloud providers like Google nothing would work fine for several days, and your unstable service – not a main problem for all others.

#НетВойне #РоссияНеМолчи

  > storing your backups in the ru segment

Or locally, on your owh HDD. It's a shame though that the HDD prices will soon become exorbitant, and a NAS would be unreachable for most folks.

In war time you really don't have to backup tons of videos, movies, etc. A 500GB. flash drive or SD card will probably do.

I think its very sad normal Russian people are going to be targeted when European countries are still buying oil and gas from Russia 700million a day going straight to the war machine.

Europeans pretend to care and sanction everything except for the oil and gas that is funding that war.

There should always be a difference between government and people.

All these sanctions are harming normal people, essentially economic carpet bombing.

It's simply not possible to change the infrastructure that fast. Gas is used for heating, that's not optional in winter. Europe needs to build more LNG terminals (which they decided to do) and order gas from other countries that have the ability to greatly increase their output. This all takes time, but in the long run Europe will stop being as dependen on Russian gas and oil as they are now, Putin made sure of that.

Surely not possible everywhere, but I have turned off the heater and am wearing 3 sweater instead, as a symbolic act and also to find out how realistic it is. We have temperatures around 5 deg C here, I think. So far I am doing fine.

Western Europeans willingly made themselves dependent on gas. It was supposed to be an intermediate step for "ecological" transition away from coal. But unlike coal, which is widely available in Europe and from other countries (the coal mines may have closed in many countries, but the coal is still there), gas is hard to obtain in Europe and need to rely on a few gas countries.

When Trump criticized German dependency on gas and was slowing the construction Nord Stream 2 he was criticized and laughed at.

This is true, especially Germany and Italy, and Germany in particular. Even now they're in the process of shutting down more nuclear power, to become even more dependent on Russian gas. It's idiotic and pathetic, really. I hope Scholz has more of a brain than Merkel.

They've had nearly a decade

>and order gas from other countries that have the ability to greatly increase their output.

Which is why the west fucked up in Syria and Russia got a great deal. Now Syria blocks gas pipeline options from Qatar at Russia's behest.

I'd bet heat pump manufacturers are ramping up for their biggest year ever.

Heat pumps don't work well in older houses that were not build for them. This is not going to be quick at all.

The US is hypocritical as well. They could reduce their excessive energy consumption and help the Europeans to replace the Russian coal, gas and oil.

The reason these sanctions are harming normal people is that Europe is driving for a change in Russia that will never happen unless the people blame its own government for the situation.

It's absolutely possible, it would just come with an enormous impact on citizens and the economy.

The result would be exploding prices, shortages and rationing of gas, potentially even power cuts at night or reduced availability of power to industry.

But the EU countries could absolutely do it if they really wanted to.

But this is also a big escalation.

Energy exports are the lifeline of the Russian economy. Canada just banned crude oil imports from Russia yesterday. Without a delay Russia just stopped diplomatic relations with the country and withdrew all diplomats.

It's basically a declaration of war to them, because if it spreads and even countries like China theoretically were forced to join in, they would really collapse.

And if Russia is pushed I to a corner there's no telling what they might do.

What are the possibilities for an average russian citizen to leave russia and start over somewhere in the west? How about visas? Does anyone know?

https://old.reddit.com/r/IWantOut/

More than being Russian, the real issue would be to be moving country amidst the pandemic. Although the every day restrictions have been lowered in many countries, they won't be quick to allow for immigration again.

Definitely, just not right now. As far as I know most western countries have stopped taking in Russian citizens.

If the airspace of half of the world is closed for Russia how you think they can even fly?

They've sanctions that would even make it impossible for normal people to do a bank transfer in their "new" country.

There are plenty of land borders, a flight isn't necessary.

Yes go and check the distance between the border and the first "valid" Russian city, then do the same from the border to the other side.

Then think about the fact that is cold now and, additionally, that the border with Europe is full of military.

Now that you consider all tell me where they're supposed to go.

2 developers I'm in contact with are moving from St.Petersburg to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladikavkaz

and then to Georgia even as we speak, 1 by train, another by plane.

They should make it, that's a fairly safe route, the train will take a long time though.

This underestimates the size of Russia substantially. Borders to the West are all pretty much closed. Which makes the minimum route 1000's of km with all kinds of complications along the way.

When you don't know geography and where the fight is that's what happen.

Luckily these people are not working in position of power. Aren't they right? Right? :)

One would hope...

> If the airspace of half of the world is closed for Russia how you think they can even fly?

First flying to the other half, or taking land transport (at least for the border crossing part).

Ya like this is a Hollywood movie and not a freaking war and Russia is not a huge country.

Easy to cross it like you're doing a walk with your dog. Not to mention that is cold... But yay lets go and take a walk to the border lol

It would be easier to fix your own government. General strike. They can arrest protesters, but they cannot arrest the entire working population.

"They" are also Russians. The key here would be convincing members of the police / army that they should work for the people, not Putin.

That's the real issue right now, the people can do all kinds of civil disobedience, but as long as the police just rounds them up and arrests them by the thousands it won't change anything.

I wonder what it'll take. Given that currently the Russian economy is getting decimated, I wonder if it'll take a few weeks or months of not getting paid. But that might just make them more ruthless and make them start extorting people for money, since they still hold power.

In previous eras pay was highly correlated with the ability to project force, since keeping those parties happy was what kept a ruler in power. Given that Putin rules like a petty feudal lord I imagine a similar principle holds here.

If police stop getting paid, while having to battle thousands of protesters each day, I expect their loyalty to change very quickly.

Exactly, and not just the police. Some 20-30% of the population are actively supporting the current regime and will stand for it. Even if all state propaganda magically disappears and gets instantly replaced by the West propaganda, it'll take months and months for them to change their stance. People hate being wrong, and even more they hate admitting being wrong.

It is a civil war kind of situation we're talking about.

My brother was on the verge of traveling to Russia from Latvia recently as a tourist. Apparently you can get a bus from Riga to St Petersburg that takes a few hours. I presume you could take one in the other direction to get around the lack of flights etc, but I have no idea about visas etc.

You can get to the border, but it will be hard to impossible to cross it legally right now.

Are you living in Russia by any chance? What is the situation there like for westerners at the moment if so (e.g. in St Petersburg)? My brother still wants to go as he has been planning it for ages (he is learning Russian). I am quite concerned for his safety for obvious reasons but he is too stubborn to listen.

I’m living in Russia. If no one from outside will use nukes, then he will be fine. Everything operates normal, people doing everyday work and relax at the evening. You won’t see much difference from any EU capital in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In 2022: zero, unless you have relatives/friends from abroad who are willing to help. I'm mid-20s below-average Russian born and raised in a city with population of 19k (and declining), Ural region. Average salary here is around 200-300 USD, 400 if you are lucky.

I emmigrated in 2019 to work with an international startup in Montenegro: and ended up being ostracized and harassed by my manager from another country (won't point fingers to avoid unnecesary nationalism) on a cultural/ethnical basis; was forced to leave after a year and a half.

After that, in 2021, I was offered to come to US by a fellow colleague with Ukranian roots: worker visas were denied to Russian citizens at that point, and most of the embassies were either closed or worked in a limited capacity (also due to pandemic).

My last attempt (again in 2021) was to apply for PhD in EPHE institute of France (I have an MS degree in a programme related to medical tech, computer vision, and brain-computer interfaces): I got nothing in response.

Since then I have been holed up in my hometown. Another friend of mine proposed some time ago to come to Vietnam: but with the entire world openly opposed to my nation, I doubt that will ever happen.

The Russophobia that has been pouring out is lamentable. And people don't realise this will only push the Russian people further towards Putin to re-establish their pride. And the sanctions are making this even worse. This mirrors Germany's treatment with the Treaty of Versailles leading up to WWII.

It is really distressing, not only because it’s ethically wrong to blame groups of people for individual actions, but also because it’s pragmatically against the interests of the West. We gain nothing by escalating this.

"We" did not escalate this; Russia did by annexing Crimea in 2014 and invading Ukraine. They could have chosen not to do so and instead focus on building up good international relationships. What did they think they had to gain from annexing neighbouring territory? More control over the Black Sea I guess, but why do they want that control in the first place?

Russia can de-escalate by withdrawing. The only way for 'the west' to de-escalate at this point is to tell Ukraine to just roll over and get annexed. Is that preferable?

And once Russia controls Ukraine, then what? Everybody's happy, and they'll just leave it at that? What is Putin's goals after Ukraine?

I'll admit I'm not educated in international politics, I've just pivoted from an armchair virologist to an armchair politician / military expert on the internets.

From Russia’s point of view, they had many reasons to annex Crimea. It wasn’t just a random act of aggression.

Having studied this situation a bit, my conclusion is that both sides are to blame, with Russia being considerably more culpable due to choosing the violent option. Geopolitics isn’t simple and thinking that one side is entirely to blame is just naive and falling for propaganda.

By escalation I’m referring to the giant effort to exclude Russia from everything, including liquor stores and name registrars.

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

> From Russia’s point of view, they had many reasons to annex Crimea.

Oh they sure did, and all of them were of the militaristic and imperialistic variety.

> Having studied this situation a bit, my conclusion is that both sides are to blame

How can Ukraine/the West possibly be responsible for Russia launching an imperialistic annexation war? Nothing can excuse that.

It’s a bit too complex to summarize, but if you study NATO’s actions in the region, you’ll see that we helped set up this precarious situation.

Again, as I said in my initial comment, most of the blame here is on Russia. Nonetheless, the world isn’t black and white.

We also have to understand Russia's grievances instead of seeing it in terms of an evil side attacking the good side because it's not that simple. The US would hardly be best pleased if Mexico started receiving arms from China and North Korea right at its border.

What if Mexico received the arms because the US said they were going to topple Mexico's government?

Russia is not justified, which is why there has been such unification in the West and silence from Russia's powerful allies. Putin made a mistake.

I don’t think anyone is saying that Russia is justified, more that if we want a solution here we have to understand their motivations.

True, but understanding their motivations goes further than taking their narrative at face value.

The Russian narrative swings from fear of future deployments of American missiles in Ukraine, as if nuclear ballistic submarines can't show up in the Bering sea in a matter of days. And de-nazifaction as if the Kremlin regime is a pillar of freedom and democracy.

Both arguments are rather flimsy at best. It looks to me the main issue is Ukraine's democracy, it looks like the Kremlin cannot tolerate bordering a democracy not run by some kind of autocratic vassal.

It kind of make sense since there is a large Russian/Russian-speaking community in Ukraine. What the Kremlin can't tolerate is a neighbor with greener grass on their side of the fence. Because if the Russian people witnessed a blooming economy and growth in Ukraine after the popular deposition of their then Russian-adjacent president, they might get ideas. So days after the event Russia invaded crimea and labeled the Ukrainian government Nazis.

Simply because the Russian people had to see that popular revolutions only lead to misery.

And Russia has to understand europe's grievances. You can't invade europe and hope it won't react accordingly.

How was, before this hell, the consensus of the people in Ukraine for a Finland like solution, ceading territory (Crimea), neutrality (non-Nato), but within the EU (won't ask about Minsk agreement, cause I know no one supported it)? I always found this to have been the best option for all sides.

Ukraine was effectively already at war with Russia since 2014, it just got paused without real resolution.

> a Finland like solution, ceading territory

Sure, you can advocate using the Winter War robbery of East Carelia and Vyborg from the independent democratic nation of Finland as a model if you want. Two questions about that, though:

1) How much did that help? Didn't exactly sate the Soviet Union's appetite for acquisition and oppression of satellite states, did it?

2) Advocating an appeasement model seems (at least to me) to imply endorsement not only of the temporary calm it might buy, but also of its moral and ethical justice. Care to expound on how you do that?

Pragmatically I am pretty sure the western logic goes like this. Sanctions will cause economic damage which will lead to misery which will lead to unrest and finally the toppling of the regime. This worked in the 20th century but took like 50 years, and as we can see now the resulting regime is not much better for the west, but I don't think there are any better options. The other approach see China is also slowly blowing up in our collective face, not that it would be an option now.

Pragmatically I think the western military logic is that sacrificing Ukraine to Russia is entirely worthwhile if it breaks Russia too.

They want Russia out of the way so that they can focus on taking down China. Most of all they want to avoid a Russia-China military alliance.

West's reactions is too bad for the Russian people but not reacting would mean they lose credibility and soft power in the future. Putin's previous adventures were not sufficiently reacted too and other countries around the world could see that too.

I don't think you can really call this escalation. Escalation would be responding to military force in kind. Instead, the West is is confining itself to economic sanctions and material support. I don't really see how they can do less, frankly, without risking emboldening Putin to strike at Poland or the Baltics (thus involving NATO).

But we could do more... if Russia can use 'little green men' then so can we.

and we do: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/latvia-allows-its-citiz...

You could always marry a foreign National to gain citizenship in that country. The going rate for a US sham marriage is about $60k.

How do you determine the going rate? Are rates advertised somewhere for comparison? Seems like a pretty risky thing to advertise.

This is an interesting and valid point. Though, even if I could, why would I? Forming a bond (be it faked or real) with a person who might end up despising you for your blood (which you are trying to escape), and then trying to integrate into a hostile foreign culture — it's like trading one hellhole for another.

It might be worth the struggle in case of a sincere relationship, but not just for the sake of saving my sorry ass.

These are valid concerns. There are racists everywhere. From what I can gather most of the US view race as skin color, so I think you are shielded from the most overt racism.

The US has a complicated relationship between colloquial and academic definitions. Academic is useful for understanding and discussing the history of systemic issues, but sometimes people try to over-fit them to avoid recognizing someone's suffering as legitimate or serious enough to warrant advocacy.

Most people here will apply the colloquial definition which is more or less another word for xenophobia. An academic racial analysis could help understand why someone who's seen as white and foreign is often treated better than someone born here, but someone trying to do that as an explanation for why you shouldn't care about a Russian immigrant's feelings would be rightly seen as a jerk.

There might still be some prejudice, as analyzed in this classic stand-up bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OB72GZOS4c

> apply for PhD in EPHE institute of France [...] I got nothing in response.

Well, that's hardly surprising, and it's not because you're Russian, in France it's hard to get any institution to ever reply you by mail, let alone if (I guess) you wrote to them in English.

If you want to work or do a PhD in France (in English) I can offer some support and pointers for my region, you can hit me up at the email on my profile.

Thanks you, but I'm way past this — mostly because I reevaluated my stance towards academia and have a family to support here.

To clarify: I contacted one of the professors directly, whom I visited, who was aware of my background (my employee at the time introduced us and wrote an informal letter of recommendation), and who collaborated on a startup project I mentioned.

> and have a family to support here.

Not to sound like an ass, but if that's your limiting factor and you're making anywhere near the salary you listed as average, don't worry about it. If you can figure out a way to get yourself to a better position, I'll figure out a way to get you 400 USD / year.

> If you can figure out a way to get yourself to a better position, I'll figure out a way to get you 400 USD / year.

Are you sure about that? Even now it's pretty hard to send money to Russia - SWIFT is not working for most banks, Wise stopped RUB transfers, etc.

In 1-2 weeks time there would be no legal way to send money to your family back in Russia, I'm pretty sure.

Bitcoin.

Thank you for the offer, but, in all honesty, you should rather donate your money to Ukrainian support organizations. I'm already privileged enough to work remotely from home and earn a decent salary.

Best bet is Southeast Asia or China (but that maybe harder). SE Asians in general happen to view European issues as somewhat distant to them [1]. As such better welcomed, and where also more likely a future Russian expat community is sure to thrive.

[1] https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/southeast-asia...

> but with the entire world openly opposed to my nation, I doubt that will ever happen.

I think most people understand that this is Putin's war, not the war of the "Russian people". And many people I have spoken to in various demonstration against the war (in Germany), protested against Putin, not Russia. I did not see a single banner with "Stop Russia" - all referred directly to Putin.

The common narrative I see on tech forums since 24th Feb is this: "if various sanctions and blockings will make average Russians' life miserable enough (i.e. even more miserable than it already is), they will stand up and oppose the power they have been electing since 20-or-so years."

There are a few issues here:

1. Anyone who goes against the ruling power and stands up as a leader of opposition gets forcefully silenced and thrown into jail: the most popular example is Alexey Navalny. Simply put, there's not enough organizational force (i.e. absence of charismatic leader) to bring masses together.

2. The majority of Russians are in their 40-ies, have families, have government jobs, and won't risk losing the only source of income they have by opposing said government. One can call it cowardice, but to me, this is a basic survival instinct of a person who never knew a better world, who is facing a total collapse of daily systems he took for granted, and who stoically enjoys a ride into prolonged stagflation: e.g. right now bank rate is up to an all-time high of 20%, electronic prices rose by 30%, some industrial companies and small/mid-sized businesses are tanking [1] — and all of that after suffering thru the pandemic with the rest of the world.

3. There are no democratic elections in Russia (we call it "дерьмократия" in our patois, which roughly means "shit-o-cracy"). Our president's regime basically self-sustains itself, thanks to a deeply rooted corruption in upper circles and fake votes. A similar situation was in Montenegro from 1990 up until 2020, when the ruling party was overthrown because they couldn't buy enough support from abroad due to pandemic restrictions — and even that pales in comparison to what we have here.

4. The question is up in the air: even if all "goes well", who will come after Putin, and will they be able to fix this mess — not just in Russia, but in the countries their predecessor damaged? I don't know of any strong candidate capable of dragging us back from what is essentially imposed 90-ies and zeitgeist of post- Soviet Union collapse. It's like an existential fog of war all over the Earth.

—//—

[1]: As a case in point: England denied shipment of certain electronic components to Russia; a city-forming enterprise in my small hometown is a factory that produces fire-resistant materials and relies on these components. These materials are made from basalt, a certain type of volcanic rock abundant here in the Ural region — and this stuff (esp. when mixed up with other minerals) can be quite toxic, causing breathing problems and allergic reactions (I as a teenager had a part-time job on the factory, and had ulcers open up on my skin that contacted basalt dust particles). Basically, if something breaks there right now, no one will be able to fix it; and not only people will lose their jobs, but this may end up in a local ecological catastrophe.

By the same token, the neighboring town is Sverdlovsk-45: a closed city housing a plant producing uranium-238. Imagine if something goes boom there because of the disrupted infrastructure/supply chain. I understand that this sounds quite exaggerated — yet I cannot but keep "entertaining" myself with such thoughts since last week, all while being ashamed of myself for simply being born in this place.

Thank you for this post. Tough times. Let's hope someone higher up grows a pair and does something about it, because otherwise we will sleepwalk straight into something much, much worse.

FWIW: about those 40 year olds with families that can't do anything: they can, it's just that the perceived price is too high. But think about it from another perspective: how are you going to explain to your kids that you stood by and did nothing knowing full well what was going on? That is the question that is keeping me up at night right now.

> 2. The majority of Russians are in their 40-ies, have families, have government jobs, and won't risk losing the only source of income they have by opposing said government.

I would disagree. I vividly remember August 1991 coup attempt in USSR against Gorbachev when ordinary people surrounded the "White House" (governmental building of Russian Federation) while a tank battalion surrounded the people. There were quite a few 40+ people in the crowd defending the White House. This standoff lasted for quite a while and then the coup collapsed. The whole thing lasted about 4 days [0] despite the fact that the junta had formal control over military, KGB, police, national guard (interior troops), border guards, etc. Junta summarily lost and Yeltsin became the de-factor leader of USSR with Gorbachev playing a role of British Queen for a short few months before USSR expired.

The real difference then and now is that in 1991 there was an alternative center of power (Yeltsin, government of russian federation, russian parliament). putler made sure that there is no any organized structures left that could potentially challenge his power. This is a real problem, not the 40+ people conservatism.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat...

Thanks for giving me a perspective as a younger generation! I wasn't even born at the time, and obviously see our daily reality differently. OTOH, I think what you just described falls into p. 1 and 4.

You may not like the advice and may think it is 3rd world. but please do look at India, for a half decent developer salaries would start at 1000 USD - 2000 USD.

Most people definitely are not opposed to Russia, they are oblivious to international events.

Just to add to what has already been said about money, visas, etc.: you’d also be facing the choice of leaving your family and friends behind.

Hey there, I know there are a lot of negative responses to this inquiry in the comments. I'm no expert, but I do genuinely believe that if there is a will, there is a way. I have several elder family members who chose to flee their country and become refugees in the 80's. Eventually, they found their way to the west. For anyone considering starting over elsewhere in another country, do your research, know the risks, and consider the consequences if you truly believe this is what you want.

An exhaustive list of visa options for IT/startup people - https://habr.com/ru/post/653587 (from few days ago, in Russian)

I'm trying to help a friend to get out of Russia. Someone knows where you can find information about the current options to leave the country>?

It's so bad for Russian people and companies. We generally should not give any advice to them since their rescued incomes pour money into killings of Ukraine civilians. I hope you guys could cut off from the devastating powers in your country in some way.

>>We generally should not give any advice to them

I disagree completely. Putin's decisions aren't the decisions of everyday Russians. And the Ukranian conflict is more complicated than the single-side narratives you are fed. Giving people advice is the morally right thing to do.

It is more complicated obviously. However any side that initiated military force against another country should be condemned. This should be plain and simple.

Every conflict has sides and perspectives. We should put a certain veil of "I dont care about your side anymore" once military force is used. Otherwise we promote military force as a valid response.

This is going to curb our ability to bring food on the table, let alone to organize logistics for a resistance.

I suspect brownish people must feel pretty depressed right now. Seeing how their countries got destroyed with literally zero consequences for the war crimes of the "west". Disasters like this one is exactly what hegemonies lead to.

And is Europe racist? Oh yes, we are. The cries against having brown people given asylum came from every corner of society. And now everyone is welcoming our brothers and sisters, as they should.

I don't want a world war but we sure are getting there. The status quo will have to change. The good guys are most certainly not in charge.

A response late is better than no response. I believe what you are saying is that if some countries were destroyed, others should be as well? Europe protects itself as it considers Ukraine a part of Europe, that's not racist, that's pragmatist.

Don't want any country to be destroyed. Isn't that a given?

Can't we discuss realities in a more open way without the low hanging strawman arguments?

> without the low hanging strawman arguments?

Like yours, you mean? Yes, please try.

I agree with the general point about double standards.

However, Europe is one of the least racist places in the world, and one of the places where millions of non-white people moved to and started a new life.

The tirade about a supposedly racist Europe is pretty ungenerous. Of course there are racist people in Europe here and there, but Europe as a whole is one of the least racist places in the whole world.

Fair enough.

Short statements aren't tirades by definition, though I understand your sentiment. Can't help but notice certain non-european country is working overtime to unite the world against against the threat they have very much encouraged. And that they have done, and continue to do, much worse things. We shouldn't let this go unnoticed. Context matters

If you are thinking about the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions, those were very different situations.

How will this affect Jetbrains ?

If I remember correctly, they aren't incorporated in Russia (but I may be mistaken).

Czech IIRC

JetBrains founders are Russian and have publicly condemned the attacks [1].

JetBrains does have offices in Moscow and Saint Petersburg but they're technically a Czech company with their head office in Prague, Czech Republic.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30459985

it is a full-scale war, there are no "attacks"

4 days ago it wasn't the case yet. Things are evolving insanely fast.

https://ukraine.ua/news/stand-with-ukraine/

It says:

"The most important thing you can do for Ukraine now is to READ and SHARE verified information about Russia’s attack on Ukraine."

I think they started the war by attacking Ukraine. We shouldn't try to read too much into it.

I woke up in a cold sweat last night with this thought, but yes, Czech company (Russian founders I think)

Look at their blogs. Their key employees are predominantly Russian. Being incorporated in Czech republic doesn't mean squat if their employees work in Russia.

Jetbrains is Czech. They have lots of Russian developers, but that is an internal matter to them. It won't affect you or my use of Jetbrains products, but it will likely affect how quickly new features and bug fixes are deployed.

> Jetbrains is Czech. They have lots of Russian developers

The company is Czech but the founders and most of the top folks are russian, fwiw.

They'll most likely need to offer relocation to devs that want it, as they might not be able to employ and/or pay Russian devs anymore due to sanctions.

whoa.. i almost forgot about this

This whole situation is so surreal and disappointing. I grew up on Star Trek and somehow I just though we had (almost) arrived in a post-war, federation-like world. We know things should be solved with words because otherwise there are only losers. It’s how we raise our kids.

I just keep thinking about how Jean Luc is looking down on us from orbit, slowly shaking his head whispering “Savages.”

Instead of that we keep with our old fashioned thugs sh*t-show. But hey weapons are such a big business. Who's gonna keep paying the bills without a few soldiers, mothers and kids dying from time to time.

There have been multiple active wars in like 1/4 of the world the whole time since ww2 and all the time before that. The only thing different is that Ukraine is closer to EU than the rest of the countries.

Yes I realize it is perhaps hypocritical, but somehow I thought we had figured it out. I mean we (EU and US) also could have done more talking less warmongering. I’m also disappointed with our leaders.

You think that talking to Hitler is going to stop a war?

Saying "Ukraine will remain neutral and will not join NATO" would have stopped this war.

It's an unpopular fact but it's still true.

You must be insane to believe that. Would saying Gdańsk will be neutral and Germany can transport troops between East Prussia and rest of country stop Hitler? No, those are just pretexts. He'd just go further and further and attack while you'd be way way worse position.

Hitler didnt sit publicly on a border with troops threatening to invade for 3 months with one single demand.

Putin isnt Hitler. He's a monster hes just not that specific monster.

Oh, but he did. And when he got it, then he moved to other country with other demand.

Do you really believe this would end at Ukraine?

> Putin isnt Hitler.

I agree. He wants to be like Stalin. He wants to be greater than Stalin.

that choice between giving in to "small" russian demands vs. fighting has played of in history multiple times and even specifically with Russia. For example after signing MRP with Germany to divide up europe between them, Russia amassed huge army on the borders of baltic states and Finland and demanded allowing Russian military bases in these countries and establishment of russian friendly governments.

Finland went to war over it, took huge losses but managed to fight back well enough to stay independent even though some territory was lost.

Countries that gave in to these demands without much resistance to avoid huge bloodshed were occupied shortly and lost their independence for 50 years. Multiple rounds of deportation to siberia and executions of anyone who had military, police or government background were done over the next years so in the end it's not clear if the loss of life was any smaller for these countries if it would have been if they fought back.

So in hindsight it seems better choice was to fight back and have a chance of freedom.

PS. it's not single demand at all, you should read more of Putins speeches and writings, especially those meant for Russian audiences. For example the one televised on 21.02.2022 where he goes on and on about some mystical "west" that has tried to destroy the russian for over a century and how ukraine has no right to exist anyway etc. That NATO talk is mostly for western audiences, internally the message seems to be more about re-establishing the russian empire (which he seems to think is god given right) and talk about superiority of the russian civilization (ruskiy mir). So everything indeed sounds eerily similar to sittuation and delusions that led to WW2.

And then what? Everybody would be happy ever after? No, Russia wants a pro-Russia government in Ukraine, and they didn't like that Ukraine instead moved away from Russia and Russian influence via things like promoting the Ukranian language instead of Russian.

It's a bullying tactic and infringes on a country's sovereignty.

Is peace not the highest priority?

I dont want Ukraine to be pro Russian but I dont want Kyiv to be shelled more. I dont want a nuclear war more.

It absolutely is a bullying tactic, but it's also the desperate act of a country that is trying to protect the integrity of its most exposed border from an explicitly hostile power (NATO).

> Is peace not the highest priority?

No it’s not. Not if being at peace means being subjugated by a despot.

You’re a fool.

Neutrality doesnt mean subjugation.

I have friends and family who are suffering because of this. I dont use my words lightly.

Hearing westerners cheerlead for this war is painful, most especially when it could have been prevented just by saying NATO ends at the western Ukrainian border.

> Neutrality doesnt mean subjugation.

It does though. Latest Putin demands involve complete demilitarization of Ukraine. For what purpose? Invading it better afterwards?

Breaking it such that it becomes useless to NATO.

Well, such approach to foreign policy (if destroying a nation just to mess with a third party can be called that) certainly backfired, as now historically neutral nations want to join NATO.

Ukraine's position and the geostrategic significance of its border makes it joining NATO an existential threat to Russia.

Sweden and Finland do not pose such a threat. Finland is on the border too but a much less exposed portion.

The costs of this invasion were clear from the outset. Russia isnt going into this thinking it will come out stronger and ready to conquer the world. It's a fairly desperate and high stakes ploy to shield their jugular.

How does NATO pose an existential threat to Russia? There would only be a conflict between them if Russia attacked a NATO country. Is existential for Russia to invade and attack neighbors? We might be upon a r/SelfAwareWolves moment.

This is more a nationalist Russkiy Mir/Russkaya Zemlya kind of mental jerk, as evidenced by that article that RIA Novosti published (and then pulled)[0]: if they don't take now what they consider theirs(Ukraine), then they never will if they join NATO. To have one people split in two (though Ukrainians largely disagree) is unacceptable to them.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20...

> Sweden and Finland do not pose such a threat. Finland is on the border too but a much less exposed portion.

Ah, good to hear you know more about how Russia sees these things than they do themselves.

Because Stalin sure didn't seem to see it your way in the winter of 1939.

Aren't you beginning to sound ludicrous even to yourself by now?

Shortly after Putin said he wouldn't invade Ukraine if NATO ruled out Ukraine ever joining, he lied about withdrawing his troops, lied about Ukraine's history to argue it was always an integral part of Russia and lied about atrocities in Eastern Ukraine needing a military response.

What is it about Putin's lie about being willing to stop an invasion if NATO ruled out Ukraine ever joining that makes it any more convincing than the others?

Attitudes like yours are far, far more responsible for the suffering of your friends and family than anything NATO ever did, and not because NATO members haven't done a lot wrong in other theatres of war.

>What is it about Putin's lie about being willing to stop an invasion if NATO ruled out Ukraine ever joining that makes it any more convincing than the others?

* The sheer overwhelming strategic significance of the Ukrainian border. It is where Russia almost lost to the Nazis.

* His willingness for Russia to endure such an extreme cost. Russia will pay dearly for this invasion and we have watched him for 20 years enough to know that minimizing cost and acting in a rational, measured and brutal manner is the norm.

* The fact that if this goes badly he could very well have his head on a stake. Russia paying dearly very much puts his personal safety at stake.

I wouldnt believe a deadbeat liar telling me that he'll have my money by Friday, but if he's telling me to back off or he'll punch me I will.

What if the deadbeat liar breaks a previous promise to steal some of your stuff, spends the next few years accusing you of starting hostilities, waits for all your friends to look uninterested then turns up with his henchmen on the doorstep and says "honestly, all we want is your friends to promise never to help you?"

The extreme stakes make it far more likely that he wants the expansion he made the declaration of war speech about (and even more to crushing the idea of a potential successful large democracy full of Russian speakers), not an empty promise concerning something that wasn't likely to happen anyway and is of little interest except in ensuring ease of invading Ukraine. The Ukraine border is of zero strategic value to NATO since they're not remotely interested in or capable of mounting a ground invasion against a nuclear power whose terrain is where world conquerors go to die (and pretty much the only conceivable circumstance where they might have done it is in response to Russia invading Ukraine... the thing he actually did). They don't exactly have happy memories of fighting in Finland either, which is where their border with a newly galvanised NATO will end up instead.

It's even more transparently bullshit version of the preemptive defence doctrine than WMDs in Iraq, to the extent he had to manufacture a secondary excuse for domestic consumption because even a public that buys the idea he's shelling Kiev to defending the Donbas from atrocities won't believe he had to do it to save the country from NATO invasion.

Sadly it’s been proven. Peace cannot be the highest priority.

Based on the Paradox of Tolerance it would be “Peace is the highest priority amongst the peaceful, except against a non-peaceful entity.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

This is dishonesty. There is no “protection” story. There is no credible threat and Russia has nukes.

You cant accept every argument someone makes. Because they’ll realize it in short order and then make stupid arguments to manipulate you.

“Russia needs to protect itself from Ukraine” is a dishonest, stupid argument.

Russia doesnt need to protect itself from Ukraine. It does need to protect itself from NATO.

NATO does want to threaten it. NATO does want Ukraine to join and Ukraine wants to join it.

NATO's ability to threaten Russia from Ukraine's border would jump considerably.

You are delusional. NATO doesn't want anybody to join. It's all eastern Europeans who actively lobbied and had to sweat convincing NATO leaders to accept them. It was voluntary choice of those nations. Why did they choose to join? Because Russia has been threatening and interfering with their way of life, with the desire to be free. Russian invasion of Ukraine just reinforced the desire to be in NATO.

>You are delusional. NATO doesn't want anybody to join.

They stated very clearly at the Bucharest conference in 2008 and again in Brussels in 2021 that Ukraine will join.

I'm frankly appalled at the number of times I have had people tell me that Ukraine "would never have joined NATO". It was well on its way to membership.

Im also terrified at the number of people willing to be dragged down on a path to nuclear war by NATO trying to secure a strategic advantage on Russia's border.

Why is NATO fucking with a nuclear power?? Russia isnt Libya. Russia can destroy us.

>>You are delusional. NATO doesn't want anybody to join.

> They stated very clearly at the Bucharest conference in 2008 and again in Brussels in 2021 that Ukraine will join.

Are you truly so stupid that you don't understand what you're replying to, or do you just think everyone else here is, so they'll buy your pro-Putin talking points?

The point was that if Ukraine joins NATO, that's not because of NATO actively trying to expand eastwards but because Ukraine themselves have been begging to be admitted. You know, almost as if they were an independent nation that decides for itself which alliances it will (try to) join, not someone else's "border", satellite, puppet, or general plaything... Oh well, I take back the "you know" bit, because this concept of sovereignty for any country near Russia seems as impossible to grasp for you as it is for Putin.

> ...dragged down on a path to nuclear war by NATO...

Keep trying to shift the blame. Only Putler's Russia is dragging the world down that path.

Seems to have already succeeded in dragging you down the garden path.

When you say Russia, do you mean Putin's authoritarian regime?

I'm failing to see the threat of NATO to Russia otherwise. NATO only ever goes against dictators and acts of ethnic or religious cleansing and such things as territorial conquest, etc.

But even given Putin, his regime having access to Nuclear Weapons, I still doubt NATO is a threat. Look at North Korea, even though US has military bases in South Korea, no one is touching North Korea.

So in my opinion, it's pretty clear to me the whole NATO thing is false pretense and justification hiding an ulterior motive, very similar to the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Let me know if there's something I don't know otherwise.

>NATO only ever goes against dictators and acts of ethnic or religious cleansing

NATO invaded Libya after promising to leave it alone after stopping their nuclear weapons program.

NATO supports Saudi Arabia's war of aggression against Yemen. I shouldnt have to remind you that Saudi Arabia is run by a brutal dictator.

NATO was set up with the singular purpose to oppose Russia.

It's has always threatened Russia. It will always threaten Russia. Putin is staking everything on this war in a desperate attempt to push back that threat with one hand on the nuclear button, making it abundantly clear that all we have to do is back off.

NATO was setup foremost as a defensive pact, with Article 5 being key.

> NATO was set up with the singular purpose to oppose Russia.

Only to the extent of defending against Russian aggression.

> It's has always threatened Russia.

How can it, when it provides a path for Russia to join them? A path which Russia never seriously pursued.

Russia demanding Ukraine to never join amounts to demanding that Ukraine must remain relatively defenseless against Russian attack.

> making it abundantly clear that all we have to do is back off

We're not the ones doing the invading.

> Russia doesnt need to protect itself from Ukraine.

And what does Ukraine need? Ukraine needs to protect itself from Russia.

Russia ... does need to protect itself from NATO.

Can't you stop echoing Putler's lies, please? Thank you.

Belarus went pro Russian, so Kyiv is shelled instead of Minsk. I do not see the improvement.

Blood has been spilled earning freedom from tyrany ever since people have existed. Because it was worth it. Because it was cheaper than continuing to pay the price in blood of tolerating tyrany. Blood will continue to be spilled in the name of freedom for as long as people continue to tyranize each other, because it will continue to, at some point, be worth it.

It might be cheaper over the long run to keep freedom than to constantly abandon it - and then only later, when it is much more difficult to effect change, to attempt to reclaim it. But even that may not be an option, for many are too stubborn or ignorant to learn from the mistakes of history or others - no, they must make the mistake themselves, and leave it to their children to pay the price.

If this were about freedom and democracy NATO would be toppling the Saudi Arabian Monarchy not helping it invade Yemen.

If it were about democracy NATO would respect the results of the crimean referendum (if pew research says thats what 90% of crimeans want and it does im inclined to believe them).

We are not the good guys bringing peace, freedom and democracy to the world. We are an empire threatening another empire along its most exposed border at the exact point where it was almost defeated by the Nazis.

Belief that our leaders are the bringers of peace, freedom and democracy is going to end very, very badly. Our leaders want power.

The west's intentions are certainly far from pure. But you won't tell me with a straight face that Putin's intentions here are purer - or that he comes in peace, bringing freedom or democracy.

Probably if you apply the same polls some folks in Texas they would also want to become independent from the US.

> thats what 90% of crimeans want

Sure. For some carefully chosen definition of "Crimeans".

Was that poll held before (which I doubt) or after (like the infamous "referendum") Russia had invaded, transported out hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tartars, and shipped in as many Russian national(ist)s to replace them?

Listen, man: I suppose it's possible that you somehow are neither intentionally peddling Putin's propaganda, nor a dimwitted dupe who has hook-line-and-sinker fallen for it. But as you must have noticed by now, quite a lot of us here think you come off very much as if you belong to at least one of those categories. Maybe you ought to have a good long think about why that is, and whether perhaps it's you who should open your eyes and rethink your values?

> Is peace not the highest priority?

No, not necessarily.

It depends on the alternative.

> a country that is trying to protect the integrity of its most exposed border from an explicitly hostile power (NATO).

A) Ukraine is its own country, not Russia's border.

B) Only one actor in this drama is being explicitly hostile: Putler's Russia.

Pardon my French but this is bullshit. Putin’s perverted logic goes like this - Ukrainian joins NATO, it establish missiles, Moscow in danger. The problem is Ukraine does not have to join NATO to have US missiles on its territory. Basic military agreement would allow that. Such an agreement technically was possible as early as 1992. The fact of life - there is no such agreement, hence whole idea of NATO or US threat to Russia is a propaganda construct.

PS: I’m Russian and I want this war to stop immediately.

also - in 2022 you don't really need to have basis with nuclear missiles at the doorstep to be a threat (so much that Putin also escalated on this topic too). You have submarines that can launch an attack with nuclear missiles, you have intercontinental vectors to deliver nukes.

Putin is just trying to restore the idea of Russian Empire and/or Soviet Union. Same as Hitler trying to restore the German Empire.

Also, Russia already has NATO states on its borders, and there aren't nukes stationed there.

Tiny point of order: you don't actually know that.

Maybe only America truly knows, but CND (via Wikipedia) agrees with me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing https://cnduk.org/resources/united-states-nuclear-weapons-eu...

Can we take this offline for reasons that will become clear in a moment: jacques@modularcompany.com

Also, if Russia annexes Ukraine, it now has 4 more NATO members on its borders.

Either you believe in democracy, or you do not. If the Ukrainian people want to join the EU or NATO, and our people want them to join us as well, they have the right to make that choice as free sovereign people, and we should back them up. Any other response is itself subjugation, and capitulation to terror.

I do believe in democracy. It doesnt change anything about what I just said.

Rolling over and giving in to threats sometimes means those threats aren't carried out. Sometimes. Other times it simply emboldens and encourages the ones making the threats to threaten even more.

The fact that Putin is using Ukraine's possibly joining NATO as an excuse to invade does not mean he would not have invaded anyway. It's entirely likely he would have seen that as a further sign of weakness and simply found another excuse. So no, I don't agree that what you said is true and I don't understand how you can be so sure of it.

It's possible but I dont think it's at all likely given the immense cost of invasion and the sheer impossibility of occupying.

Putin is not unaware that Russia will come out of this bloody and bruised and nearly broken (potentially completely) and he's not irrational either.

He may be aware of that now, but I don't think he was at all aware of it a week ago. I think he was expecting an easy takeover just like Crimea.

That's absurd.

We have two examples of Russian tanks rolling into an east European territory and taking it over almost bloodlessly. Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Crimea in 2014. I don't think it's at all absurd to think he was trying for a third.

> I do believe in democracy.

No, you quite obviously don't.

Ukraine hadn't even applied to join NATO.

There's a big difference between Ukraine saying it won't join (that's up to them) and NATO acknowledging Russia "sphere of influence" arguments by preventivly saying they won't be allowed to.

It is not true. There was zero chance that Ukraine was going to join NATO. It wasn’t on the table.

Putin has explicitly told us why he went to war, and it is to do with reversing Russia’s territorial losses since 1991 or even 1917.

No-one seriously believed Ukraine was going to join NATO, it wasn't even on the cards. This is just a false excuse trumped up by Putin's apologists.

Listen to what he says: he claims Ukraine is a fake state and that it is really part of Russia. In 2005 he claimed that the collapse of the USSR was a geopolitical tragedy and a further tragedy because it meant that many "fellow citizens" were now outside of Russia's borders. I.e. Putin wants to re-establish Muscovite control over vast swathes of territory he believes are Russia's right to control.

Laughable to think that NATO expansion alone would’ve been sufficient for the cost-benefit calculation here.

Putin wants his name in history books.

It pains me to admit that I agree with you. This is naturally "realpolitik", but makes many people uncomfortable.

To large extend, because this is international forum. While some Americans don't mind to sacrifice others, other nato members in fact mind being sacrificed. For them "realpolitik" is not "sacrifice me", no matter how much it makes you uncomfortable.

If you think that promises never to join NATO would satisfy Putin, then you are brainwashed by Putin! Ukraine has already offered that peace offering of NATO neutrality. Putin has as also demanded that all Soviet / Warsaw pact countries become undefended so they will be naked tó Russian aggression!

Putin wants to expand his dominance in northern Asia. 140m citizens is not enough; he wants to add 45m Ukrainians to have 185m! He is a colonial dictator in his homeland and does as he pleases!

Ukraine was not going to join NATO, given that it's having an ongoing territorial dispute with Russia.

But also, Russia's belief that it's entitled to decide for another sovereign country which clubs it can and cannot join reveals what Russia's actual intentions were. [EDIT: The relevant club for Ukraine is actually the European Union.]

The so-called "anti-Imperialists" on the far left like George Galloway who have always seen NATO as the enemy, and have always supported anti-NATO countries like Russia, Iran, Venezuela and China with 95% of their throats, have a really odd understanding of what imperialism is. Is this war the most blatant, non-galaxy-brained instance of "imperialism" that we've seen in many of our lifetimes?

Are you naive enough in the thinking that US is not doing the same or even worse than Russia (because US reach is much bigger)? Influencing, blackmailing and toppling governments they deem not cooperative enough.

Who the fuck cares what US did/does, its completely separate matter.

Just because US is warmongering doesn't mean russia can too.

"Who the fuck cares what US did/does" that is the exact mentality that get us in this kind of situations. I did not say Russia can, nobody should be able to do that. I'm just saying that the next time US warmongers and plans to destroy another country, that we in the "west" should sound the same outcry we are doing now.

The next time around people like you will be complaining about 'how come russia invaded ukraine and it was ok' so how come conflict x is suddenly not ok.

This kind of argument only derails conversations and doesn't achieve anything.

Also nato not expanding towards russian borders even after promising it wouldn't by james baker, 1990[1]

[1] https://ibb.co/xgqRWG3

32 years ago some guy thought he could make this decision for half of Europe. I'm so shocked! NATO seems a real threat! Look at how the NATO oppresses their people, bring no economic growth and just made the countries so much worse to live in!

>Saying "Ukraine will remain neutral and will not join NATO" would have stopped this war.

>It's an unpopular fact but it's still true.

absolutely not. The events of the last few days show exactly why Ukraine was right to want to join NATO. Ukraine knows Russia probably better than anybody else in the world.

If anything Ukraine's refusal to promise neutrality is just a convenient - in Russian view - excuse for the invasion. Blaming Ukraine like you do is just a victim blaming.

If your partner wants to break up with you and date other people because you're an ass and offer nothing they want, who are you to stop them?

If Ukraine wants to break up with Russia and join other alliances because it's an ass and offers nothing Ukraine wants, who is Russia to stop it?

That's basically the same as saying if Puting wasn't president, the war wouldn't happened. True but meaningless. A country should decide what it does and should not rely on another country's approval.

Maybe, maybe not, but who do you think has the right or power to declare that Ukraine will remain neutral?

It's impopular because it isn't true. And yet you keep repeating it in thread after thread.

> It's an unpopular fact but it's still true.

This is not a fact. It is at best an educated and optimistic opinion.

> It is at best an educated and optimistic opinion.

Not even that. It is at best an uneducated and wildly optimistic opinion.

Unpopular opinion.

Russia agreed to respect Ukrainian territory if they give up their nuclear arsenal.

Maybe before russia starts demanding something they should first keep their promises first

They did, yes.

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

> An agreement was quickly reached on Hitler's terms

> Shortly afterwards, Hitler reneged on his solemn promises to respect the integrity of Czechoslovakia

> Today, the Munich Agreement is widely regarded as a failed act of appeasement, and the term has become "a byword for the futility of appeasing expansionist totalitarian states".

Giving in to the demands of the aggressor may "stop" the war for the time being, yes. It doesn't actually solve the problem.

Surely it's obvious in talking about the second world war that it didn't work? I'm not holding it up as some sort of exemplary negotiation. I was just saying Actually yes, they did try.

Agreed, but your original comment didn't really provide that context.

For 11 months. Wow.

My point is (surely obviously? I do know the war happened!) not that it worked out greatly, just that yes, they did think they might talk Hitler down.

If you really get into it, there's an argument that it bought valuable time; that maybe it was only ever supposed to be a delay, but I think that might be giving too much credit - a positive sure, just perhaps not the intention: Chamberlain returned to London declaring 'peace for our time'.

> If you really get into it, there's an argument that it bought valuable time;

To whom? To Hitler? Because the Allies didn’t prepare for what was coming.

Again I feel like anything I say is just some dude talking from a safe place far from the front lines. But I think the west could have acknowledged the fear of the NATO, the EU could have told Biden that we prefer a good relation with Russia and that if we think our culture is in fact more free, it will leak into Russia via the internet. This discussion can and will take very long. I just wanted to say I’m disappointed in almost all aspects of the situation and humanity is suffering and it hurts. Us against them is not constructive. Much hate will be created and we know what hate leads to from yet another popular franchise. It takes a long time to extinguish.

That's exactly the strategy we've been trying with both Russia and China for several decades now - playing soft and hoping they mellow with time. Obama tried a 'reset' of relations with Russia to improve relations in 2009, the result was the invasion of Crimea.

Democratisation through osmosis has utterly failed. The result has been the subjugation of Hong Kong, genocide in Xinjiang and the invasion of Ukraine. Taiwan is next unless we wake up and make it perfectly clear to these people we absolutely will meet force with force and that we have plenty of hard power to use alongside our soft power. It may be too late for Ukraine, we failed them miserably by playing nice too long, but it's not too late for Taiwan.

Ukraine is both bad and good lesson for Chinese: bad, because nobody intervenes with an army. Good, because it shows what the consequences for the economy of the invader are. And the West should buckle up and prepare for retaliation - this is especially important in essential areas such as drug production. If China attacks Taiwan, it will set the clock back two decades or more, for everybody.

Taiwan is not Ukraine. Biden has clearly stated that the US will go to war to defend Taiwan, while he had made it entirely clear that he will not go to war over Ukraine.

The fact that Taiwan has been a us ally for decades and the US has strongly implied in the past and now clearly stated that they will defend them matters. The US had never even implied they would defend Ukraine and had no treaty obligation to do so.

Also China is not Russia, while it's building a formidable navy, air-force and ground force and may be more capable than their Russian conventional counterparts, their nuclear deterrent may not be enough to deter an American intervention in Taiwan. Their nuclear force is small, and though rapidly growing, currently not enough to reliably threaten the US, the destruction is not so mutually assured in the China US equation.

> if we think our culture is in fact more free, it will leak into Russia via the internet.

Do you think Russian leaders should allow this to happen?

In this particular case talking to Putin makes no sense, he only understands force. Talking makes sense much earlier but even then actions are more important.

Take for example the Middle East: there is no way you could solve the problem by talking, especially now. Palestinians believe this is their soil, the Israeli think otherwise, the former send rockets, the latter shoot these rockets and send their pilots, the pilots see the attackers tied to children on the roofs... This has gone too far over the years.

You missed the whole period of months of diplomatic communications between EU, China, US, Ukraine and Russia before Russian started the attack.

In all those months it seems that only China and the Winter Olympics really did delay the attack.

I heard Russia violated a treaty that prohibited any acts of war for a month or so after the end of the special olympics with this. I don't know the consequences to that, but it's probably trivial compared to international sanctions.

Russia is targeting cities and civil targets, employing bombs that have been banned (cluster bombs), and committing war crimes, I don't think they currently give a damn about the Olympic Truce.

Just to correct a minor mistake: cluster bombs are not "banned", there's a treaty signed by some countries which prohibits them, but many countries are not part of that treaty, incl. Russia, Ukraine, Poland and USA for that matter.

But you're right that their use against cities full of civilians is wrong, very likely a war crime.

While Russia is committing war crimes, they have not used cluster bombs. AFAIK this claim is based on a report that they were deploying cluster bombs against a civilian mall in Kharkiv. The video shows rapid explosions falling on the mall, but not as rapidly as one would expect to see if cluster bombs were used. Most likely it was Grad (MRLS) missiles. Still likely to be a war crime, but not cluster bombs.

There are many, many pictures of unexploded submunitions lying around and plenty of videos of their use.

Your comment inspired me to search harder, and I found what I believe to be credible evidence that some of the MRLS missiles targeted at Kharkiv contained cluster munitions. I would retract my above comment.

NP, there is so much information flowing right now that this sort of thing is very easy to miss.

Zero trolling with reply: You mention China is a list of countries that negotiated with Russia, presumably to avoid an invasion of Ukraine. Honestly, I have not heard anything about this before your post. I tried Googling, but I could not find anything. Can you help to provide at least one good news source to get me started? I am curious to learn more.

I also agree that it seems like Putin delayed the invasion after the Winter Olympics. And damn you Putin for invading during the Winter Paralympic Games (Fri 4 Mar to Sun 13 Mar). What a shame. (Side note: I am happy to see each Olympics brings the Paralympic Games more and more into the spotlight. I look forward to the day that events are rightfully held in parallel.)

What exactly did we have figured out? Perhaps I see things differently as someone in my mid-30's but we've been at war almost my entire life.

Iraq and Syria were obliterated. Afghanistan didn't fare much better and was the longest war in U.S history.

Russia has been killing people in its so-called "sphere of influence" my entire life as well. Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine.

Parts of Africa, such as the Congo and Somalia, have been de-facto war zones for decades.

I don't mean to sound harsh but your comment about humanity, or even certain cross-sections of it, having somehow transcended war, strikes me as naive and in denial of what the "post war" (as in post-WWII) era has actually been like.

"We" tried talking, "we" didn't do the warmongering, where is that coming from?

Granted, the US did a lot of warmongering in the middle east; I get that they wanted to retaliate after 9/11, but instead of rooting out the ones responsible directly they made up a motive (WOMD in Iraq) and did a full scale invasion there; I'm not saying Iraq was a pleasant, peaceful country or that Hussein was a nice guy, but the US invaded it under false pretenses and dragged other countries into it, eventually leading to the rise of IS and a lot of other things that I only have a superficial knowledge of.

But Europe hasn't done any of that, as far as I'm aware they've held a "live and let live" line since the fall of the USSR.

European countries were pretty heavily involved in the NATO bombing of Serbia. You can debate the justification, but it's certainly not "live and let live".

Absolutely right. Bombs and all, NATO baaad. On the flip side, I'll leave this here, to bring back a bit of perspective. Especially on the "let live" part: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre

One atrocity justifies another type of logic?

Genocidal atrocities justify defense, type of logic. HTH!

(FWIW, Srebrenica is not in Kosovo and has nothing to do with the Kosovo conflict: it's just a straw man to vilify an entire nation in the context of this discussion: "Serbian soldiers committed atrocities in Srebrenica, so they must be guilty of whatever happened in Kosovo too")

Care to elaborate what's your definition of defense in this instance? Do you consider that Russia is "defending" East Ukraine population by attacking Kyiv? (like NATO was "defending" Kosovo people by bombing Northern and Central Serbia and even Montenegro)

"Defense" applies to Kosovo population (of course, official Serbian line is to dispute that too), but I don't see how NATO comes into the picture?

Even when you're admitting that "US did a lot of warmongering in the middle east" you want to give them some excuses, "I get that they wanted to retaliate after 9/11" you say? "retaliate" you say. Against whom exactly? How the (oppressed) Iraqi people or even Saddam Hussein has to do anything with the 9/11? Do I really need to remind you that Saddam was US ally? or that Qaeda was the US ally in the "freedom" war against USSR? "But Europe hasn't done any of that" You say, but this is completely wrong, all or most of US wars were covered by European countries, even Ukraine sent 5000 Soldier to kill the Iraqi people. I get it this was in that weird mysterious place called "middle east" so who cares exactly.

He was a US ally in the 80s. Later he wasn't.

I never said he was US ally during 2003! The point is, Saddam was the same during 80s and 90s the difference is that during 80's he was doing well against the enemies of the US (aka the CAPITAL of the free world).

Honestly, the middle east could have gotten better, there was a possibility that the dictatorships would get replaced by proper democracy, I think the US didn't realize how far down corruption and authoritarianism were rooted in those countries, it is like a Hydra, cut one head, many more grew.

For example, Panama, Chile, Germany, Japan, South Korea all turned out better after US intervention. But Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya got worse.

It is tough to choose the lesser of two evil, when you are in a democratically free country, you do wonder if the opportunity shows up, should you go help others overturn their dictator, and if so, will they then be able to establish a free democracy or will that just replace one dictator with a worse one? But what also happens is the fear, that if more and more countries lose freedom and democracy, and become dictatorships, then countries in free democracies get scared that they will be next, which tend to push them to act and try and overthrow other dictatorships when the opportunity shows up.

Look, long time ago I became aware that most people who use "democracy" or "freedom" like it's a new kind of religion are permanently brainwashed, you can't even know what's trolling anymore. Anyway, I won't go deep into why certain countries are doing well economically (hint, try to think of the current world order as an empire, some people are punished some are rewarded and most of it is controlled by the empire capital, Japan & S.Korea are useful to surround China so they get to play certain role, when Japan do better than expected/allowed it get punished for that with sanctions, etc). The point is even if we accepted "democracy" and "freedom" as the new religion, US is the most anti-new-religion country here, US supported the worst dictatorships and still doing that (Saddam, KSA, UAE, South Africa, Sadat & Mubarak Egypt, Jordan, Israel....) and it attempted uncountable number of successful or failed coups around the world since at least 1940's (Syria). All or most US actions can be clearly explained by some geopolitical / Economical reasons. we really can't know if the "middle east" can do better or not until USA leave it alone and stop stealing/controlling it's oil or orchestrating a war there every few years. It might happened that you were born in some rich country that got benefited from the current world order, enjoy that before it ends (it's changing a bit right now actually) but don't assume that you have the higher moral ground to tell how other people should live, because you don't.

> South Korea

Just so you know, there used to be a single Korea. One of them is doing OK now, although it took like 35 years after the US invaded before SK transformed itself into a democratic country, which Koreans did IN SPITE of American support for their dictator. The other one is possibly the worst regime currently active on Earth.

South Korea is really not an American FP win.

And look what a coincidence, shithole Korea is the one the Communists "defended", not the one on America's side.

Korea kind of is a huge long-term win for the non-Communists; the more complicated foreign policy case would be Vietnam.

You need a reality check I'm afraid. EU has actively supported the wars.. mostly under false pretense for oil and expansion of "capitalism as an end goal"-ideology.

Sorry but please dive a bit into non-western news reports to get a real world view

> the US did a lot of warmongering in the middle east

The US does a lot of warmongering everywhere. It mongers at China, it mongers at Russia. It's in fact a big bully, all the more dangerous because of the knowledge that they are slowly becoming obsolete. The EU in a lot of ways acts as a sock puppet for the US, so this is definitely the result of a shared responsibility. Collectively, we should have been better. We were not. Now Ukraine is suffering.

You do realize that only thing EU and US have done about Russia escalating situations all over the place (Crimea, North Caucasus, Georgia, South Ossetia, Chechnya, Dagestan etc) is talk, talk, talk. Has it helped? Nope. Russia seems to be immune to talking.

We talked, but what concessions did we make?

From the list of Putin's demands, what should the West has conceded on??

Not necessarily Putin's demands, but there's talk of Russia asking to join NATO way-back-when: not sure if those are trustworthy, but I am pretty confident Russia would have no fear of NATO if it was not sent off, and was instead part of it.

Also, recognizing independence for Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine would have helped with the current situation too.

Yeah. I've seen a decent article recently (it's in Russian though) about Russia/NATO talks in the 90s. The felling from 'our' side seems to go like this: we tried to get into NATO or at least prevent them from moving close to our borders, but the NATO paper pushers were afraid of losing their jobs and knocked up a threat when there were none.

https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2022/02/02/natokatstvo

Edit: actually, I think the google translate version is plenty readable.

https://novayagazeta-ru.translate.goog/articles/2022/02/02/n...

This is of the main guys who did the talking in the 90s, so you might want to have a gander at it.

"Russia has no fear of NATO" => "Putin takes Baltic states".

Well, Russia being part of NATO and what the consequences are... I guess we'll never know.

What would happen if NATO seriously offered to take both Ukraine and Russia as members TODAY?

NATO would have become a dysfunctional organization. It is not about the Russian fear of NATO. Russian political system cannot get over its loss of an empire, despite us living in the XXI century. It's entirely different root of the problem..

Eastern and Western Europe would have been crazy to gamble everything on the hope that admitting Russia to NATO somehow neutralizes Russia, not NATO.

NATO exists because of Russia/USSR's bad behavior.

> Not necessarily Putin's demands, but there's talk of Russia asking to join NATO way-back-when

Putin wanted to skip the readiness steps applied to aspiring members and just be jumped in. Readiness is quite important, because NATO doesn't work by voting but consensus/unanimity.

> but I am pretty confident Russia would have no fear of NATO if it was not sent off

They weren't sent off, they were admitted to the Partnership for Peace (the onboarding path for membership) before Putin even came into office, and never formally pursued anything farther, Putin specifically indicating that he found applying the accession process used for aspiring members to Russia rather than a direct invitation for full membership improper.

> Also, recognizing independence for Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine would have helped with the current situation too.

Would it? How? Would it stopped Putin from escalating attacks from those areas and then claiming that attacks on them, combined with the historical “fact” that Ukraine was an unjustly created entity ripped from Russian territory, justified the invasion of the rest? How does that work?

> recognizing independence for Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine would have helped with the current situation too.

So what you're saying is that these states in question don't deserve the right to self-sovereignity. The people in the independent states wanted in NATO and not the other way around.

Are you seriously suggesting that the problem with Western policy towards Russia is that we didn’t appease Putin enough? That is, to say the least, a weird take.

I mean, it's exactly the take of the Russian government and it's various Western propaganda repeaters, so it's rather common.

Common, sure, but that doesn't make the "take" itself any less weird.

The only weird thing is that so many Westerners thoughtlessly regurgitate it.

From the start, if we think in realpolitical terms, we let him effectively keep Crimea and Donbas/Luhansk without giving the Ukraine material support to take them back, out of the fear of pouring fuel into the fire.

Putin had demands that were de facto impossible to fulfill, they read as if the US/European governments had power over e.g. the desires of the inhabitants of the Baltic states. They all wanted into the EU/NATO after the Cold War for reasons that aren't hard to empathize with.

In a security-political sense, making concessions that impact your weakest allies is a surefire way to destabilize your own alliance.

Also, why do we have to make concessions in terms of Ukraine and guaranteeing that Ukraine won't join EU/NATO? Putin should have been talking to Ukraine about that and giving concessions to Ukraine in exchange for staving off any alliance memberships - but it's now clear why he didn't.

You mean concessions like giving up security guarantees for all Eastern European NATO countries and completely giving up any support for the sovereignty of Ukraine, allowing Russia to dictate to Ukraine which alliances they can choose?

Because these were literally Russia's ridiculous "demands".

I would add that the unspecifity of the threat was what kept Putin going.

Consider what would have happened if "The West" handed Putin a detailed list of the sanctions that are in effect now A WEEK AGO.

Lower costs and lower risks. That's why far-sighted politics are so important.

Putin had already been setting up the Russian economy in a way so as to minimize the impact of sanctions.

> Consider what would have happened if "The West" handed Putin a detailed list of the sanctions that are in effect now A WEEK AGO.

Putin would say that is why he attacked Ukraine. His cheerleads would then blame Biden, claiming Putin had no choice.

Doesn't make sense to me. It's a simple If-This-Then-That logic. The sanctions only take place once he invades. If there's no invasion of course there are no sanctions.

Consider that he has own logic of: if they present us with possible sanctions, it's considered aggression, so we attack, else they are weak, so we attack.

He wouldn't have believed the list. Just like a lot of Europeans didn't believe he would invade Ukraine.

This is a good point but: (1) what happened was considered unthinkable by many, (2) the wold has changed which allowed those sanctions and (3) the idea was not to 'rock the boat' and saying if you do this we will do that could have allowed for the Russian side to plan better playing into their hands and might have encouraged them to start a war.

So this is easy to say now, but I don't think there would have been any takers for this three weeks ago when for instance Germany was still firmly in the mistaken mindset that all of this is so unlikely that they don't need to prepare for it at all.

I don't know. I think you may not have seen much yet. Depending on what happens under climate change, there may be some pretty big and unsolvable conflicts ahead when entire regions are affected.

Overall, assuming the universe has some arrow towards something we arbitrarily defined as "progress" has no rational scientific basis, AFAIK? "Adaptation" we have proven, but that has nothing to do with what we see as progress. Adaptation may very well be less brain, less culture, less humans.

I think if you want to have only certain types of developments and behavior you need to continuously and forever fight against the randomness of the universe, whose forces, have no purpose or direction.

War and aggression never was off the table - it became more organized and carried out by large-group actors. Individual violence is down, it cannot compete with organized humans. Then the nuclear deterrent may have prevented a few invasions. The post WWII peace period in the countries most here (including myself) care about was not that long, and we still had wars even so (Yugoslavia, and at the edges of "Europe" in former Soviet areas).

No. The leaders should have done less talking and more warmongering. This is something that the West consistently fails to get, but it's very simple: the only thing that counts is what's done, and not what's been told. Talk is cheap.

You don't need to fire a single shot, you only need to move the units closer to the border, so aggresor needs to keep some of his units on his own territory "just in case".

Yeah, it would be nice if we lived in a world, where we can solve problems without involving the army at all, but it's not here yet.

I don't think OP is just a subjective and has short vision on the world geopolitics.

Perhaps OP's feeling is that the large blocks had some sort of non aggresion deal, and step by step the rest of the world is going to be part of such non aggression terms as soon as they join other alliances or make their own economic dependencies. That was the hope for many.

Chechnya war also was very close and nobody cared since they were mostly Islamic, and the war in the former Yugoslavia happened just in the middle of Europe, but apparently many have already lost memory of it despite the atrocities committed.

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

I've been reading up on the history of the Bosnian genocide, I should probably also read up on Czechnya.

I really hope that Ukraine won't go down like Czechnya but I fear in the end, Putin only knows one trick.

At least he didn't blow up apartment buildings in Russia and blame it on Ukraine.

He didn't need to actually blow anything up anymore. Since then he's consolidated control over the media. He's already able to push whatever propagandized story he needs.

Media and news looked a bit difference in 1992, and it was mostly seen as an civil war of the former Yugoslavia rather than an invasion force of one country entering an other country in order to capture land. It seemed to have more similarities with the situation in Northern Ireland than with Lebensraum.

Lebensraum really scares people. Religious conflict are concerning, but the French wasn't directly worried that the UK might go after them next once the Northern Ireland situation got settled.

It's not just the media reporting in itself as much as how concerned people are about the suffering that happens during that war. Sure people watched Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on TV but most of the Western world was free to watch it with detachment and just a tiniest bit of worry. There has been constant fighting in the Middle East for decades but it's just too far away for people in the West to process that concern, or to blame the countries committing those atrocities (whether Russia or the US). It's "countries far away we don't like anyway", "people who aren't like us anyway".

Now it's close to home, happening to people like us. Now it's a genuine concern and those who are close enough in Europe are forced to process those worries, go through them, make scenarios, visualize the loss because it may be their loss soon.

When Russia was bombing the hell out of Syria very few people felt the visceral hate or fear they feel now. And I bet far fewer people remember that this is even more recent than the Crimean invasion and that they've kept bombing Syria well into 2021. When Russia was invading Georgia we just watched the news and shook our heads. Same when Russia and Turkey were fighting their proxy wars in the Caucasus, Western and Central Asia. All too far from us to care.

It was all about thoughts and prayers until the bombs hit close to home.

> Chechnya war also was very close and nobody cared since they were mostly Islamic

Maybe USA didn't care. I remember, as a child, my Polish parents being glued to the TV, watching the situation unfold in Chechnya.

As far as I know, my country accepted quite a few Chechen refugees. Dhokhar Dudayev was recognised as a hero in Poland. We named a landmark after him.

Many people also did not care about Georgia. So while cultural proximity is certainly a factor, geographical proximity seems to be a significant factor, too.

I don't think Sreberenica is forgotten or was ignored in Europe. The West seems to be slow to wake up -- and Putin got high on his sequence of "successful" wars. I don't want to deny that hypocrisy exists here, but it doesn't justify Putins crimes anywhere.

Georgia and Ukraine are tightly connected in this through the same precursor events. The "West" is simply deaf. Multiple analysts had brought these concerns since before Crimea. (Disclaimer I am from the West -- trying to be objective here and focusing on the non-NATO side.)

The diplomatic relationships since Russia Federation's birth have been problematic and idiosyncratic. Russian people wanted recognition of their value. West decided to not follow similar approach with other past enemies countries -- and this was due to the cold war. Somehow Russia's "Monroe" doctrine is surprising now to us, despite all the warnings by political science and diplomats since 2014. (at least/off the top of my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4&t=2893s) And our own similar reactions and actions.

It is known that Putin made multiple attempts to establish partnerships and ensure Russia was part of the West. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-s... I would say all sides need to take a breather and attempt an honest discussion among equals -- if it's not too late.

What values would those be? I'm really not following you?

I've watched the Pozner video before, but I would be highly skeptical. Vladimir Pozner is a former KGB propagandist according to his own admission. Thus he has quite a good understanding about effective propaganda: "Intelligent propaganda is not a propaganda that tells blatant lies. It's something where you try to show the good side of what your [sic] supporting and you don't tell about the negatives, you only tell about the positive." [1]

For example, while Pozner insists that Russia did nothing wrong during the 90s, he's conveniently forgetting to mention the Chechen Wars. Which wasn't a conflict the west was a party in, but it wouldn't exactly be fair to say Russia was a peace-loving nation during that time.

Also while he says there's plenty of proof of Putin trying to join NATO or the EU, I can only find proof of half-hearted attempts to join NATO, it doesn't seem he was very serious about any of it. Back in 2009 the Russian delegation to NATO, while open to the suggestion of joining NATO, also said "Great powers don't join coalitions, they create coalitions. Russia considers itself a great power." [2] Those aren't the kind of things you say when you're actively trying to join NATO.

In any case, I agree that the west should've done more to ensure democracy in the early Russian Federation was a success. And while the Wolfowitz Doctrine was widely condemned and was heavily changed it definitely cemented belief in Russia that the west was only interested in isolating it.

[1] https://www.pbs.org/redfiles/prop/deep/interv/p_int_vladimir... [2] https://euobserver.com/news/27890

Russia's attempts to join NATO pre-date 2009 by more than a decade. By 2009 it was clear that it would not be allowed into NATO, no matter what they did.

Here is the first google result from before 2008 [1]. Anyone paying attention in the 90s will recall when Russia was signalling a renewed interest in joining NATO.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2000/03/06/p...

> Acting Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an unexpected gesture to the West, suggested in a television interview today that Russia would consider joining NATO if the Western alliance agreed to treat Russia as an equal partner.

I'm surprised that some people still haven't learned that his words don't mean anything.

I remember this interview; even at the time it came across as trolling. Key words: "unexpected gesture", "would consider", "treat as equal partner".

For reference, "treat as equal partner" is the putinspeak for "recognize our right to control half of the continent".

No wonder nobody took him seriously.

If you look at the globe, could you tell west from east? There is no East or West, these things are made up. It's all imaginary. Each country is free to believe what they believe, no matter if it's in the so called East or West. Don't try to look it from a particular 'side'. Look at it how YOU see it. Make you own judgements.

Would you think Russia and the rest of Europe be a good match? How many values do they share? Not many. Russia's actions have proven not letting them in NATO was an extremely good decision. I would not want to side with a country like that.

> Don't try to look it from a particular 'side'. Look at it how YOU see it. Make you own judgements.

"Make up your own mind!" ( = Use some of the search terms I've fed you to Google for similar shit and hopefully take it for "independent science") is what the anti-vaccine trolls say, too.

I'm gonna point out though, that Ukraine has far more shared values with Russia than the west. Ukraine aspires to be under the sphere of influence of the west than Russia for economic reasons. This conflict is a bit like the Northern Ireland troubles, except the difference was that mainland Europe could do was to watch at the time

I've seen that Mearsheimer video linked all over the Net last week... Mostly by raving pro-Putin trolls.

And the very first teaser quote from that Guardian article:

> "George Robertson recalls Russian president did not want to wait in line with ‘countries that don’t matter’"

Yeah, that attitude pretty conclusively shows why Russia doesn't belong in a mutual-defense alliance of countries big and small.

This is way worse than Georgia, Krim and Chechnya combined. Ukraine is a big country with a big army. The stakes Russia are putting in are big and shows the commitment with the pretense of being cornered. It is a full invasion. Also the NATO and EU military support in what Russia sees as their business is escalating the risks.

This is probably two magnitudes worse concerning the risk for further spread.

The size of the target country is somewhat less significant to me than the explicit justification for the war involving invocation of a set of translations and transpositions of the whole set of Nazi expansionist arguments (lebensraum, Volksgemeinschaft, and Blut and Boden), with a twist on the Dolchstoßlegende mixed in.

Writing it in german does not change that those concept are fundamental for alot of border disputes.

The pretense is not what is interesting but the sheer size of the endeavour.

> Writing it in german does not change that those concept are fundamental for alot of border disputes.

I can't think of another country of any kind, much less a major power, overtly invoking the whole set since Hitler, but if it's so common, please list the examples you are thinking of.

I think it's important to distinguish Putin and Russia here. I don't think Russia sees Ukraine as their business.

I am refering to the state power Russia. Do you think the state in general does not support this? What was senate thinking would happen when they voted for proclaiming the separatists independence and authorised military force?

Maybe they thought there would be a repetition of the rather clean Krim expedition.

Maybe the shadow elite are against the war.

I don't know.

>What was senate thinking

This is not comparable to how one gets elected to an upper house in most countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_council_of_russia#E...

These are rubber-stamping yes-men of a single party state, obedience is the only thing required, thinking is not involved.

Let's hope they get to explain that in the the Hague at some point.

Last time before den Haag that a group like them had the chance to explain this to a bench of judges was at Nuremberg.

Also Chechnya got little attention because early on, the separatists kidnaped journalists and held them for ransom. Gee, why was there so little subsequent coverage ?

The difference is that Russia invading Ukraine is a clear-cut war between two independent states. Chechnya was/is a part of Russia, so the situation is the same as in China with Xinjiang and Tibet. And Yugoslavia was a complicated and bloody break-up of a federal republic (followed by the even more complicated and bloody break-up of Bosnia and the breaking away of Kosovo from Serbia). But the Russia-Ukraine war brings back memories of Hitler invading Poland, where the Germans also claimed to be acting in "self-defense" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Poland#German_inva...).

I beg to differ, all people have a right to self determination...ideally on a local (village) level. I'd actually like people to question the meaning on countries and what they project with the never ending question of "where are you from" I come from a mixed background and look forward to where I'm going (which is much more interesting ) Countries imo are a colonialistic power grab by political elites who want to fill their pockets and freeload on the questionable idea of cultural identity (Slovakia...etc) not that it doesn't exist but it's often a bit racist or very local... Anyway afaik Tibet was invaded...

Many atrocities on all sides. You already mentioned the biggest one committed by Bosnian Serb army.

Mujahideens volunteering in Bosnia and creating a muslim army and committing numerous crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_mujahideen

Croatian army ethnically cleansing croatian territory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Storm

Kosovo Albanian Liberation Army which was designated as terrorist organization by the US, but that conveniently changed before NATO bombing of Yugoslavia committing their share of crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_Liberation_Army

Than there is also NATO bombing destroying numerous civilian targets and killing civilians on all sides https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_during_Ope...

etc etc.

So many atrocities, where one is too many. I long for the day where each side will punish all their vile murderers and crime doers and not as it is often done, protect them, excuse them, or even celebrate them after the wars. Or even better, when ordinary people would not fall for the propaganda of their countries and stop wars from even happening.

> The only thing different is that Ukraine is closer to EU than the rest of the countries.

That's one (big) factor, but Putin's casual mention that nuclear weapons were on the table if anyone got in his way was also a good way to get everyone's attention.

How many of those were active landgrabs though? Wars for redrawing borders have really become exceptionally rare. Particularly if you exclude those staged by Putin on some weak pretense (Putin, or whether his real name is. After the last weeks I don't believe a single word he says)

> Wars for redrawing borders have really become exceptionally rare

Since Yalta-Potsdam conferences world doesn't recognize the right of conquest.

Since Peace of Westphalia historical grounds for aggression were not valid.

In his speech Putin dived directly to Rus, denying centuries of political development.

That is the main reason Russia is dangerous to everyone: not because of an attack on Ukraine, but because of dismantling the current world order.

WW3 is not "Russia against the world". WW3 is every country seeing the possibility of quietly entering the fry and getting out in a better position.

> (Putin, or whether his real name is. After the last weeks I don't believe a single word he says)

Putlin. Or Putler.

The other different thing is that Russia is now perceived as potential threat to NATO members. As in, people wonder about where Russian aggression will continue after.

Sweden and Finland have dithered for decades, not applied for NATO membership because "it might provoke Russia". Maybe now they'll finally learn that the biggest danger with a NATO membership is not having it: So far, AFAIK, exactly none of the countries attacked and invaded by Russia have been NATO members.

It seems that some people are less worthy of others. (Mostly) ignoring decades and decades of constant war, and hundreds of thousands of deaths, just because of - what? The "other side" is the enemy? The "other side" lives far? The "other side" is of a different religion? The "other side" has a different skin colour?

I also find it kind of hypocritical (but isn't that to be expected in war politics) of the European NATO members that they were completely fine with breaking up Yugoslavia, arming separatist movements, taking sides in a civil war and bombarding a sovereign country, and then ending it up with another war and a three month (THREE MONTHS) constant bombing of a sovereign country with the use of weapons with depleted uranium. This led to some Italian army members receiving hefty compensations from Italy after they were diagnosed with cancer. I talked with some of them, this is actually how I found out about the subject. In the end that money is worthless when you know that you have cancer. And what I am most appalled by is the fact that my generation knows nothing about this, and that the people that suffered the bombs cannot do anything about it. They live with the traumas from the bombardment and with the fear that them or their children will one day get cancer.

> constant bombing of a sovereign country with the use of weapons with depleted uranium.

You don't "bomb a country" with depleted uranium. That's used for its high density, which gives a lot of kinetic energy to conventional ammunition made out of it: Armour-penetrating shots. Anti-tank ammo, not bombs.

In my opinion it’s just a matter of timing and sentiment; when Putin annexed Crimea nobody did anything.

I'm never sure how to take these comments.

Are you saying Ukraine is no big deal and anyone complaining about it should shut up, or are you saying it's a shame that people didn't take the other wars more seriously?

Either way, you should be more specific in your complaint so people can disagree or not, without having to guess what you mean and inadvertantly assume you're pro-invasion and trying to undermine the global response to it.

I'm not complaining, I'm stating a fact. Take from it what you will. Why does it have to be something you can disagree with?

If nobody is supposed to react to it, then what is your irrelevant "fact" doing in this (or any) discussion?

I'm there with you. Unfortunately they had ww3 in star trek.

In the Star Trek canon, world-war III starts in 2026:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Star_Trek#21st_cen...

We're pretty much on track for that.

We've been on track for that since WW2; tensions for nuclear annihilation were higher throughout the Cold War.

2020: plague, 2022: war, 2024 famine? 2026 ...

We're right on schedule. This is obviously no joking matter but this scenario has been with us for decades already.

It's how you raise your kids. It's not how everyone raised their kids, and we only pretend we can solve everything with dialog and ignore the heritage of violence at our own peril. Putin outright said he was sick of the west talking endlessly. He also said there was no reason for the world to exist without Russia and himself as the leader of it. The more post-violence a civilization gets, the more it's prone to total shock when confronted with barbarism and violence. If we survive this, it's important that the millennials generation experienced it. It will hold off our own collapse into nihilistic defeatism for another generation or two.

It was Q looking down, slowly shaking his head whispering “Savages.”

I watched TNG in high school. I never realized how much of my worldview it helped form, until I reflected on it later on. Because of that, humanity has really disappointed me. I thought we were on track, but it's just so stark of a reality check.

Despite all our progress, our greed and petty squabbling make me feel like the future that star trek pointed us towards is slipping further into the future. I'm sure now that even in a post scarcity world, humans would still find ways to fight, burn, waste, and regress. Sorry, Gene.

“We think we’ve come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, is all ancient history. Then, before you can blink an eye, suddenly, it threatens to start all over again.” - Picard (The Drumhead)

“A matter of internal security: the age-old cry of the oppressor.” - Picard (The Hunter)

“The past is written, but the future is left for us to write. And we have powerful tools, openness, optimism, and the spirit of curiosity. All they have is secrecy and fear. And fear is the great destroyer.” - Picard (Broken Pieces)

> I thought we were on track, but it's just so stark of a reality check.

While I understand the world view and it's utopian appeal. I believe what your youth might have been missing is an incentive to critically think and search for information that is not curated for you.

In the last decades there has been not much (imo) implying we are anywhere even heading towards such a society. I believe it can only be perceived that way if you omit the large parts of society and especially the world as a whole. Local things like changes in living standard for most of the population, crime rates, organized crime. International things like piracy, human trafficking, corruption in different parts of the world. If you look beyond a local bubble, there doesnt seem to be much implying much was heading towards a society you refer to.

I do not wish to imply you don't think critically, just that there are too many topics for anyone to inform themselves about all of them. At best we are aware of what we know more about and what we know less about.

Regarding critical thought:

While I believe it is important to teach youth about independant thought and critical thinking, I also want for young people to have a somewhat sheltered youth and not to worry about all the horrible things in the world. As so many things it's complicated.

Same thing here. I rewatched it as an adult a few years ago and suddenly the idealism and professionalism and lowkey-utopianism leapt out at me, and like you I realized that these things had stayed with me since high school.

It's given me a new appreciation for how important it is for children to grow up with truly idealistic visions in their cultural surroundings. It's terrible that in these times, there's no TNG equivalent that I'm aware of.

By the way, one TNGie to another: try to hold off on that disappointment. As a species we're just starting to get the hang of rationality, the scientific mindset, and self-governance. We're babies. It'll take a long time, we just need to try not to do any irreversible damage before we get where we're going.

>we just need to try not to do any irreversible damage before we get where we're going.

May you live in interesting times...

US has been blowing up afghan villagers (and kids/babies) for last 20 years. You only noticed this now??

Have you been living inside a watermelon.

Why US was in Afghanistan in the first place? Uh, they blow up American city...

Wasn't that a citizen of the US ally Saudi Arabia that "blew up American city"?

Why didn't you destroy Saudi Arabia instead? Because they pay their tribute in oil, and you had to destroy "someone", and Afghanistan was the first in the alphabetical list of countries that met the criteria for destruction?

The fact that said citizen of Saudi Arabia was based in Afghanistan and protected by the country's Taliban rulers may have had something to do with that...

He was exiled in 1991 and ostracized by his family, 10 years before 9/11. He wasn't a citizen of Saudi Arabia when the attack was planned and executed.

The US spent many billions of dollars feeding Afghanistan, building infrastructure, educating its people, and trying to protect them (especially women) from the Taliban. It didn't work, unfortunately.

Production of opium and its derivatives before it was under US control and after.

These are the only 2 numbers you should look at.

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

And the US stated the Taliban in order to drag Russia to a war in Afghanistan even before that. There is a 7 years war going on in Yemen, and it I've hardly seen any company discuss that. It's always about something else than the actual war, most of the times it's about money and energy.

[1] https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/yemen-crisis

I grw up reading Strugatsky brothers novels. They too became more and more disilusioned with the world. I haven't read The Doomed City yet.

Star Trek fleet had actually excellent policies:

- "any contact to less developed civilizations is strictly forbidden".

- "do not interfere in any way and don't take a side in conflicts of sovereign civilizations".

Both of them were crucial. If we followed these principles, the world would be much happier and peaceful place.

What do we do instead? Bomb democracy into societies not yet ready for it, force trade agreements to detriment of less developed countries, incite and profit from wars that would either never happen or finish much earlier if we left those people alone.

If we were James T Kirk and Jan Luc Picard instead of Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, we should not need to worry for the future of human species.

> If we followed these principles, the world would be much happier and peaceful place.

But countries like Russia would be free to invade Ukraine and others because of the "don't interfere" and "don't take a side" policy. It's like the "I did nothing" poem. NATO was founded to try and prevent another country from building an empire like Germany tried in WW2, because at the time it was like that poem, first they came. Which was about politics and religious groups initially, but it applies to Germany's conquest of Europe as well.

> But countries like Russia would be free to invade Ukraine and others because of the "don't interfere" and "don't take a side" policy.

The "don't interfere" policy would also apply to Russia. And if they still try, the others would be responsible not to let them interfere. In the same way as others would need to stop China, USA, and Zimbabwe when they attempt to interfere with another sovereign state on the lesser level of development.

> The "don't interfere" policy would also apply to Russia.

Yeah, good luck with that.

> And if they still try, the others would be responsible not to let them interfere.

Yup. That's why Ukraine should have been let into NATO long ago.

If Starfleet's policy is to simply stand aside and watch while one civilization genocides another, I'm not a fan.

> any contact to less developed civilizations is strictly forbidden

>> If we followed these principles, the world would be much happier and peaceful place.

And less developed civilizations would have polio, ox carts, and witch medicine.

Instead, they got slavery, colonialism, multinational corporations, foreign installed puppet governments, debts, modern slavery, outside financed extremist groups and civil wars, ...

Just try to look objectively, and you'll see that a vast majority of people in Iraq, Libya, Iran, and Afghanistan lived much better and safer life then after a series of foreign interventions and introduction of "democracy".

If we go a bit further in the past, the whole population of South and North America got annihilated by the diseases that came with the colonial forces. So yes, they would definitely be better if we had a Star Trek approach.

The myth of the good savage conveniently forgets that most, if not all of this things were present yet in spades in the primitive societies, with other names, but not so different in fact.

And people in those countries also live a safer life with modern medicine, airbags, concrete in buildings, modern roads or telephones that they don't developed. You can't take just the good parts of modern societies while claiming that those societies are evil and refusing to improve them. This is just hypocritical.

It feels like a good time to watch encounter at farpoint. I cant think of the right Picard quote to pull from it but the general sentiment seems appropriate for the moment.

If someone feels like they are losing either way (through words or conflict), making everyone lose through conflict instead of just them might not seems so bad. For the most part, people in western developed nations are sheltered from the fact that most of the world lives under much less secure circumstances, where things can fall apart very quickly. Even in the privileged world of developed nations, it doesn't take much to see the soft white underbelly of humanity that exists alongside us but is often ignored. Power and politics rarely align incentives in ways where everyone benefits equally.

> I just though we had (almost) arrived in a post-war, federation-like world

15 years ago Russia was participating in NATO and even US-lead exercises like BALTOPS. Putin suggested to join NATO in the early 2000s.

> I just keep thinking about how Jean Luc is looking down on us from orbit, slowly shaking his head whispering “Savages.”

I think that issue there is that Star Trek is a fiction.

You are not alone, there are academics who have build careers around this notion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Las...

Star Trek is a post-nuclear war story, right? And a post-capitalist society?

So far, humanity still hasn’t felt the need to unify or try to provide for all people. We’re way off from that utopian vision.

> I grew up on Star Trek and somehow I just though we had (almost) arrived in a post-war, federation-like world.

The Star Trek universe explicitly had a third world war, which was absolutely devastating. In that sense we're doing really well!

We're on track for 2026 too

Star Trek is a communist utopia. Our world won't resemble it as long as their are people who have the means and motivation to circumvent democracy. Unfortunately, such people exist in every major power.

The only reason why this is not happening is that there is more than one such "federation" currently and no one is unquestionably stronger. And at no point in history had a stronger faction submitted to the will of a weaker faction just to avoid hostilities. In a sense war is just a reality check when it is unclear who is really stronger. While studying history, it struck me that many countries (current unit of sovereignty) honor some person who was a "great unifier" - created a cohesive whole and put an end to internal conflicts. As a rule, this person was a war-mongering psychopath.

As you notice, at the end of the 20th century we almost had this kind of "federation" when the US and its allies were the only center of power in the world. The US arrived at that point by winning an economic and cultural war. But its coalition failed to entrench itself, grew weaker and more bloated and now we are facing these dangerous rifts between different factions of humanity.

Note: in the current emotional climate this may sound like war apologism. It is not - war is unspeakably horrible for everyone involved. But this is what an impartial alien looking from an orbit would deduce about the humanity.

FWIW, I 100% agree with this assessment.

Regardless of the outcome of the current flareup, I believe we're seeing the end of "Pax Americana". There is no way to accurately predict what will come next.

>This whole situation is so surreal and disappointing. I grew up on Star Trek and somehow I just though we had (almost) arrived in a post-war, federation-like world. We know things should be solved with words because otherwise there are only losers. It’s how we raise our kids.

I too am a trekkie and we could still obtain this vision.

So far only world sanctions have been brought against Russia.

If the Russian people rise up and protest/overthrow their government. It would tell the world that such extreme sanctions are enough to crush a nuclear power and prevent war. That we are indeed post-war. That borders become less important. Instead of war, we take that money and invest in ourselves. We start building tall.

If the Russian people don't do this. It means we are not post-war. It means we haven't broken the cycle. It means in about 2100, the cycle hits again and we have another massive war.

The Federation is not the entire world, there were at least 4 more entities of that level who were distinct, and weren't particularly keen on joining the Federation.

Star Trek: Birth of the Federation captured this quite well in its endings representing Loss, Allied Victory, Domination ( 2/3 of the galaxy controlled) and Total Conquest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A8N1N-dREc

Contrast this with the Cardassians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy_RbUKsaj0

If we're going with Star Trek, I think the more likely of the possibilities is that we're more similar to the Terran Empire timeline, sadly.

I relate so much to this. Star Trek shaped a lot of my world view. I wish we had more TV shows like that today.

But then, looking at some comments here cheering suffering of others and passing judgement reminds me of the episode 'encounter at far point', maybe Q was right after all.

Idk how anyone could get the notion we were living in world peace, that's delusional.

Shoulda watched Star Wars more. At least Putin isn't quite as bad as Jabba.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/World_War_III

I'm guessing I can't rely on the Kaspersky software I have on my phones to stay in service. It's a shame, SafeKids has really been helpful in monitoring my kids.

Why do you monitor your kids?

Very helpful to control their apps and give them a daily screen time allowance (1 hour on weekdays, 2 hours in weekend). I don't like the idea of my 11 year old spending days and nights on e.g. TikTok, not to mention browsing for porn. Also useful to have the ability to see where they are, although I don't use this feature too much.

Literally every feature you just described is built into iOS without the need for Russian spyware.

or you could just talk to your kids about it, spend time with them and help them find something more worthwhile to do

Why do that when you can make sure to undermine their trust in you :)

Are you guys even parents? Because you sure make yourselves sound like experts.

The truth is I know my kids will make absolutely terrible choices if I leave everything up to them. I myself made a lot of bad choices growing up with unsupervised internet access. And on todays web it seems the pitfalls for a curious young person are even deeper and more plentiful. I'm simply trying to spare my kids some of the same problems I suffered by providing some guardrails until they are older and more mature.

> The truth is I know my kids will make absolutely terrible choices if I leave everything up to them.

Yeah, so what? How the fuck else are they supposed to grow up?

Ok next let them try heroin so they make sure it's a bad thing.

If they do that then the GP's rearing of them has failed already. If one hasn't managed to instill at least that minimum of sense into them by the time they're old enough to even contemplate that, then they'll just do it anyway, as soon as their parents unlock the shackles and let them out into the daylight on their 18th or 21st birthday.

Did your parents restrict or monitor you to that extend when you grew up?

Kaspersky software is widely believed to be Russian spyware, of which western governments have banned the use of within their infrastructure.

I wouldn't be putting their software on mine or my childrens devices that's for sure.

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

Thanks, then it looks like I have even one more reason to drop them. Will uninstall this evening.

As a person living in the Baltics, I agree with Western countries using their leverage (including big tech) to put as much pressure as possiblee on Russia. We’ve been sincerely holding back and crafting sanctions that would only affect Putin’s inner circle for the last 8 years but it didn’t work. Now that the ordinary Ukrainians need to withstand the horrors of the actual war, ordinary Russians need to withstand stronger sanctions. It’s an unfortunate reality, the west just cannot keep financially supporting the Russian war machine, directly or indirectly through taxes.

Maybe as a person living in the Baltics you need to endure the cold and not fund the Russian war machine through natural gas. An unfortunate reality really

Baltics have LNG terminals and can fully supply themselves from alternative gas providers. Tell it to Germans who addicted themselves to the Gazprom drug needle.

Agreed, absolutely shameful of us to refuse to stop paying for russian gas immediately. That Russia not cut off the gas in response to the other sanctions shows how important that cash flow is to them, which is exactly why it must stop.

I agree with the notion of not relying on Russian gas. We've built liquefied natural gas terminal (https://enmin.lrv.lt/en/strategic-projects/gas-sector/liquef...) 7 years ago as Russia has been using gas as a political weapon against us constantly. We will endure what we need to endure to help Ukraine and we hope that ordinary Russians will do the same.

Are Baltic countries still importing natural gas from Russia or has is completely stopped?

While this comment seems overly cynical, the fact that Europe depends to such a large degree on Russia for its energy needs is a big failure. Now that the cards are on the table we (as Europeans) need to take some hard decisions and face the consequences of our own complacency. Energy security and defence capabilities should be fully self reliant.

Right, you can’t say (paraphrasing here) “ordinary Russians must suffer for change to occur” while you’re literally paying a Russian state-owned entity to keep the heat on. Your government’s complacency partially funded this war and if you want to see people on the other side be punished for their mistakes you’d better own up to yours as well.

I know this option is not available to many, but if you can -- take your family and run away from Russia as soon as possible. Yes, you may loose some money and property in the process. But if putler stays in power, the only way he can keep it is by turning russia into a blend of north korea and stalin's gulag state. In the best case scenario his own henchmen would get rid of him, in which case you return back.

> I hope sincerely that all of this will be behind us soon and in a way that minimizes bloodshed on both sides, but I especially wish that for the defenders, who had no agency at all.

Let's also wish for freedom for all, especially the defenders. Minimized bloodshed under a foreign dictator isn't a good outcome.

How about Nginx, Clickhouse, Telegram, etc?

Nginx is free software and Telegram is in Dubai

Nginx sells proprietary software https://www.nginx.com/pricing/ But now, it is own by F5 so I don't think it will be an issue.

I think he means they were created by Russians but people are selective about punishing Russians

Folks really underestimate how many economic chokepoints there are if the right people feel threatened. I think and hope most Russians know who to blame, but it only takes one person misdirecting their rage to end your life if you're there and look like a target.

I'm sure the "target" understands that perfectly well, and has already taken all necessary countermeasures.

You meant all possible counter-measures given tools at hand, and that is in an ideal state when the aggressor is perfectly rational, very smart in planning and can hold their emotions in place.

Most if not all above is not valid right now about Putin and his clique.

The way I read the GP is "As usual, if you're Jewish, be careful because they're going to deflect blame towards you. Expect lynch mobs."

(feel free to replace Jewish with another minority, it's probably also true)

If my understanding is correct, I agree with GP. My understanding of Russian history suggests that Russian politics 101, throughout the regimes, has been to pick (and murder) scapegoats during crises. If you feel that you're a potential target, now is a very good time to make sure that you have a way to survive this.

Yep. I've had Berlin on mind and the way it was fairly tolerant pre-WW2. It had the era's equivalent of a queer center. All burned in that famous book burning photo that, until recently, rarely had that context.[0] The person who ran it was Jewish and gay, so he probably gave people at his institute this same warning early on. I know Russia has some nasty laws on the books, but I assume international cities there are like international cities anywhere. And that can turn real quick when people start looking for someone to blame.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_f%C3%BCr_Sexualwissen...

True, but heavy sanctions haven't been able to destroy Irans economy. After a harsh adjustment period and an initially tanking economy the systems will adjust. And China will probably welcome Russian business with open arms.

Russia is the fallback for many countries facing sanctions. Who does Russia turn to that wasn't taken off guard by the invasion and the swiftness and unity of Europe's response? China might have helped in another limited land grab like Crimea. Putin recognizing independent states doesn't align with the desire to reintegrate its own breakaway states into China, so they might not want to help.

The reverse of this comment probably applies too. Expect Russia to retaliate if this continues to escalate. Banking computers might be hit and the internet might go down. You probably need to have some cash on hand to be able to at least buy food in such a scenario.

That would be an attack, unlike the cessation of cooperation that is currently happening

The US is sending stinger missiles that will be used to kill Russian soldiers. This is not cessation cooperation but active participation in the conflict.

Basically Russia becomes North Korea or Putin dies.

It's sad, but honestly, Russians tolerated the situation for far too long and the externalities were paid by everybody around them.

Yeah, the wind is blowing that way..

But we still haven't stopped buying oil/gas.

And if we did, China might buy it instead.

I'm sure China will be very happy to absorb as many of Russia's natural resources as needed and to provide and alternative to SWIFT.

China buying their gas is a long-term effort, though, they can't just up and relocate gas headed west on a whim like that. The infrastructure isn't in place for it, and if they don't do it via pipelines, they'll have to do it via trucks which isn't exactly fast

> Basically Russia becomes North Korea or Putin dies.

Or you know Putin can declare that the operation was succesfull and retreat back to Russia. Then he can spend the rest of his time spinning a story of how this was his plan all along. I don’t care as long as he is not making his people murder others at scale.

It is after all supposedly a special operation to get rid of neo nazis. I'm sure we could set up UN commision to de nazi it if he agrees to go home.

I see a lot of wishes for this to be over soon - and I feel the same. But realistically, I'm afraid that due to the severity of Russia's attack and the West's response, there's simply no perspective for a peaceful future with Putin in it. Whether Ukraine falls or prevails, there won't be peace as long as Putin is in charge.

This brings up the question of what to do about it - and, apart from an uprising by the Russian people leading to a regime change - there are few solutions that feel particularly pleasant.

These are probably good recommendations, but to be honest, this is just data. Any Russian still reading here obviously has a working internet connection and has technical interests and skills. To all those Russians I can only say: please help spread the information about what is going on in Ukraine. That should be the highest priority, not just to save some data. Russia is getting isolated for a reason. There is an invasion going on against a people which should be very close to Russia, most of them are Russian speaking. And the war just started to turn ugly. It seems, the Russian army is deploying cluster ammunition and thermobaric bombs against the civilian population of the Ukraine.

I know it is difficult and risky to speak up in such a situation, but it might be the only solution. I am a German and wished my ancestors had not tolerated the rise of the Nazi regime and its actions before and during the war. Most Germans still fell guilt about it, though most of us are obviously born long after the war. I don't think many are blaming the Russian people for what is going on, but I can only pledge for you to raise your voice.

> To all those Russians I can only say: please help spread the information about what is going on in Ukraine.

As these sanctions kick in I think we're going to see less and less sympathy from the Russian people.

Sanctions can both unify or divide a population. I hope you are right, but remember that the full force of the Russian propaganda machinery is working to frame Russia as a totally inocent victim of western agression.

Note this works in both directions, in particular if you're a Yandex user (for example their free mail-for-domains service)

They should not be cut off, the pressure should be financial and it is already working. Payment businesses are already turning off russian users, and businesses are finding themselves with no ways to be paid. It's as bad as it is necessary

What do you mean by unable to pay? Would it not just be more expensive? Assuming the banks will convert your transactions when you pay.

The Russian banks seem to have stockpiled currency, so I assume they will be able to keep the loop going.

https://www.reuters.com/business/uk-says-targeting-russian-c...

As in they will not legally be allowed to accept payments from Russia. There will probably be usage of VPNs and USD/BTC, but that will also probably not be legal too. And even if it were legal, a lot of people and companies will just not do it. The world plans to make things very difficult for Russia should the war continue.

Also I just noticed elsewhere on HN that Namecheap has officially sanctioned Russia themselves.

That's interesting. I'm not sure where the technicality resides. If that situation is the case, I assume that it would be quite catastrophic for anyone using non-Russian services for IT.

That is correct. Hence this Tell HN, unfortunately it got flagged.

Still on front page, but grayed

Gray just means you opened it since it points to the comments. It's HN's visited link style. It looks like enough people vouched or a mod intervened.

The latter.

Why did it get flagged?

No idea, flags don't require a reason.

Cutting off SWIFT I believe is a primary way of making it impossible to pay...

SWIFT is a messaging network and could be replaced by email.

They’ve been banned from the US/UK central banks and can’t settle transactions in those currencies at all. Maybe more by now.

And this Namecheap sanctions just hit independent students journal DOXA.

Four of its journalists are being trialed right now because of January 2021 protests. They are accused for sharing a motivational video addressed to students not to stay silent.

Yesterday russian censorship started to block DOXA site, because they published anti-war debate manual. They switched their domain then got sanctioned by Namecheap.

It is very hard to host something inside country if you are targeted by censoring.

Namespace CEO sad that they make exceptions and you just have to contact them.

While much more limited than a website, I think torrent is a good solution to censorship-resistant file sharing.

Getting an index of torrents around is the trick.

Most (all?) Russian banks got booted from the SWIFT interchange system. That takes away the technical mechanism for doing transfers.

Here's my take on this, which you are not going to like one bit. It goes like this...

The good people of Russia - and I'm not saying this with a tongue in cheek - the vast majority of the people of Russia truly are GOOD people, in the simplest, most sincere sense of the word... But they do need to go through some things.

You just don't get to support a murderous communist regime for 100 years and then say "but we had nothing to do with it". I'm sorry, but you had everything to do with it.

> You just don't get to support a murderous communist regime for 100 years and then say "but we had nothing to do with it". I'm sorry, but you had everything to do with it.

This is easy to say when you have the privilege of living in a rich/developed country with free access to information and where you can increasingly voice your opinion without risking imprisonment or worst. Most people, especially in developing countries, are struggling to make ends meet and don't have time for ideology. The one that are very ideologically opposed and have done something about it have already sought asylum abroad.

The same argument can be made about America's multi century history of slavery, and only in recent decades have taken shape. People will wait for 50 acres and a mule in perpetuity

> Most people, especially in developing countries, are struggling to make ends meet and don't have time for ideology.

Most people in developing countries also do not have a lunatic with their finger on nuclear button. Russia currently does. If people don't see the need for ideology right now then we're all properly fucked, not matter on which side of the border you live. This time it's not like all the other times.

> If people don't see the need for ideology right now then we're all properly fucked

I believe we need to opposite. Cold hearted real politics going for deescalation. Screw right and wrong and ideology. There is way too much emotions now and I am getting scared for real ...

And, you know, good people of US eventually waged a civil war with slave owners. They could perpetually look the other way.

I don't entirely disagree but I think a slightly better framing is: It's not their fault, but it is their responsibility. Putin is a problem for the world, and it's a problem that can only be properly solved by the Russian people. Unfortunately, that means whether they deserve it or not, they are the group to whom pressure needs to be applied.

I am a Russian citizen. How it is my responsibility? I never supported Putin and hate him as much as anyone. They destroyed Moscow over the last 20 years, gave up on Russians left in former ex-USSR countries, created a separate society of asian immigrants, muted all opposition. How am I responsible? Should I buy a tank of gazoline and go burn Kremlin? Then what? Is every european responsible for not stopping NATO in the middle east? What pressure should be applied to some Dutch for that?

You're living in a modern life Nazi Germany. If you're good, get out via Dubai or other neutral country.

> How am I responsible? Should I buy a tank of gazoline and go burn Kremlin?

Honestly, yes. If that's what it takes. You're responsible not because it's your fault, but because you (collectively) are the ones in a position to do something about it.

Were German people responsible for Nazis? Russians have been figting Nazis so fiercly during the World War 2 and it is so ironic that they have a Nazis in Kremlin now.. with many supporting them or just doing nothing about it.

> How it is my responsibility?

He might mean that since you live there, you have better chances to do something about Putin, than people outside. And you might know more about what makes sense or not.

Just as if you're inside a house burning down, you're in a better position to do something about it (say, saving a kid who had hid in a closet), that someone far away.

Although none of it was your fault

You probably are from some eastern european country and now are just happy to spit poison at us. The amount of devastation bolsheviks caused in 20-30s, two insane wars, complete cultural destruction, what else should people go through?

The Clintons selling Russia to oligarchs in the 90s and causing a drop in life-expectancy of 10 years in the male population

> The Clintons selling Russia to oligarchs in the 90s

How did that happen?, Did they own Russia or something?

Their administration with the "help" of harvard helped to produce the economic "success" that was 90s russia:

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/harvard-boys-do-ru...

Hold on... Which administration?, did the Clinton's rule in Russia?

Even your article says the Russian Administration did this.

If I were to look at who's rich right now it's Putin and his accolade... so it seems they plundered and stole and destroyed everything.

> You just don't get to support a murderous communist regime for 100 years and then say "but we had nothing to do with it".

If that argument holds (which I'm not saying it doesn't), then how much more responsible are we who have democracy and tell everyone else how great it is we have a say in how our government operates. Surely, we then hold even more of the blame on issues such as the WMD fiasco. Ironically, ask any one of us about these issues and suddenly its, we have no control over the government, and other endless excuses.

Good point. Well worth thinking about.

No, it's stupid whataboutism.

> then how much more responsible are we who have democracy

We who have democracy are very responsible for how our Government behaves.

> Surely, we then hold even more of the blame on issues such as the WMD fiasco.

Yes. The average US citizen bears responsibility for the lies of our government that lead to decades of warfare.

I was in high school at the time, strongly opposed Bush, and strongly opposed the war in Iraq. Even so, I bear some of the responsibility for my government's actions.

That's how it is.

Oh, please, let's not start blaming most Russians.

These sanctions are about ruining the Russian war machine, as well as demonstrating to other authoritarian governments tempted by imperialism that attacking democracies is a bad idea. Individual Russians (with the exception of oligarchs) are collateral damage. And despite the fact that Russians are (probably) going to suffer deeply for it, it's (probably) the right way to do it, because any other strategy (that I can think of) involves either nuclear bombs falling sooner or later.

Of course, if Russians somehow manage to reinstate democracy in their country, that will be the best outcome. But don't count on it, revolutions are hard and deadly.

> Oh, please, let's not start blaming most Russians.

Any regime can only stay in power as long as it has the support, active or passive, of a majority of its people. (That's why the German people was held collectively responsible for having abided the Nazi regime, and had to go through collective de-Nazification after WW2.) The fact that, with the exception of short periods of anarchy (most recently: the 1990s), Russia has had authoritarian-to-dictatorial regimes since... Well, since about forever, means that the Russian people has been condoning authoritarian-to-dictatorial regimes since about forever.

High time for a change in that, isn't it? And whom should that be up to... If not the Russian people?

> if Russians somehow manage to reinstate democracy in their country

I think you mean instate democracy, without the re-.

Have you ever been risked your life and that of your family by being part of a revolutionary movement?

I haven't. I don't know that I would if I lived in a dictatorship. I'm not going to start blaming people because they haven't either.

Sure, they may have, from their viewpoint, valid reasons not to do anything about it. And sure, I couldn't swear that I would do any better in their situation. But: So what? Still doesn't mean it's not their fault, just like it would be mine in the same situation. The two are not logically related.

Victim blaming? I'm not a fan.

The victims here are the Ukrainians; the Russians are the aggressors.

What you're not a fan of is aggressor-blaming. To most of the rest of us, the aggressors are precisely the ones who should take the blame.

You should learn History before you talk.

There was a civil war in Russia. The Bolshevism won being a minority because they got support from Germany Government in a critical weakness situation of World War.

I bet you can't even understand that from a privileged position on the West, fell fed and well rested.

I have been in Africa helping kids that eat once a day and they are so weak they can't think clearly for long. The same happened in Russia when people almost starved under the civil war and later with the disastrous Lenin politics. Only Lenin people had enough food, stolen from the people, most people were hungry.

Lenin killed 300.000 Russian peasants and 5 million people starved. Russian people were the main victims of communism. Even the navy revolted against Lenin and he was forced to do NEP. With Stalin it got worse.

And small owners of land, specially in Ukraine were exterminated. Anyone that was better at something(kulaks) was exterminated. Any social institution like Church was destroyed.

Given the right circumstances this could happen too in America.

And who condoned that all; who actually put Lenin in power (and spare us the "Germany Government" crap), and then did not put neither him nor his equally-or-more dictatorial successors out of it again after they noticed that the results were shit?

The Russian people, that's who. Any regime that is tolerated by its people is always and everywhere the responsibility of that people. Whose the Hell else could it even be?!?

And this is so fucking self-evident that even trying to argue against it seems a surefire sign of advanced lunacy.

Who says they supported it? What can "the people" do if elections are fraudulent, constitutions are changed, and any protests are beaten down by police? How many people have been arrested and disappeared for protesting against the invasion?

I mean, even in the US protesters managed to break into Congress, some with the intent to kill. If they were armed things would look very different now. What would have happened if Trump - who looks up to Putin - did things like declare martial law or change the constitution? It would have been possible; he put a new supreme judge in place, and 'his' party held a majority in the various houses. But that assumes a democratic process; if he had more cronies, he wouldn't need to follow a democratic process to become a dictator, only the pretense thereof.

“No country was born a democracy”

The Russian people really can impact change in their country and now is the best time. They just need to find a way to be united about stopping Putin.

Many more Russians will likely die, but sadly that’s always been the cost of building a democracy. I would have much rather preferred a world that wasn’t so brutal to achieve something so critical.

> What can "the people" do if elections are fraudulent, constitutions are changed, and any protests are beaten down by police?

Oh, I don't know... Wait, ever heard of something called a revolution?

"You just don't get to support a murderous communist regime for 100 years and then say "but we had nothing to do with it"."

The soviet regime is long gone, but with reference to the current regime.

It's been put there and supported by the West. In the shock treatment of the economy, the giving away of the state to an oligarchy and to contracts to western companies, the US and CIA support of Yeltsin up to and including fixing an election against the communists, the support for Putin's first election, the turning a blind eye to what was happening in Chechnya and then Georgia, the expansion of NATO against all advice that it would create and embolden nationalist chauvinistic leadership, the encouragement and protection of the oligarchy class in western countries, the addiction to fossil fuel.

If you make a distinction between soviet regime and current regime, I'm sorry, but I can't spend another second reading further into any other noise coming out of your keyboard.

Sorry, couldn't resist... Read the rest of your garbage. So wait, so... Putin is a western ploy? Well fuck my ignorance!

And if you're still "but, but, butt-ing" about this, I'd like to add one more thing.

It is not Putin driving the tanks. It isn't him shelling hospitals and nurseries. It isn't him giving commands to troops. It isn't him spewing brain-dead propaganda in RU media 24/7 for decades.

I really honestly don't want to hear any "but"s from "the people".

You reap what you sow.

So you're scared? You say "if I don't go kill innocent people, Putin will kill me". And what's the choice you make? You go kill innocent people.

Enough with the buts.

Nothing but humble pie for the people of Russia over the next 100 years. Make Germans feel like they got away with it easy.

Exactly. But this is because many Russians don't understand the concept of agency when it comes to nations. Plus, they think their motherland is the best place on earth. This even applies to the highly-educated individuals e.g. during the war in Donbas in 2014, I had some Russian-born expats coworkers who were genuinely convinced that a) both NATO and EU enlargements in Eastern Europe were CIA's ploys, against "common people will" and b) Russia had nothing to do with that war, it was just people rioting against Ukraine's pro-western politics.

You clearly have no idea what it's like to live under a dictatorship.

Well I do sir, I lived under the Islamic Republic of Iran for half my life.

If you think people can just "rise up", protest and overthrow the government, then you are clueless. Dictators will not hesitate to fire live rounds at their own people, they will torture and imprison everyone, cut all communication from outside and spew propaganda 24/7 to keep people in the dark.

Further, you don't even need to look far in history to see what happens if people do indeed "rise up", it happened in Syria [0] with the Arab spring and the civil war has been going on for over a decade now. It has basically turned the country into dust and it has been made inhabitable, if you don't believe me checkout "For Sama" [1]

So no, I don't blame the ordinary Russian civilians. My prayers go out to the people of Ukraine AND Russia right now.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9617456/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3

Playing the devil's advocate here - but a honest question - I've always wondered if I'd be able to recognize propaganda from within.

We're at a point now where all I see (in western media) is videos of long lines of refugees, children crying for their fathers that were drafted in Ukraine and companies banning everything Russian to turn it into a PR event online, articles about Ukranian hero president (in part articles about how sexy he is - I kid you not) - an on the other side of the spectrum Putin portrayed as a bloodthirsty madman that lost control.

I have to wonder - if anything in the world is ever portrayed this black and white - could it be true?

DISCLAIMER - condone war in every possible way and whatever the truth is in the end - Russia definitely lost control by attacking. But still - seems like we're getting a fair amount of propaganda ourselves too.

You're more than welcome to go to Medyka, Hrebenne, Korczowa, Krościenko and see for yourself. Take a flight to Rzeszów airport and then take a train to Przemyśl.

I don't think this will do much. Putin is a very firm person and will keep at his war. They have services in other countries like China that have similar products at cheaper rates too. In fact, this will unnecessarily cause trouble to innocent people who aren't even part of the war.

I have a different message: Go on the street and take control of your country, before you turn into another North Korea.

Ukrainians were able to overthrow their government, and so can you.

> Go on the street and take control of your country, before you turn into another North Korea.

So, you are saying that one should risk their life for their country? No, thank you. I never understood this kind of "patriotism".

If they don't - they shouldn't complain that all this shit is on them. Because it is.

Without patriotism there would not be a country where you are at now, no matter which one it is.

Options:

Fight

Flight

Starve

Advocating for fight is reasonable because it has the most benefit but the highest activation energy.

Starve is out of the table after Stalin used it as an atrocious instrument for mass genocide of Ucranian (and Russian) people in 1933. They remember and will not commit the same error of being passive with the new Stalin 2.0. As ugly as it sounds, "starve" there means cannibalism.

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

Also, I looked at it more closely and found that Russia has become food self-sufficient in the past decade. This was likely the key fact that emboldened this invasion. The needs of the people will be met even in the event of full insulation. In fact, accelerating insulation may make taking full autocratic control easier. Few would be willing to die for a revolution if their base needs are met. This seems like a bad time to live in Russia.

You should first and foremost be willing to risk your life for your family, loved ones, as well as your children, for which you probably want a good/better future.

You may not understand it, but no country has ever become or stayed free without it.

> one should risk their life for their country?

No, I'm saying to risk their life for their freedom, the freedom of their family, the freedom of their children, the freedom of their neighbours.

> for their country

I had a discussion about that a few days ago with friends. It's not necessarily "for your country" or "patriotism" it can just be fighting for what you stand for.

Sadly what a lot of people stand for these days is living their little comfortable life, as long as war doesn't knock on their door they're fine, but then when it does happen it's too late

While I mostly agree with that sentiment, please go look at Russian history. The past 20 years were probably the longest stretch of time when the Russian society was able to live a relatively decent life (by ex-USSR standards, however terrible it is by Western ones) for the past few centuries.

That's (I think) is why almost nobody was willing to 'rock the boat', as the Kremlin Führer says. Now everything is going down the toilet and most of the society haven't yet realized whet they're up for.

It's easy to criticize others when the worst thing your country has seen is the civil war 300 years ago. Russia went through 3 arguably even more serious events in the past century only. Nobody wanted to risk the little peaceful life they had, and still everything went down the drain.

Didn't work in Syria.

Worked in US, France, Germany and every country in the world - all of them had revolutions and led to the change.

Are you referring to Viktor Yanukovych in 2014? Honestly, as far as I know, he was democratically elected. Was that not the case?

Putin too in 2000, no?

Yes, but did Yanukovych meddle with any elections? (I don't know, honestly asking) Putin is.

I know of a guy who got democratically elected in Germany a while ago, whom the Germans would have done well to get rid of in a bloody revolution.

The reason Russia has elevated tyrants to power for centuries is deep-rooted in Russian soul to the point where it's not even a problem. It's something that is inexplicably difficult to understand unless you actually experience the culture for a good portion of your life. There is a lot of literature out there about the "Russian Soul" and I really recommend reading it to understand how this happens. In my opinion it's almost like a mass psychosis that everyone is aware of but have been "deprogrammed" to deal with and blaming people in Russia for atrocities of their regimes is like blaming a sick person for being sick. Most of the time they themselves were the victims while being told "it's just life, deal with it." With that said, people are slowly waking up and it's mostly young people who have the luxury of traveling the world and experiencing real democracies. Unfortunately, I think Russia will continue on its tyrannical path until the old generations die off and these younger folks take over.

If there is something left to take over. I'm affraid the young will leave russia and start a new life somewhere safe and sane. Russia is more similar to China, North Korea and some middle east areas than the west.

except China is not subject to the "brain drain" you are describing and is actually economically successful. When it comes to which regime is more repressive, I agree the difference is only in effectivity - the scale of China's oppression/brainwashing/ethnic cleansing operation in Xinjiang is really scary, I don't think Russia would be capable of organising (or financing) something like this...

Yes, sorry. I meant similarities in the regimes, not braindrain. And if there is something left to take over depends on the choices of weapons russia makes in the next few days.

Is there even going to be something left at all, or someone left, anywhere, depending on the choices of weapons they make in the next few days?

I don't know. The propaganda has been working extremely well, and (IMHO) any dissent was possible mostly due to the internet being widely available, which is closing down pretty fast.

Some of my Russian friends (most of whom work in IT) are leaving the country already, others are looking for the best way to go about it.

Children in kindergartens have been building toy tanks and missiles for the past few years, the remains of the free press have written about this extensively. "Patriotic education" in schools is growing and is pushing the worldview of the madman on top into the growing kids' conscience.

I think the country is fucked, honestly. There's no decent way to say it.

There is no such thing like Russian soul. But Bolshevist legacy and Checkist persons in control. See how Korea was split and become completely different countries from the same people.

They are different countries but still they are very strict, hierarchical, conformist societies, and so is Japan. I think maybe it's just the same mindset put into different economic systems.

South Korea and Japan has a history of changing a ruling person by non-election means. It's the only thing that matters for stable democracy. Ukrainian and Russian situation is very similar. Propaganda poisoned people and there are no enough free minds to stand against Putin.

> There is no such thing like Russian soul.

There is: https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%.... That you don't understand it does not make it less real.

As I understand it (I'm from Poland, not exactly Russia, but we share enough culture and history) it's a way of describing something between culture and attitude to life. It's not limited to a phenomenon of extreme political apathy combined with distrust of anyone unknown (this is called homo sovieticus), but also a way of coping with learned helplessness, mostly by expression in family and close relatives.

BTW I'm Russian, 39 years old. I was grown in typical Russian family with engineer and financial specialist parents. I was taught in usual school and university. But I hate all past 20 Putin years and all Putin's supporters. And I know I'm not alone. There is no mythic soul or mentality.

This type of psychoanalysis propaganda never ceases to amaze me. Reminds me of "The Arab mind".

I'm not convinced, this sounds like mystical bullshit to me. There is no such thing as a "Russian soul", just like Frenchmen do not always walk around with a baguette under their arm. Russia (i) hasn't really been democratic yet for historical reasons, and the current regime does everything to make it stay that way, so many people have given up on change in that respect, and (ii) alleged support for someone like Putin is hard to gauge and the data is faulty. Russia is de facto a dictatorship and the suppression of political dissent is pretty drastic. People are not going to be honest about what they really think about Putin and hide their criticism in formulations and poetic use of language like in Soviet times. Most people will remain silent or lie when asked about the government, they certainly won't trust surveys. I wouldn't trust an allegedly anonymous phone survey, for example. They want to get on with their life and arrange as best as they can. It's not different from how people act in other countries under authoritarian regimes.

In history, regime changes have illustrated over and over that the actual support for such a government is way, way lower than as it may seem when you ask around on the streets or in staged elections. Once there is a change and a chance for freedom, support drops from 99% in the fake election to 5% or so. Also, this is not a hundred years ago, people know very well what's going on via the net. Given all that, I doubt that Putin's government has any support at all, maybe from 10% of the elite in Moscow and in the security apparatus and that's it. But what are the rest gonna do? It's a classical collective action problem.

> just like Frenchmen do not always walk around with a baguette under their arm.

Oh yes they do! With a bottle of wine in their hand, and wearing a striped long-sleeved t-shirt[1], pencil moustache, and a beret. Everyone knows that! Sheesh...

___

[1]: Come to think of it, rather like a telnyashka.

> Russia has elevated tyrants to power for centuries is deep-rooted in Russian soul to the point where it's not even a problem

That's racist thinking, as bad as Putin's assertion that russia deserves some kind of tribute by the international community by force. The world advances as a Markov process, the past is not an indicator for the future.

> past is not an indicator for the future.

It doesn't _determine_ the future, but it sure sets the direction. Probabilities of all future possible states are not equal. The chances of the next president of the US being a Republican or Democrat are much higher than them being a card-carrying Communist.

Essentialist arguments about the 'soul' of a people are generally tissue thin and fall apart on examination.

That said, history is real. It has real effects on people, both through what stories they tell about themselves as a people and through the social superstructure that builds up over time.

And boy does Russia have a bleak history. What you call a 'Russian soul' is more like the internalized cultural wear-and-tear of a rough few hundred years. The good news is that it can be changed with long term concerted effort.

This reminds how europeans justified slavery: "they are barbarians. We are making them a favor by owning them. We give them civilization"

btw, russians are officially considered colored in US as I understand.

> btw, russians are officially considered colored in US as I understand.

As far as I'm aware, Russians were never subject to Jim Crowe laws.

There was, however, a significant surge in discrimination against Slavic (mainly Polish) immigrants in the early 20th century. See "The Polish Peasant in Europe & America" by Thomas & Znaniecki, which is considered to be one of the foundational texts in modern sociology.

That, however, more or less went away in the mid-late 20th century.

I'm talking about the recent (2010s) legislation. I don't remember the exact name and google is useless.

> btw, russians are officially considered colored in US as I understand.

“Colored” is not something one is “officially considered” in the US on the basis of national origin, so you are wrong not only in detail but even on broad outline.

I'm not versed on the vocabulary. In this context, the meaning is close to "protected class" (what is the opposite of being asian while you are applying for college)

How can come up with the title colored? You are part of the huge problem that is racism in the US. Colored means nothing to me.

At the moment I see more challenges to this war from inside Russia than I ever see from the US when it is starting a new war.

Maybe because this one is even more obviously, blatantly, flagrantly more unjustifiable and trumped-up[1] than most of the American ones.

___

[1] Heh... Should that have been "Trumped-up"?

(disclaimer, I'm russian but not Russia citizen, but I 'experienced the culture' for 30 years) This is wrong. There is not so much special russian 'mentality' left in Russia, not in the big cities. People there have more-or-less the same 'european values'. The problem now is that we used to think of ourselves as 'good guys'. We destroyed nazis and even though we did a lot of not so good stuff, in minds of russians it always viewed as 'missteps' or 'lesser evil'. Thats why propaganda now is so efficient. General population of Russia can't even imagine the possibility that we invade other country. Because it is impossible, we remember way too well how we were invaded by Germany. And it is easy to use. Basically government tells people that we actually prevent Ukraine to invade DNR/LNR. Yes, it sounds stupid, but it works. Personally I can't even convince my parents that right now we are the bad guys. It is beyond their world view. My point here is that russians are not some special people or special culture that allow us to invade other countries. We just struggle to move to more 'people-based' governments.

The constant rhetoric reducing Russia to just Putin (mad-man), or Communists (not-democratic), or worse, a generic Russian soul (not-european) is Western political bias at play. It is trivial to dehumanize, devalue, derogate an entire nation once you have made these labels stick. After that, garnering consensus for inflicting sanctions, suffering, segregation becomes a walk in the park.

Both sides of the table are guilty of doing this, but the West is way more influential and hence much effective at propaganda.

Playbook as old as humans themselves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_stages_of_genocide#Ten_sta...

> There is not so much special russian 'mentality' left in Russia, not in the big cities. People there have more-or-less the same 'european values'.

that is just external shell that came with oil money. Try to fit the "Great Russia chauvinism" into what you said. You wouldn't be able to. That chauvinism is the basis of Russian mentality and has been well alive and kicking, and the last few days it has been taking a trip to Ukraine.

>General population of Russia can't even imagine the possibility that we invade other country.

convenient self-delusion. Afghanistan is a glaring example. Of course it was sold as "brotherly help" by propaganda just like the Ukraine war right now. Well, easy falling for the same propaganda again and again - that is the convenient self-delusion. That delusion naturally feeds into and is reinforced by the "Big Brother" self-perception which is one of the facets of the "Great Russia chauvinism".

Apologies for using a throwaway account.

It is true that the idea of suffering have been engraved into the Russian culture, for centuries. It is the ever-present fear of what could happen next, based on what has happened in the past. The fear of things getting even worse, despite everything being bad already. The longing for a chance to have even a short period of normal life, before everything inevitably falls apart (because it always does, roughly twice per century). The idea of accepting the current reality as something immutable and just trying to live with it. The idea of personal (rather than collective) survival. Of course in these circumstances you rarely have the luxury to think about what is right.

Now, that is exactly what state media has learned to exploit. They were selling the idea that nothing _too_ bad will happen if everyone just stays away from politics. Well, now the worst happened. It has been only a few days, and not many people have realized what is coming next. A collapse of economy at this scale will inevitably lead to a massive increase of hunger, crime and death. And — I am not even sure it can change those people's collective behavior.

Personally, I am trying to do my part, but I do not believe my work is going to be of any significance. Maybe it's the "soul".

https://youtu.be/z6vsFD_W-yA

This 'mentality' is just believing in the propaganda out of fear. I'm not going to look into it because it's just lies.

> The reason Russia has elevated tyrants to power for centuries is deep-rooted in Russian soul to the point where it's not even a problem.

Not for Russia(ns), maybe; only for everyone around them.

I am in Ukraine right now. In a small village to the north of Kyiv. I am the author of PhotoSwipe (https://github.com/dimsemenov/photoswipe).

Yesterday I was filling bags with sand to make a fortification for local defenders. I hear artillery as I am writing this. And by the way, you get used to it.

In the last few days I received about 20 emails offering support, none of them were from russian devs. One asked a technical question about my lib, I answered "do you know what's happening in Ukraine right now?" - no reply.

I see a few russian companies and personalities openly condemn the aggression (such as JetBrains) and I'm very grateful to them. However most are silent, or have very weak Instagram post "no war" with a sadface, or even worse - post with "we are out of politics".

And that's IT people, which are presumably more informed. Unfortunately, due to misinformation most russian people have no idea what's happening here, that's why sanctions should affect regular people, and not just putin and his close allies.

Russian here. This is not misinformation or anything. This is just because yes, vast majority of Russians from all walks of life are pure evil. Even those living in the Western countries for decades. I have deleted myself from all social networks 5 years ago and people keep sending me screenshots from Russian facebook groups in Cyprus and that makes me freak out. Nearly everyone is pro-Putin. Ridiculous posts get hundreds of upvotes.

I really can't see a fix for it. You have to keep containing Russia: there is no chance in hell to ever have a sustainable democratic government there, Putin or not, because people are wholeheartedly against it - they don't respect any government that doesn't make them frightened as hell.

this is becoming a theme with immigrant communities, in a similar vein how german Turks are supportive of Erdogan. I'm sure those people are not evil, but this phenomenon is worthy of investigation.

Back when I lived in Canada and had some exposure to some of local Russian communities, it was bloody obvious that there was a concentrated Russian government effort to manipulate and control their opinion.

All online spots - forums, bbses, etc. - had at least one troll reposting from the offical news. More places than one had these as mods or admins. Agitating and stirring the pot was a daily occurence, which was quite effecient given that migrant communities tends to comprise people that aren't exactly well off and generally happy with life. To give an example - people discussing faking a divorce to double their unemployment benefits, that sort of thing. So given them an outlet to vent was working well. Conversely, those who were better established steered clear of these and formed smaller clusters of their own.

So what the GP is experiencing is likely related to them being (originally) a part of one of these poorer bubbles and the effect just lingers on.

Russians living in cyprus are not poor

> had at least one troll reposting from the offical news Look no further -- /u/5ESS have been "directing the narrative" here by posting the same youtube link 5 times already.

I'm a Russian in Germany. I've fled Russia after Crimea/Donbass events because of Putin's politics. No Russian I know in Germany or any other country abroad supports Putin.

People migrate for economic reasons, not because they want to replace their own brain with the brain of the destination country people.

The US was was relatively good at integrating migrants into a certain idea of america, but that's not the norm around the world, and I don't think that vision of america exists anymore. Maybe in the upper-middle class, but certainly gone in the lower classes.

To Cyprus, Russian migrate to hide their money here and live a normal life in a normal country. They are not poor by any measure.

There's rich economic reasons and poor economic reasons, they are still economic reasons, none of them are migrating to be integrated, just to be more wealthy.

Sure, but as to Cyprus specifically, that's probably not where the poor ones go. It's a kind of l down-scale Switzerland in the economic and immigration senses.

All the flag-raising and anthem-singing in US schools surely serves a purpose. We tried to avoid replicating that in Germany, for very good reasons, but now we have "third generation immigrants".

As an anectode, I spoke with a Turk who found Turks living in Germny much more conservative than people in Turkey.

Not to mention Brits who moved to Spain because there were "too many bloody immigrants" at home.

It would be worthy of investigation if these people behaved in any way different from Russians in Russia. But they don't. My conclusion is that it has nothing to do with propaganda - to which those living abroad are naturally exposed less - but just because of what these people are.

Yes, after Soviet Union fell, we Russians found out that all we've been taught about capitalism was true: unemployment, dog-eat-dog competition, class divide and all that stuff. It's not at all a paradise we have imagined. It's time for you to see that all you've been told about Communism was true, too: McCarthy was an idiot, but he was right. There are no "good Russians" waiting to be liberated from "evil Putin". There are "evil Commies" who Putin wholly represents.

Stop trying to "fix" Russia. It is impossible. It has to be contained, made as weak and irrelevant as possible to present less danger.

I think calling the "vast majority" of any country "pure evil" is painting with a pretty over-broad brush.

Specifically here, social media sentiment tends to be poor evidence of anything broader, due to being dominated by the vocal minority of people who post the most, as well as a non-trivial number of bots.

On the one hand, instinctively, calling such a large group of people evil feels wrong, it's painting with too broad a brush.

On the other hand, I know where you're coming from. I grew up in NYC feeling pretty much American, but my family is Russian and I speak the language. Over years of encounters with my own extended family and the social network around them, I've struggled to not overgeneralize, to keep context in mind, and to remain open.

But it's hard when you repeatedly encounter so many deeply cynical, bigoted, punitive, and hatefully-normative personalities. I'm hardly a counter-cultural outlier, but I do deviate from the suburban right-wing-materialist worldview that this particular Russian community prefers, so I may as well be from Mars. For that I was told to my face, multiple times, that I'm not normal ("not normal" is the exact phrasing they use) - and because of that I deserve and should accept the criticism and abuse coming my way. And it just keeps coming - casual racism that's basically accepted wisdom and notably bloodthirsty (nuke em all and don't look back!). Then, habitual low-level fraud that no one even recognizes as such (you should really file for divorce! then you can do (a) and (b) and get this [social benefit!]), the elevation of hustle and cunning above all other forms of intelligence, and smug superiority when it comes to political and ethical questions.

The war is some kind of last straw for me. Now, I hear a group of people speaking Russian, I feel an instinctive revulsion. It's not good, but it is what it is.

I grew up in Eastern Europe and your statement regarding "the elevation of hustle and cunning above all other forms of intelligence" rings so true and brings back memories. When I grew up, being able to criminally take advantage of other people and the state was revered as a highly desirable trait. I suspect that any behaviour that leads to monetary success in a society, will slowly become admired, regardless if it's ethical or not.

If it's any consolation, that's what happens to any highly corrupt country. People skirting the rules, from avoiding taxes to outright theft are called smart and others who don't are called wankers.

(preface: I'm from Norway)

The other day I spoke with this older Russian lady that works at the local pub - she overheard some of us patrons talking about the situation, and she went into a 20 min rant about western media being pure propaganda, that Putin was such a great guy, and that there was no real war. It was quite bizarre, as she's been living here since the mid-90s.

An expatriate's cultural identity is a fragile thing and easily threatened.

How are sanctions going to make anybody more informed?

They dont…That makes no sense. Instead of sanctions, a more effective strategy would be to provide Russians with free VPNs so that they can access western news media.

The same Russians who are currently using VPNs to post Russian propaganda all over reddit, facebook, twitter and co? If you think Russians are this way just because they don't have access to the guardian, then I have 20 years worth of Russian politics waiting for you. They don't care. They haven't cared when the wars in Chechnya or Georgia happened, they won't care now. The sanctions are supposed to force them to care.

Supposedly those can already read the news, so they would not be the target audience.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink it

Some people do prefer what the "voices in their head" are telling them (and while propaganda is big, it is not all of it)

Sanctions do matter as you're seeing all of Putin's acolytes feeling the heat these days

Sanctions do work, cutting off communication with the west doesn't. There 's a feeling that Russians need to be jolted off their seats. I m seeing many of them asking for alternatives for payments or incorporation elsewhere

Most of the pro-invasion citizens are being fed by propaganda exclusively, cutoff wouldn't make any significant impact.

You can host a Tor bridge for friends, which is difficult to detect and block:

https://tb-manual.torproject.org/bridges/

I talk with Russians on several international forums (about architecture and about gaming). Thousands of people there, a big sample. That's the younger, English-speaking generation, BTW.

They believe in the propaganda mostly, celebrate the victories over "nazis" and support Putin.

What happened after Crimea annexation was appealing, and now it's even worse. It's a society brainwashed into imperialism and they want return of Russia as a global power and revenge on the west.

There are some exceptions, but they are rare. Possibly because of fear, I don't know.

They have western media and had for decades. They don't care, it's all lies for them. Also they have almost no influence over what happens. They barely protest and elections are a farce.

So - sanctions aren't targeted at regular Russians. They target the oligarchs that actually run everything in Russia. Regular Russians are hit by collateral damage, and it will be very harsh collateral damage. But I have no sympathy when I hear from my friends in Ukraine hiding in Kyiv metro for the whole weekend and having no contact with their families in shelled towns.

Ultimately the responsibility towards victims of war is more important than unemployed people in invading country.

> They believe in the propaganda mostly, celebrate the victories over "nazis" and support Putin.

I've had a coworker posting on FB how he's supporting Putin and "Russia doesn't start wars, it ends them."

He left Russia for US in early 2000s, returned for a year in 2018 and is now in London.

I'm going to articulate the theory, but I want to be clear that I'm not advocating it.

The general idea is that a war in a foreign country (even a neighbor) is pretty easy to ignore (especially if state media doesn't cover it). If you don't have relative or friends there, you could easily go on believing exactly what the government reports--that it's a limited military operation, etc. You're busy at work, you've got a lot going on, so maybe you should spend some time looking into it, but maybe next week.

However, if the value of your currency drops 25%, and your mortgage interest rate jumps 10% overnight you're much more likely to ask: "what the hell is going on". Those are significant changes that will really impact you. Suddenly you're a lot more motivate to do some research and see what's happening. Maybe when doing that research, you find some of the media of Kyiv being bombed or residential areas in Kharkiv being hit repeatedly by cluster bombs.

---

My theory for sanctions is different. My ideal sanctions wouldn't hit the average worker at all. They would hit _only_ the oligarchs and those close to or with a hand on the levers of power. But we don't have access to targeted sanctions that hit the oligarchs hard enough to get them consider taking actions that don't also hit the average worker.

I feel deeply sorry for those Russian citizens who have very limited power over their government, and will nonetheless be hit harder and feel the sanctions more deeply than those closer to power. But I also feel that it's necessary, as a tool to try and minimize the amount of time that Ukraine spends under siege.

Most sanctions are aimed mostly at the oligarchs, and that is good so. But things have reached a point (and may be the sanctions started way to late), at which the whole population needs to be notified of what is going on and it needs to be made clear, that the whole population has a say in how things progress.

Russia has been running Goebbels-levels of propaganda to counteract whatever benefit came from access to western media. How much progress has been made since 2014?

It's a nice thought but I don't think that this would work in any country.

Generally, the sanctions are designed to try and convince Putin that Russia cannot afford a war against Europe/NATO. They do this:

- by targeting the money of Putin and anybody in Russia with enough money to conceivably have influence over Putin (presumably, these sanctions don't hurt common people);

- by targeting directly or indirectly the financial reserves of Russia to make it hard for Russia to bankroll the army (these most certainly do hurt the common people, too).

I'm sure that there are also propaganda/counter-propaganda operations, but these are very likely to be illegal/covert, so no country is going to publicize them.

Oh come on, someone asked you a technical question - you can't expect everyone to research the country of origin, country of residence, and perhaps a personal situation of every private person, developer, or a company before emailing them.

Those few words are a perfectly adequate response though. The author has bigger things to get done right now.

Then why not cache the response and just put a banner on the project giving people context, instead of individually half answering the technical questions with a rhetorical question?

They did, the README was updated 4 days ago with a banner explaining the situation.

The whole sentence is self-explanatory:

> One asked a technical question about my lib, I answered "do you know what's happening in Ukraine right now?" - no reply.

Innocently asking the question seems fine; as you say we generally don't know the personal circumstances of online contacts. But once appraised of it a quick reply would be human, at least to the effect of "good luck, keep as safe as possible & please ignore my question until happier times are restored"

I think this is more so because they are afraid.

Dmytro, I'm Russian living in Russia and I'm devastated and terrified by this war of aggression.

I have friends in Ukraine and I can hear siren wailing while talking with them via Skype.

There are already about 30 thousand members of Russian IT-industry who signed open letter against this war. Yesterday it was about 20 thousands.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rSmclqedrhTASIsyXLOz39pU...

JFYI, I'm also Ukrainian living in Ukraine[0] (Poltava region), actually joined territorial defence forces as volunteer to defend own town.

All Russian should do right now — go outside of your house, gather with other Russsians and strike & show your protest "by hands" near your city administration!

Signing "open letter", "petitions" or just "keep placard" would NOT has any effect — so do not waste your and our time & lives!

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30395897

I know

I really appreciate your position, but the letter is incredibly weak. I understand that it's aimed at government that won't read it otherwise, but:

You call it "operation", it's not operation, it's war.

You ask to prevent human casualties, but thousands are already dead.

A lot of people signing from companies such as Yandex - a search engine that promotes propaganda and hides evidence-based journalism. From VK - a social network that bans opposition communities and spreads misinformation. You can't have it both ways folks.

I didn't want to imply that we are doing anything meaningful, just that we at the very least don't condone what's happening.

Many are running the hell away from Russia and that's something the government has already got concerned about. Unlike the letter.

The iron curtain was never about keeping people out, it was about keeping people in.

Yes, my fear is that we are moving into 1990s economically, and politically into the times of the USSR.

For now they are promising tax benefits for programmers and IT-companies, cheap mortgage and safety from being conscripted. The last one is scary.

The exact same happened just before the wall fell in other former USSR countries. Anything to keep the smart people from joining the protests because they needed them badly to keep the country running. In most places that did not work, the writing was on the wall. But it took a long time for it to go from protests to the final effect. Longer than I fear we have today.

I disagree with your perspective that regular Russians don't share the responsibility for the war in Ukraine. I don't think it makes sense to copy-paste it here, it's on my blog: http://nywkap.com/politics/russian-responsibility.html

I fully agree agree with You.

All Russians are responsible for ongoing war[0] at least for they did nothing to stop Russia gov & Putin from enforcing aggression on Ukraine.

N.B. I'm Ukrainian living in Ukraine. Here is my statement for HN:[1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30395897

As a side question, how similar is Putin's war in Ukraine to the numerous wars started by U.S. (say, in the middle East, Yugoslavia)? Are these fair to compare?

I'm trying to understand the scale of Putin's decision, not to justify it or engage in whataboutism.

Putin launched a war against Ukraine in order to conquer it the traditional sense, ie to replace the existing government with his own government. The long term goal is for Russia to control this country's government.

The wars started by the US typically have the goal of establishing a democratic government. Japan is an example of a successful outcome. Iraq has a functioning democracy now. This policy is often criticized as "nation building." The long term goal is not for the US government to control these countries.

I would add the US did not unilaterally start the war in Iraq or Yugoslavia and definitely not the one with Japan.

In the case of Japan, the US rebuilt an enemy after they attacked the US without a declaration of war and made them an ally and trading partner.

It's actually quite interesting that US has managed to convert quite a few of its rivals to allies. Japan, Vietnam, Mexico, Germany and its allies, many Arab countries come to mind.

I'd argue that even China and Russia, while not allies - are also not enemies.

This highlights one of my growing ethical dillemas.

I am a US citizen, and sometimes I am really ashamed of my country. We have done some really bad stuff. We’ve done a whole lot of shady stuff that is complicated to pass simple judgement on. But the US has done good stuff as well. They loan money, send aid, rebuild, provide. Some times the motives are duplicitous in these acts of good. But the bottom line is, when I travel abroad I feel like I can confidently say “we’re like a two year old, sometimes we do sweet/good things, and other times we’re naughty.”

When it comes to USSR/Russia, I am not aware of the good acts. It’s not just that thy do bad things, it’s that I never hear of any of the good things they do in the world at large.

And so I’m honestly curious, is Russia as a foreign actor just that much more self interested? Or do we not hear about it in the West, because it doesn’t pay to report on it.

I would say not only abroad, but also at home only small fraction of Russian population can thank their government for what they are doing. It's a kleptocracy rich in natural resources.

> When it comes to USSR/Russia, I am not aware of the good acts. It’s not just that thy do bad things, it’s that I never hear of any of the good things they do in the world at large.

The red army took Berlin and ended the Nazis. It was an Allied victory but it came about because Russia put their full might into stopping Hitler.

This is not insignificant if you don't like what the third reich was up to.

It came at a tremendous cost to mother Russia, 20M of her sons died in the process.

I encourage you to visit the war memorial in Treptower Park. It is built out of the red marble stripped from Hitler's Reichschancellery, and it is a hauntingly powerful place.

That was 80 years ago and since then the Soviet Communist regime killed more people than Hitler. Their "good deeds" are becoming thinner and thinner.

While undoubtedly true, one should keep in mind that Stalin first cynically entered into a non-aggression pact with the nazi regime, showing blatant disregard for Poland in the process.

Not to mention that a significant part of the Soviet Union's losses in WW2 came about from a similar disregard for the lives of its own soldiers.

This is not to discount the sacrifice made by those who fought and died, though.

(And Treptower Park is, as you say, hauntingly powerful. I've been there on three occasions when visiting Berlin.)

Remember the USSR was allies with the Nazis and only turned on them because they were betrayed.

Spending your citizens lives cheaply is not a noble thing.

The US had nukes and its manufacturing and soldier population was massive. Coupled with the Western allies Germany was going to lose once America entered the war (see Churchill’s memoirs). USSR did accelerate it though.

> I am a US citizen, and sometimes I am really ashamed of my country

Is there any country in history with comparable economic and military power to the US that has a "cleaner" record in terms of "bad stuff"? I'm specifying comparable power to specifically exclude tiny nations that never had the capacity to do "bad stuff."

None of your potential candidates have ever nuked any other country, which in terms of war crimes rates pretty damn high.

I would still rate it a magnitude below https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

At the time Nuking a country wasn’t a war crime. Also fire bombing raids on other cities (eg Dresden) were actually worse than the nuclear bombing. Additionally it could be argued that the nuclear option actually killed fewer civilians than the alternative.

Strongly recommend Dan Carlins podcast on the rise and fall of imperial japan to learn more.

What Russia is doing now is terrible and completely fucked up, but having the US as the only superpower is also not good.

We need a place where Snowdens of the world could go.

> When it comes to USSR/Russia, I am not aware of the good acts. It’s not just that thy do bad things, it’s that I never hear of any of the good things they do in the world at large.

There is an interview from Yale University with Vladimir Pozner that is very worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ

It is absolutely insane that western media does not report anything positive on Russia and I hope it is obvious that it can't be a the case that a state can be that comically evil. And if not foreign policy at least cultural stuff should at least receive some positive attention with Russia having a rich tradition in theater, ballet, music and so on.

The USSR did plenty to support its lesser developed republics. In fact that is is why many Russian nationalist saw it very critically, seeing as their land would give more that it received. Even today Russia has extremely good relations with the countries of central asia. As for foreign aid not only did it sent lots of aid to other socialist regimes but also many national liberation movements speeding up massively the de-colonization of Africa.

The Russian Federation is also doing plenty of good. They help keeping the massive dominance of the US and it allies at least a little bit in check supporting many countries that are shunned by them. Syria would have been overrun by terrorists by now if Russia had not helped them.

Of course you can twist every good news to make Russia look bad. Russian athletes are successful? Only the result of doping. Stability in Syria? Supporting a bloody dictator. Protecting Snowden? Ugh, just cheap propaganda. Developed Covid Vaccine? Totally rushed and fake numbers.

If you believe "the West" to be the good guys then everything that Russia does will appear bad.

This is a shockingly bad take. Nobody else is poisoning political rivals with radioactive umbrellas in London. Nobody else had a Gulag Archipelago. Not even Hitler killed half as many people in concentration camps.

Russian Fed is an organized crime family with a hundred million hostages controlled by mob bosses Putin is a dictator.

Did you consider the possibility that you're like many (most?) of US people just brainwashed (hard to believe, I know, after all you live in the capital of the said free world)? It might be that simple. * For more info ask: Iraq, Vietnam, China, Korea, KSA people (not you ally royal family), Africa, Native Americans, Iran (1952, 1979), Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Japan, US Black people, Cupa, Chile, Brazil, Egypt, South Africa.........

I dont see anything especially bad about the US. The notion that other countries would have acted better is often betrayed by their own history. The US just historically had more capability. Additionally the pax americana has saved millions of lives. If your a male the odds you die in combat have decreased globally by more than an order of magnitude since the US became a super power. Global poverty has also rapidly decreased etc.

Think of Cuba. US tried to invade then imposed sanctions simply because it didn’t want Cuban allies and the fact that they were supplying them arms.

US would 100% attack and invade any country in their “sphere of influence” if they felt threatened, it’s just that their soft power is better and nobody even dares to try.

That was also after Cuba nationalized its industries, many of which had US shareholders without paying them, had political purges that murdered hundreds of thousands (Che shirts celebrate a mass murderer) got in bed with the USSR and tried to put nukes on the island.

The idea that Cuba was minding its own business is laughable.

Nobody wants a psychopath neighbor on a moscow leash with nukes 90mi from their border…

You're factually wrong. US tried to invade Cuba (Bay of Pigs) and then (as a result) nukes were put on the island.

I guess Russia doesn't want a neighbor on a US leash with military bases on their border either...

Yes on order of timing around nukes or when we knew of them. But fidel was a tyrant who impoverished his people.

The funniest thing was his hearse braking down and having to be pushed by his soldiers. Really summed the mans contributions…

Or to remove the democratic government...

The US replaced the governments of multiple countries with its puppets, see Afghanistan.

Try to tell me with a straight face that the previous Afghan government was democratic and represented the will of the Afghan people. You cannot.

Iraq's democracy is about as successful as Russia's, that is, not at all.

The US installed a dictatorship in South Korea, and overthrew or contributed in the overthrow of many more.

The US-supported Afghan government wasn't worse than the governments before or after it.

South Korea's an interesting example. It was a dictatorship, now it's a thriving democracy. Ditto for Japan, Taiwan, West Germany. Sometimes things turn out alright.

I still don't see how that's an excuse for killing hundreds of thousands of innocents, though.

In Afghanistan? Unlikely to be hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by Americans/allies. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/af... says "at least 71,000 civilians killed" and many of those would have been killed by other side(s).

"Justified"? Probably not, but we'd have to determine what alternative actions America/allies should have taken instead and compare.

I mean, "avoid all US-caused civilian deaths by letting AQ continue to operate from Afghanistan with impunity after 9/11" would not obviously have been the right thing to do.

I wanted to live in a world you presented: benevolent power spreads the wealth around the world. Unfortunately, it is just a fairytale for little children.

So why has wealth been spread around the world during a period of US hegemony and naval dominance?

I'll point out the obvious: Ukraine is simply too close to home for many of us Europeans - they're our neighbors, colleagues, friends, we vacation in Kiev, they're our football rivals. We broadly share culture, race, etc.

Few of those can be said about Iraq which is far away enough to seem some sort of abstract topic.

So, having war at home (vs. in a newspaper) is completely novel for us and therefore unacceptable.

So, racism?

not racism, more like discrimination. It's not strange to pay more attention to your neighbor getting shot than some guy in another city getting shot.

Racism = discrimination based on race.

No, discrimination is discrimination. Racism is the assumption of a person's "race" - for most people that equates to skin colour and other physical properties but for some it goes deeper - being related to that person's character and abilities.

I live in Sweden but I'm not allowed to vote in national elections while I look just as Scandinavian as your average Sven. There are hundreds of thousands of people living in Sweden who do not look like Sven at all but are allowed to vote. Is Sweden being racist against me? No, they're just discriminating in who is allowed to vote, only those with Swedish nationality have that right. I´m not a Swede, hence I do not get to vote. This is a form of discrimination, but discrimination does not equate "bad" - I would not advice any country to allow foreign nationals to vote in their national elections.

Too many people think of Europe in terms of Germany, France, Italy, UK and Spain. There are _many_ countries in Europe who know exactly what it feels like when Russia comes to "liberate" and what it means for the future of these territories.

Fair to compare in what terms?

I think that in this case, multiple nato members think this makes Russia direct threat to them. You know, Poland is possibly next, because Russia always wants Poland. Eastern Germany used to be under Russian control too, what it means to Germans? Estonia probably sees themselves as target too. All satelite previously occupied by Russia republics. Russia is expanding again toward Europe and if Ukraine is easy, other European/NATO countries expect same treatment. If NATO countries further West did nothing, it would be sign that these countries will abandon others again .

Basically, Ukrainians fight for Polish, Slovak and what not freedom too.

There is nothing suggesting that Russia is interested in anything other than Ukraine and everything else is just fear mongering.

That is not how quite a few Polish, Slovak and so on people see it. Slovak president said literally that too. There is nothing absolutely nothing to suggest Russia is interested only in Ukraine in the long term. They will stop only if they have to.

Putin arguments about Russian history points toward expansion. Putin arguments about being entitled to Ukraine due to them being forced into USSR or Ukraine not being real nation points toward expansion.

Russian recent history is not a history of peaceful trustworthy nation either.

---------------------

Edited to add: the material help is not coming there from pure empathy alone. Germany did not provided actual guns able to kill because of them feeling bad for refugees. This was major change against previous policies and cant be explained by "we feel bad for their president after seeing his cool videos". It can be explained only by "we think we have stake in outcome and it matters to us".

There is absolutely nothing to suggest that Russia is interested in anything other than Ukraine. Everything else is just fear mongering, atleast Slovak media does that well.

Yeah, they have history of being truth-telling peaceful nation, always happy with what they have /s

What does ethnicity have to do with anything?

Nothing even hinted that Russia is interested expanding beyond Ukraine, and not even the whole of Ukraine. So like I've said, it's fear mongering by our politicians to keep people living in fear, it's getting to comical levels now, I get offers for psychological counseling at work due to the Ykrainey situation.

> What does ethnicity have to do with anything?

Russia is a nation, why are you taking offense on that statement? It is not an insult.

> Nothing even hinted that Russia is interested expanding beyond Ukraine, and not even the whole of Ukraine

I mean, except Putin talking about how Ukraine is fake nation that should be part of Russia.

It very clearly is an insult against people because of their nationality but I discovered these days that online communities are a lot more accepting of such statements.

>I mean, except Putin talking about how Ukraine is fake nation that should be part of Russia.

Source?

> Source?

first full English transcript I could find: (the English language Kremlin site where it was hosted is nonresponsive, and most major media is just carrying excerpts.)

https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/modern-day-censor...

I can't open it.

Interesting. I can open it fine. Here's some relevant text:

> So, I will start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution, and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia – by separating, severing what is historically Russian land.

Read the whole thing. If you're going to defend Russian policy online you should have a clear idea what you're defending.

> I mean, except Putin talking about how Ukraine is fake nation that should be part of Russia.

And the pre-written victory announcement state media recently published and then pulled back announcing the reformation of a single union of all the Russias (Belarus, “Greater” Russia [i.e., just plain Russia], and “Little” Russia [Ukraine]).

Except the explicit words of the dictator of Russia.

There is nothing to contradict the view, that Putin doesn't want to restore the old Tsar or Soviet borders.

Which explicit words?

A little searching casts doubt on that conclusion.

"NATO currently holds security dominance in Estonia, but according to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s former top economic adviser, Andrey Illarionov, “Putin has his eyes on eventually reclaiming Estonia”.

John Aravosis, “Putin wants Finland, Baltic States, says former top adviser,” http://americablog.com/2014/03/putin-wants-finland-baltic-st...

A big difference is that by and large, Ukraine has won the narrative. There are no "Ukrainian artillery: go fuck yourself" stories.

There's also no barely veiled threats by the US that we would nuke Iraq or Afghanistan etc. nor drop the ISS on them.

Ukraine has won the narrative in the West because Western countries wanted it that way, it's actually pretty easy to do when you cut out opposing propaganda.

It's also much easier to do when you're not the one doing the invading.

Not really, that doesn't seem to have that much bearing. I still remember Western news about Serbia during the Kosovo conflict where Serbia was doing basically what Ukraine is doing now.

Serbia was an aggressor in the Yugoslavian Wars. Ukraine is just defending from an invasion.

You really think the only reason that Ukraine won the narrative is that no one listens to Russian lies?

Mostly yes. That's certainly why the Russian narrative won in Russia and Belarus.

Propaganda/media is one of the most useful ways to steer a population, it even doesn't have to be particularly good propaganda if its voluminous and exclusive.

>> Mostly yes. That's certainly why the Russian narrative won in Russia and Belarus.

There is no more Belarus as a country. It is Russian puppet state with an appointed governor Lukashenko. Occupied by the Russian army at the moment. Those who were against are either in prisons or fled the country. The country is North Korea basically at the moment. Most of the people (~60%) hate Lukashenko and Putin.

There most certainly is a country of Belarus, just like there's the country of North Korea.

And 60% is not that much to be honest.

I didn't say the rest are pro-Russian. Many people just follow whatever they say on TV.

Ukraine is being invaded and will come under occupation. Ukrainians are being killed. There is no way Russian propaganda would have held any sway.

And yet when US military killed hundred thousand Iraqi civilians, much fewer people cared...

Propaganda works and CAN justify aggression in eyes of the people.

The US military killed nowhere near that many. It was mostly internecine warfare.

Yes, it was either that or the the dictator of a superpower going on live TV to read off a long prepared "Soviet Union 2.0 manifesto". I wonder which!

Let's not slander the USSR this way. Putin's speech was almost word for word the same as Hitler's Sudetenland speech

There was no official Russian "social media" propaganda videos of the invasion until yesterday. The whole invasion was a limited operation, you know.

It was very obvoius. They released a video of helicopter hits, high res artsy photos of destroyed armor, some dude flying a drone over a disabled UA tank zooming out to the Russian tank column and the Snake Island POWs calling home.

Ukraine have "won the narrative" because people sympathize with Ukraine in the conflict, not the other way around.

Ukraine is winning the narrative to a large extent because Russia is not present in this particular battle - most likely because it wanted to keep things quite internally.

I can't speak about Middle East, but the wars in Yugoslavia were most definitely not started by the U.S.

"Throughout the 1980-90s, the US, with the aid of the IMF and NATO, actively destabilized and aided in the breakup of Yugoslavia, with the goal of weakening and destroying the last surviving socialist bloc in Europe."

-- https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrociti...

Oh, you're even quoting a source!

Because some rando on GitHub is such an authoritative one!

Sheesh...

  > I'm trying to understand the scale of Putin's decision

Drastic. Catastrophic. Suicidal. World-changing.

The country (Russia) in its current form has just ceased to exist. The entire parasitic elite class just got cut off from everything they stole during all these years. The entire human potential of Russia just got nullified for at lest 20 years. The push towards green energy (and I hope nuclear fusion) just got accelerated. NATO and EU memberships just became essential for any European country. The prospects of nuclear disarmamant are nullified.

The war isn't exactly a blitzkrieg now, but it still has a good chance to succeed -- but that's not what matters. It's the consequences that matter. They will affect the course of human history.

I think the west (Europe and USA) will be perfectly fine. It's we Russians who are fucked for the rest of our lives.

> It's we Russians who are fucked for the rest of our lives.

I sure hope, you know who to thank for that.

> The country (Russia) in its current form has just ceased to exist.

I’m not too sure about this. The main problem is there isn’t a new form to replace it with, or a new government to replace Putin with that would act any different - for instance, not constantly assassinating people in Europe with chemical weapons.

It does seem like a good time to leave, although an even better time would’ve been before the currency collapsed.

  > It does seem like a good time to leave

Alas, too late for me...

> or a new government to replace Putin with that would act any different

This. I'm tired of the personalisation of the behaviour of the Russian government. Putin didn't launch this war all on his own; he's the head of government, he isn't Napoleon Bonaparte.

I'm uncomfortable about the sanctions regime that is being imposed. If the Russian economy is destroyed the result will be chaos, even if the war ends tomorrow, and Putin is deposed. I don't relish the prospect of political chaos in a country with more nuclear warheads than any other.

This take is unconvincing. What benefit is the invasion to the bureaucracy and oligarchs? This is the result of a megalomaniac puffing his chest.

The man's whole schtick is puffing up his chest. That's what he does (and it means he's unlikely to back down; very bad look for a bare-chested man of action).

But pronouncing psychiatric diagnoses on him isn't very enlightening. If he's a megalomaniac, then half the world's governments are headed by people who are similarly mentally ill. Discounting aggressive foreign leaders as "mad" is bound to lead to incorrect conclusions and bad decisions.

He seems to be motivated by some pseudo-mystical beliefs about Russian national history and destiny. I imagine that by now, there are few at senior levels in the Russian administration that don't share his views. Oligarchs are a different kettle of fish; they're not nationalists, they're egotists. But from what I've read, oligarchs have nowadays been largely supplanted in government by old buddies of Putin from the intelligence services.

I suspect his generals will be the first to crack. They will be worrying about mutinies in their largely-conscript army. Their soldiers didn't sign up for a civil war against their "brothers" (which is what this war is, according to Putin). And generals tend to be practical, rational people.

Hmmm. I'm rewatching Waterloo with Rod Steiger as Napoleon, and wondering whether Putin's been watching the same movie; there's a sort of method-actor hamminess about Putin's public performances that looks a lot like Steiger being Napoleon.

So maybe I'm wrong; maybe he does have a Napoleon complex.

My interpretation is that Russia has changed even if Putin withdraws tomorrow and tries to revert things back to where they were a few months ago. The response from the West has been severe enough that it will take years for business relationships to be rebuilt. In that time, Russia would most likely form closer ties with China. This will mean the West will lose any leverage they previously had on their kleptocratic ruling class and things will most likely get even more difficult for ordinary citizens. And that's the most optimistic scenario except for some kind of miraculous uprising against Putin who currently enjoys a majority of support.

China won't be interested in propping up Russia. There's nothing in it for them.

They're a cheap source of several resources - wheat, oil, gas - and China probably doesn't want to bother owning all of Siberia.

> It's we Russians who are fucked for the rest of our lives.

Most of the world knows that most Russian civilians are also just victims of Putin and a corrupt system. I really hope there's a solution here, where after this is all over, Putin and his buddies can be executed for war crimes and the West can help both the Ukrainians and the Russians rebuild. Ironically the solution in Russia might actually come from Ukraine: it seems like they were able to really deeply root out corruption in their country, with help, in the early 2010s. Maybe after Putin is gone, we can somehow use the same strategy in Russia? I know the scale is completely different, but I'm a hopeless optimist.

If Ukraine survives and the war ends in peace, I sincerely wish for a version of some kind of Marshall plan for Russia.

Unfortunately, given the current state of world politics, I am afraid we will instead get a new version of Treaty of Versailles. In which case you will be right.

Russia has tarnished its international standing. It will require a dramatic change in Russian politics, as well a regime change there. Otherwise, the other governments cannot justify to their citizens why taxpayer money should be spent reconstructing a country which threatened nuclear war.

i know it's very easy to say, but if you're russian right now, it seems to me that the only sane choice is to actively organize the overthrow of putin.

It's one of the rare case (nuclear war threats), where it may be the safest solution. Especially now that a few public figures in Russia have officially standed against that war. There may be an opportunity to reach a critical mass at home.

It may work in a country where private business (i.e. state-independent source of income) is dominant, but a lot of Russians have jobs at state-owned institutions now (various administrations etc.) where they work for a meager wage.

If they go out protesting, they will be fired from their jobs -- their only source of income. Not exactly a good decision, especially during the crisis times.

That’s why i mentioned a critical mass. If you protest with 1000 people, you’re in danger, but if you’re 500k much less so. Now the question being, how do you organize a 500k people protest in russia at the moment, and that i have no idea. But if it’s possible, then now would be a good time IMHO.

The sky is falling and you think workers should be concerned with a wage that can't even afford bread and a roof?

The sanction squeeze shifts the calculus.

The sky is not falling for those government employed workers yet. First the private sector will degrade and government will try to squeeze every last cent out of it to pay the public sector workers. So when that dries up, then you can expect trouble. But this process can last for some time, it doesn't usually happen overnight. I know that there are major sanctions and West is trying to tank Russian economy, but don't expect to see public sector workers on the streets just yet.

If they don't have that wage, how do they eat?

If they have that wage, how do they eat? Russia is not self-sufficient. Going it alone means people will starve to death.

They won't starve to death in March, but it won't be long before buffers are empty. There is a window to do something about it.

People living paycheck to paycheck cannot fight oppressive regimes. Sanctions are meaningless if you want to make people rise up. Protests need a supply chain in itself.

Can I ask, how are these economic restrictions affecting you in your daily life? Are people able to access money at their banks? Do you predict any future food security issues? Also in your opinion, what is the likely end game now for Putin?

Putin is unlikely to win this war, Ukraine have been given near unlimited anti-tank weapons by the EU/US, and have air superiority now with extra MiG's donated by NATO and TB2 drones from Turkey. Locals are set and prepared for guerrilla warfare. All the usual allies have distanced themselves from Russia. The writing is on the wall.

Is it likely that another oligarch will take his place? Is there any indication that top military might force his replacement? Is any of the economic suffering imposed now likely to force everyone to come out to the streets?

Edited: 'gorilla warfare'

>gorilla warfare

Sorry for being that guy but even though gorilla warfare would be genuinely horrifying, the term is actually guerrilla warfare. Which funnily enough can be translated as "warfare warfare".

Edited to avoid distracting from the argument.

NATO hasn't actually provided any replacement MiGs to Ukraine yet. Ukraine hasn't established air superiority. At best the airspace is still contested.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/44501/reports-that-ukr...

  > Can I ask, how are these economic restrictions affecting you in your daily life?

My company may soon be unable to receive revenue from western customers.

My company has two ongoing long-term projects (both took about 10 years), which now increasingly look like wasted time and money. If I'm cut off from my income source, I won't be able to retain key people, and will have to halt the development on both projects.

  > what is the likely end game now for Putin?

Endgame for Putin: Live safely in a bunker, for 10-15 more years, then die from natural causes, happy that he made (literally, _made_) history.

Endgame for Russia: after the death of Putin, in about 20 years from now we go the old tried-and-true route: crash, Perestroika, re-integration with the west -- but this time, we will be disarmed and de-fanged. Then we remain in that subdued state until the next drastic world-changing event (such as the advent of strong AI), and after that all bets are off.

I think people miss that the world is largely zero-sum and a subdued Russia is good for the status quo

Hope you and your loved ones stay safe, and that this russian epoch is a brief as possible.

Thank you. Given that from now on we are the most hated nation on the globe, this means a lot.

Actually I do think the majority of people understand that this is caused/lead mostly by Putin with the aid of handful of key russians. Most people in the world just want to get on with their lifes, keep their children safe and watch them grow.

I am not sure you are aware of this in Russian media, but most of the media shown in the west about Russian military, is of young conscripts who clear have no desire to be in the war, and claim they had no debriefing they would be deployed in Ukraine. The narrative (true or not) in western media is that Putin is using non-ethnic russians and young concripts as cannon fodder in the frontlines to wear off the ukrainian forces.

My point is that the general sentiment in the west is that the economic choke is necessary to avoid escalating NATO involvement (And nuclear threats). But in the west the sentiment is (for the majority) not antagonist to the Russian population itself .

>It's we Russians who are fucked for the rest of our lives.

Blame Putin.

>It's we Russians who are fucked for the rest of our lives.

I sincerely hope all this goes away as fast as possible and we all can resume our lives in peace. Including you Russians.

I don't see how that can happen with Putin, but fortunately he is far from being the only person who can lead Russia.

  > I sincerely hope all this goes away as fast as possible

I'm thinking 10-15 years. Though I may need to adjust my estimate, because Putin doesn't have easy access to the world's best medical services anymore -- which may shorten his life expectancy.

That's bleak.

It should have been you, Russians, bleeding and dying in a war against Putin. Not Ukrainians so far away from his seat of power.

It's so easy to think to yourself that you cannot make the world a better place and then to give up and only care about yourself.

Well, sometimes it fires back.

You should start thinking about future Russia. Maybe it's not too late to turn this catastrophe to a victory of the Russian People. Maybe you are not alone.

Thoughts and prayers aren’t going to do much when you’re getting beaten to death in the basement at Lubyanka.

NATO would have destroyed Russia anyway. After the drastic intensification of anti-Russia propaganda in 201x which prepared the population to accept it, it is a matter of time. There is nothing nothing Russia might do to stop the agression (bully always finds pretext). It is not new: no matter the regime, the West will always try to dismantle Russia.

Ukraine is a desperate attempt to defend the state against much more powerful enemy. Ukraine is used as a pawn by the West. It is sad.

Nonsense. NATO will never risk nuclear war unless Russia attacks a NATO country first.

If NATO was willing to risk attacking Russia, they would already be fighting in Ukraine, which is a much lesser risk. They'll arm Ukraine but they won't fight there.

Maybe if Russia was a little less eager in deploying nerve agents in foreign countries the "anti-Russia propaganda" would be less effective.

It’s the Russian curse, lots of potential but truly terrible leaders.

Which is extremely sad. We (the humanity) have LOTS of common enemies: diseases, viruses, aging, poverty, drugs and drug violence, warmongergs, corruption and cheaters (ironic, I know), and countless others.

It saddens me that Russia won't be able to contribute human capital towards any of these goals for at least 20 years.

Yes, US invasions are comparable, and quite similar. Putin's decision is of scale because Russia isn't a hegemon and is threatening an international order where it's only okay for the US and its allies to do it to countries whose habitants are considered less human.

Putin's allies (the few that are left) are other dictators and madmen. The free world has a duty to protect and fight against them and others like them.

Well, intervention in Yugoslavia wasn’t a war started by the US.

The Kuwait war was after an invasion by Iraq and at the invitation of the government there, and the US were restrained enough to halt at the Iraq border.

The Syrian war was not started by the US, and it has played a minor part there. In fact, it is Russia that has indiscriminately bombed Syrian cities and targeted civilians and hospitals there.

Afghanistan was in response to 9/11 and the refusal of the Taliban to end their protection of a terrorist organisation that had repeatedly attacked American targets internationally before their deliberate targeted murder of thousands of American civilians. This does not seem comparable to Ukraine.

The Iraq war stands out for me as the unjustified and imperialist war of modern times. It seems to me that the atmosphere post 9/11 was used as a pretence. But even Iraq does seem different: Hussein was a brutal dictator and, at least initially, Americans were welcomed as liberators. In Ukraine we are seeing widespread civilian resistance to the invasion. But Blair and Bush should answer for their war crimes.

By far the biggest difference here, I think, is that by being a European war and through the potential for further conflict and nuclear conflict, this war has far larger international ramifications and strategic risks attached to it. To see European cities bombed is to be reminded of what has happened in the past and that it can happen again. That is why it is receiving so much attention.

>By far the biggest difference here, I think, is that by being a European war and through the potential for further conflict and nuclear conflict, this war has far larger international ramifications and strategic risks attached to it. To see European cities bombed is to be reminded of what has happened in the past and that it can happen again. That is why it is receiving so much attention.

Bombing of Serbia was a bombing of European cities, specifically bombing of civilian population centers far from the front to terrorize the population. Also without UN approval.

Serbia did commit massive attrocities and genocide against both Bosnians and Albanians in Kosovo. They also had wars with Slovenia, and Croatia.

They last gesture was massive ethnic cleansing. The US intervened when things went out of hand.

Putin risks to end up like Milosevic, a war criminal.

It did not, if you have any international court verdict that says that Serbia conducted a genocide, I would like to see it. Also Serbia was not at war with Slovenia. Those are the basic facts.

Now, even if those things were true, they are claimed by the proponents of bombing, enemies if you will, the same way that Putin is claiming there is a genocide of million Ukrainians in Ukraine. Do you believe your enemies?

Motives matter too. Bombing of Serbia was to stop a bellicose regime and the humanitarian crisis it was creating. It was like bombing Russia right now, which I'd support fully hearted, if it was a possibility.

It was not. Serbia was establishing order within its territory when NATO bombed it without any approval from the UN, basically doing something just because they could. Remind you of anyone?

Saying that Serbia was establishing order within its territory is a bit cynical take. What they did is that they systematically[1] cleansed villages and settlements in order to decrease the percentage of Albanian population in Kosovo.

In a way, they were implementing a century old policy of a guy named Vaso Cubrilovic who argued that Albanians should be expelled[2] from the lands Serbia (precursor of Yugoslavia) took in 1913.

What NATO did, is stopping exactly this from happening.

[1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2001/10/26/under-orders/war-crime...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expulsion_of_the_Albania...

It's not cynical, it's exactly what was happening. It was the police that was cracking down on terrorists, not army. Army only became involved with NATO involment. And before you say that Albanian guerilla organizations were not terrorist, the US state department classified them that way up to less than one year before the bombing happened.

And as for that supposed policy of Albanian expulsion, by how much did the percentage of Albanians diminish during the Serbian rule of Kosovo? And by how much did the number of Serbs diminish during the Albanian rule of Kosovo?

Here you go:

https://www.rferl.org/a/yugoslavia-hague-tribunal-major-mome...

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bosnian-serb-military-l...

Multiple ethnic "serbs" were convicted of genociding muslims.

That's not a source that tells Serbia committed a genocide, because such source doesn't exist.

Ethnic Serbs in Bosnia are a different thing, same as ethnic Bosniak in Serbia are a different thing. Also I found it telling that used Serbs in quotation marks.

Just arguing about naming doesn't erase the bottom line that lots of people were grouped in camps, murdered and raped...

It's not arguing about nameing, it's about command line of control. Serb Republic ním Bosnia was a completely different entity than the Republic of Serbia. I mean, Serbia even put sanctions on Serb Republic during some period of the war.

Justifying bombing of Serbia because of Bosnia would be like justifying bombing of Belgium because of the Netherlands. Yeah, sure they are kinda allies but that's it.

Yeah, technically it was the head of Yugoslavia that started a war with Slovenia the moment it left the federation (after Croatia left too). Luckily, war lasted 10 days. Not Serbia, I guess.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-Day_War

NATO bombing was not out of the blue. The head of Yugoslavia was a similar mad man (to Putin), just warring out of desperation. The best proof one has of his lunacy is the fact that Montenegro split from Serbia without any deaths. How did this happen? Due to the mad man dying in 2000. I'm pretty sure he would have enacted order by butchering civilians again, inside "his" borders.

Serbia is also the only country out of these conflicts that does not guarantee seat in the parliament for the exYugoslav minorities. Even though the leadership displayed aggression that was successfully deflected, the defenders made a deal to guarantee inclusion of the Serbian minority in the parliament (Croatia, Kosovo etc.)

Still, we have a country like Germany, that self-flagellates for decades and the sentiment of the majority is quite clear. While the general sentiment of people/press in Serbia is that NATO bombing is equivalent to Putin bombing Ukraine. and yeah, every now and then, the most popular Serbian (Monacoan) tennis player will say things like "Kosovo is Serbia" with complete indifference and still be the Jesus like figure his father makes him out to be.

>NATO bombing was not really out of the blue. The head of Yugoslavia was a similar mad man, just warring out of desperation.

Nobody said it was out of the blue, but it was illegal, wrong and plain terrorist like.

>The best proof one has of his lunacy is the fact that Montenegro split from Serbia without any issues. How did this happen? Lucikly, the mad man died in 2000.

And the best proof of NATO lunacy is that Kosovo declared independence in 2008 because they feared Serbia which at that point wasn't in Kosovo for almost 10 years, during which Kosovar population carried out pogroms of Serbs while the UN forces just watched.

Also Milošević died in 2006, never convicted of any war crimes. Later rulings on other people incriminated him but the same can be said for Tuđman. So, I guess if you die early you are not a war criminal.

>Serbia is also the only country out of these conflicts that does not guarantee seat in the parliament for the exYugoslav minorities.

It guarantees us a seat in the parliament, you just have to pass a laughably low percentage of the general vote. As a minority from Serbia, there's lot of problems in that country but minority representation is not one of them. If I wanted I could go through life without ever using Serbian language, I am not sure the same can be said for a lot of EU countries.

>While the general sentiment of people/press in Serbia is that NATO bombing is equivalent to Putin bombing Ukraine.

Because it is the same, a territory within a country decided it wanted to be independent and it is supported by an outside imperial force.

> Also Milošević died in 2006.

Yeah, I guess he stopped existing in 2000 and had nothing to do with the peaceful referendum.

> Because it is the same, a territory within a country decided it wanted to be independent and it is supported by an outside imperial force.

How can you believe this? Which part of Ukraine declared independence? What country was supposed to be created out of this independence? Which leaders decided they wanted to create a new independent territory?

> I am not sure the same can be said for a lot of EU countries.

Well, if your country is in EU, the citizens of EU are not forced to learn any language, even if they live outside of their country of origin. Language requirements for non-EU exist due to EU being an extremely lucrative place to live. Moving to Serbia and trying to hop on social benefits will not be as lucrative, so language requirement for citizenship might be unnecessary.

> It guarantees us a seat in the parliament, you just have to pass a laughably low percentage of the general vote.

In Croatia and Kosovo, there is no low percentage threshold. You are automatically in. There's no reason to believe the threshold is achievable, given that people in general do not vote.

>How can you believe this? Which part of Ukraine declared independence?

Didn't those two breakaway republics declare independence?

>Well, if your country is in EU, the citizens of EU are not forced to learn any language, even if they live outside of their country of origin. Language requirements for non-EU exist due to EU being an extremely lucrative place to live. Moving to Serbia and trying to hop on social benefits will not be as lucrative, so language requirement for citizenship might be unnecessary.

I am not talking about EU citizens moving to another country, I am talking about minorities living in Serbia.

I am a part of minority that lived in the now Serbian territory for over 250 years and there's no legal requirement for us to learn Serbian. You can live your perfectly happy life without it. We have our schools, our communities so learning the Serbian language is not a requisite although most people learn it because it offers some benefits.

I found it odd that you thought I was talking about foreigners.

> I found it odd that you thought I was talking about foreigners.

You mentioned that this cannot be said for a lot of EU countries. Turks born in EU do not have to learn German. Immigration within EU is free from language requirement too.

I do not even understand why do you think minorities not learning Serbian is impressive? Croatia and Kosovo both have schools that can use Serbian in their curriculum and no one is forcing Croatian on them. Similar things exist for Czech and Hungarian. No one is forcing these minorities to go to schools to learn Croatian.

> Didn't those two breakaway republics declare independence?

And were immediately annexed by Russia? How independent is that? Who's the new cultural head of these independent republics?

>You mentioned that this cannot be said for a lot of EU countries. Turks born in EU do not have to learn German. Immigration within EU is free from language requirement too.

So Turks in Germany can have schools in Turkish for their children? Do you have a source for this?

>I do not even understand why do you think minorities not learning Serbian is impressive?

Because language rights are central for the survival of minority communities.

>Croatia and Kosovo both have schools that can use Serbian in their curriculum and no one is forcing Croatian on them.

Yeah, when they are not being stoned in Kosovo or have their Cyrillic signs smashed in Croatia.

> So Turks in Germany can have schools in Turkish for their children? Do you have a source for this?

Sure: https://www.schulentwicklung.nrw.de/materialdatenbank/materi...

That's the official lesson plan for non-German lessons in NRW; other German states have similar plans (teaching is devolved to the states in Germany). Notice that this is the plan used in the state-sponsored lessons; private schools are free to use their own plans.

Umm guys, education is about children's rights and it has to be mandatory so that your parents won't be able to override your rights even if they have something against their minority language or against the language majority.

1. The right to mother tongue: wherever in the world, the child must learn the mother tongue(s) of their parents to support the cognitive and psychological development.

2. The right to participate in the society as an equal: the child must learn the official language(s) of the society well enough to be able to understand and participate in the democracy, business, art etc.

On top of that, the bulk of the school curriculum can be in a yet another language, no problem, as long as these rights are ensured as well.

And oh, I forgot about this part.

>And were immediately annexed by Russia? How independent is that? Who's the new cultural head of these independent republics?

They were not immediately annexed, no. Russia didn't even recognize them for a couple of years.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia declared independence and stayed independent.

Crimea for some reason was annexed, despite leadership in Crimea wanting the same status given to two countries mentioned above.

Donetsk and Lughansk also declared independence years ago, only now is Russia doing something other than financial/military support.

So I read a bit more about Donetsk and Luhansk and while I can see the similarities where Ukraine = Serbia and NATO = Russia, unfortunately the similarities stop soon when you realize that Kosovo (= Luhansk or Donetsk), establishes a democratic society that includes Serbian minority by default in the government, where Donetsk and Luhansk start banning Ukranian passports, banishing Ukranians, massive antisemitism movements, and basically want to become dictatorships similar to Belarus.

Similarly, Ukranian army is not targeting Russian civilians in these regions and is not banishing them to Russia. There is no displacement of millions of Russians in Ukraine.

If you are trying to say "NATO bombing of Serbia is justified", therefore "Russia war against Ukraine should be too", therefore hypocrites, it does not really work.

> Also without UN approval.

With the 5 veto powers, this basically means nothing.

Iraq is somewhat similar except that Russia is the 2000s US, they didn’t bother making an excuse first, they didn’t form a coalition, and even less of Ukraine wants them to be there.

Iraq war while justified by wrong evidence, it was a necessity. Saddam did use WMDs on Kurdish villages - he bombed them with Sarin gas - that is HAVING WMDs.

It has nothing to do with imperialism as i don't see any annexations made by the US, nor puppet governments.

Ukraine, on the other hand, had territories chipped away from it, separatists backed up Russia for years and years, and now a surprise attack without forward notice. It's completely incomparable to Iraq.

Yeah, Saddam did that in 80s, US was still cooperating with him due to Iran/Iraq war (remember that Saddam-Rumsfeld photo? It wasn't staged or some freak coincidence but regular business/military talks and pats on the back). Those attacks didn't stop the cooperation. I don't think anybody powerful really cared about those poor civilians, it was just pretext but in this case a real one.

Anyway back to the topic - we europeans look at this war as existential threat to our democracy, its not about just Ukraine anymore. That's why thousands javelins and stingers were provided by US, UK and other states which allowed them to defend till now. After Ukraine, it would be increasing russian circle towards west - baltic states, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania. Thats 100 million of people who know very well how horrible the life is under russian oppression and terror.

Its also in US interests that this pans out with russians losing and stopping their imperialism - Europe is by far the biggest US ally (count 500 million relatively rich people), losing it would mean US power becomes progressively marginal in this world. Nobody free wants that, there are plenty of bullies out there, small and big.

I mean sure, but then you'd understand why eastward expansion of a military alliance could be construed as an existential threat, too. There's just a lot of unnecessary hypocrisy all around.

It should also be said that, who is a bully depends on whose interests one happens to align with. Maybe transatlantic interests are always magically aligned forever but somehow I doubt it. One should wonder why or how that comes about, and at whose expense.

Sorry but no. I hate when people, ie when talking truth and outright lie, try to drag discussion into 'its somewhere in between', or 'consider the side of this murderer, he has needs and insecurities too'.

Who gives a f*k what some murderous dictator wants or not. That's undefendable position these days. He had done enough evil in this world in past 20 years and cost lives of millions civilians including many children that he can shake hands with Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Anything Russian is a big no-go. I guess they really have to build their tanks from wood now, since they failed with Armata tanks so badly (but for Russia predictably).

Do you also point out some traumatic events from Hitler's childhood as some form of excuse for his actions? He was also just trying to expand his country to what he seemed as more ideal setup and give it better future. This abhorable little man stands against everything western democracies value very dearly.

He managed to do 1 thing almost perfectly though - unify whole Europe and in fact most of the world in a way that leaders were failing for decades. Its just that its against him and his crooks and murderers. Hopefully the momentum will remain for long. As they say, the society is defined by common enemy, and well he is the best there could be right now. He would be comical if his actions were not killing hundreds of people every single day right now.

When we discuss WWII these days we look at what led to it pre-war, policy mistakes, etc. That isn't condoning war or invasion, just cold, hard analysis. The lesson was: more integration, less punitive extraction from the defeated. That lesson was learned and largely applied to the defeated side of WWII. The same lesson should have been applied after defeating the USSR in the Cold War, but it was not. There is a straight line from there to here. With each action based on emotion and ideology even at this late juncture we're going down the path of more war, not more peace, so probably Europe is fucked for the next generation regardless, due to its own stupidity.

The Iraq war was a terrible error but it still can't be compared to Ukraine. America had no plans to colonise Iraq or absorb it into its empire. Despite the enormous death and suffering the war caused, America's aim was naive altruism: getting rid of an unquestionably evil dictator who used WMDs on his own people. There are conspiracy theories that America invaded to steal Iraq's oil but they are not plausible.

> America had no plans to colonise Iraq or absorb it into its empire.

Well, of course, because then America would have had to give Iraqis the same rights as other Americans, or build a discriminatory system where "real" Americans enjoy more rights than them.

Not that colonizing Iraq would have been justified, but since the war wasn't justifiable anyway - the decision to not colonize Iraq was not out of goodwill, but because it was cheaper that way.

It should be assessed on its own merits, including the aftermath, in all its glory, such as: https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2019/09/21/new-study-do...

I'd also remind you that we have insufficient evidence to suggest that the aim was naive altruism. It could have been naively ideological: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C...

WMDs? That was a lie. They invaded to preserve the dollar regime/oil.

Not plausible? I think you've been watching too many Marvel movies where good vs evil is "obvious"

How would the invasion preserve the dollar regime?

As for the WMDs, I referred to Saddam's history, not to America's discredited invasion pretext.

https://usiraq.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000911

> There are conspiracy theories that America invaded to steal Iraq's oil but they are not plausible.

Did you forget the /s? Honestly can't tell if this is satire or not...

> There are conspiracy theories that America invaded to steal Iraq's oil but they are not plausible.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/m...

Much as I’ve defended the US in some other cases, I think that view on Iraq is somewhat naive. Yes, some wanted to get rid of an evil dictator, but it was motivated more by geopolitics than any sense of altruism.

Probably true, hehe...

But there was a coalition of naive countries going along with the US.

And it wasn't a surprise attack without serious diplomatic attempts. And even then, the US did actually worry about the legality of the invasion.

It was a mistake, but it's not the same.

Greenspan who was US chair of the fed at the time is a bit less naive about the matter. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/sep/16/iraq.iraqtimel...

>Despite the enormous death and suffering the war caused, America's aim was naive altruism.

Invading Iraq was on the agenda way before 9/11. The people that decided it are anything but naive.

>There are conspiracy theories that America invaded to steal Iraq's oil but they are not plausible.

Why not? The second largest oil producer in the world is invaded because of altruism out of their great heart. Geopolitics have nothing to do with that.

I believe is someone is naive here is you. At least you should respect as a valid and plausible theory(not calling it conspiracy in order to denigrate it) that the biggest army in the world are interested in controlling the energy producing countries just like any other empires before. And remember that was USA the ones that ousted the British Empire from Persia and the ones that toppled the democracy there.

Perhaps I am naive about it, and I certainly agree that Iraq's oil is relevant, although more in the sense of ensuring availability than stealing it. But my point was that America's seemingly uncontrollable urge to export democracy is not always based on $$$, rather Bush and Blair had a messianic ideal that was often well intentioned.

> Why not?

If America's plan was to take Iraq's oil, what went wrong with the plan, given Iraqis still control their oil?

  > But even Iraq does seem different: Hussein was a brutal dictator and, at least initially, Americans were welcomed as liberators.

In some areas in Eastern Ukraine, the Russians have been suffering "genocide" (whatever that term has been redefined to mean, but obviously not systematic murder) and the Russian forces were welcomed as liberators.

That is Russian propaganda and simply not true. There is no genocide against Russians in Ukraine.

Thre is no systematic murder in Ukraine. But this is how the UN defines genocide:

  > a. Killing members of the group;
  > b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  > c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  > d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  > e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

There are credible reports of b. and c. in Eastern Ukraine against Russians. Therefore, by UN definition, genocide. You and I might not like that definition, but Putin has a leg to stand on.

This is a pure war of agression, it is an invasion. There is no justification at all for this.

That's what the Western propaganda machine pushes (I'm Western too, certainly not pro-Russian) but do you really think that there is no rational Russian justification from the Russian perspective?

Justification for what? If Russia wanted to support russian ethnic people in Ukraine it would not invade Ukraine, but offer non-destructive help to those people.

It is a crime against humanity to cut water supplies into populated areas. What would your state do if water was being diverted away from Los Angeles by Canada?

Where are those credible reports?

Completely buried in anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian propaganda.

I'm not pro-Putin or pro-Russia, but I'm looking at things objectively. If I had a browser history I could pull them from there but now the search engines are inundated with propaganda and I cannot find them. It is too late to get objective facts right now, unfortunately.

It is scary how facts become "facts" and now for you it is heresay from some random HN poster (me). Disinformation campaigns are effective.

The dog ate my homework?

Yes, it appears so )). Sorry.

Again, I'm not pro-Russia but just look at this thread to see that the pro-Ukraine crowd silence anything not 100% in their favour. We see the same thing in anti-Israel discourse online as well, where both sides vehemently do their best to silence any voice not on "their side", no matter how factual.

For future reference, the starving of Crimea of its water resources is considered genocidal behaviour.

Cutting off water supplies to entire human populations is a crime against humanity and genocide:

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

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/08/world/europe/ukraine-russ...

So Russia invaded Crimea and Ukraine decided to cut water supplies off?

Ah, the old 'shifting the start of the conflict date' trick. Keep going, you can go all the way back to the maidan coup overthrowing a democratically elected leader...

>protection of a terrorist organisation that had repeatedly attacked American targets internationally before their deliberate targeted murder of thousands of American civilians.

that would be Al-Qaeda which emerged in 1988 out of the afghan mujaheedin who were financed until 1990 with more than 600 Million tax dollars by the CIA to kick out the Russians. Better luck this time? the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn.

1988 is also the year of the Halabja massacre pinned on Iran first by the US but it turned out that Saddam Hussein (at that time an Ally of the United States) carried out this largest chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated area in history,[2] killing between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injuring 7,000 to 10,000 more, most of them civilians.

> Hussein was a brutal dictator and, at least initially, Americans were welcomed as liberators

If the US attack Belarus with an unjustified casus belli like in the Iraq war, it would still be a huge deal just like the current war in Ukraine - despite everybody knowing Lukashenko is also a dictator.

The elephant in the room & the key difference between Iraq and Ukraine: There are substantially more people in the West who consider Ukrainian people are "one of us civilized people" compared to the Iraqi people.

I agree there would be an similar outcry, but think it’s more to do with location than ethnicity.

Yemen?

I didn’t cover Yemen, because I am not as familiar with the details of the conflict, and from what I do know it seems to be a very complex situation involving many actors.

It is literally genocide, being enacted by a fascist totalitarian dictatorship, fully supported by the Western military industrial complex and its host nations.

You really should educated yourself about Yemen. It is the worst war-caused humanitarian crisis going on in the world today. Worse than what is happening to the people of Ukraine, by far.

Yugoslavia is the case here that isn't like the others. After the fall of yugoslavia, certain ethnic groups went back to ethnic cleansing. Important to note, the time for Yugoslavia up to that point is probably one of the longest periods where ethnic wars/cleansing didn't take place. Essentially, Tito put a stop to quiet a bit of it. When Yugoslavia disintegrated, ethnic cleansing came back. Long history of it there. US and NATO partners stepped intervened to put a stop to it.

This is so false that I don't know where to begin. Maybe it's best at the end, when in 2004 after all the wars, when UN and NATO troops were actually stationed there, a pogrom of a minority happened just because the majority heard a rumour that they killed some children somewhere bin the country.

In my opinions, the more interesting question is why is the response in this war so fast and comprehensive... and my guess would be that it has the unified political willpower of most western nations behind it. Poland, Germany, France have no interest of seeing Putin succeed at a military show of force less and a days train ride from their borders.

When it comes to the middle east and further away places (geographically and culturally) the political willpower is often more oriented toward alliance contracts with other nations and idealogical reasoning... not perceived existential threat.

[edit] changed wording (socially -> culturally)

The response is fast because Putin directly said that he is planning to conquer half of free nations in Europe.

All people in eastern Europe fear him and russians. We will do anything to stop the grazy wannabe-Hitler and russians.

Key differences:

- Ukraine is a democracy (not without its problems but getting better) and part of the west

- Casus belli were 95% lies (ok, this one is similar to some US wars)

- The attacker uses "culture wars" as casus belli (Putin refers to "degenerates" et al)

- The part of the attacker's casus belli that mentions Russian Empire also touches on several other east and north european countries -- perhaps this wasn't intended and the whole thing was just crazy rambling or perhaps there's something there

- The attacker is a crazed dictator who has been in power for 22 years and who might be lashing out due to his own deteriorating health

- The goal is to annex the whole country (there was extensive lying that it wouldn't be, but the actual goal has been revealed several times by video representations and accidentally published documents)

- The leader of the attacking nation has lost all credibility in the world's eyes

The US never said: "it's just an exercise, we have no plans to invade".

Not lying means that diplomacy has a chance.

Nor does the US act unilaterally. It's always a coalition.

Could I (US citizen) get in trouble for providing free VPNs to Russian nationals?

Would these Russians get in trouble for using my US based VPN?

I want to support Russians during this difficult time but I don’t want them to get in trouble. I disagree with sanctioning and punishing ordinary citizens for the actions of the rich and powerful 1%. Imagine how it feel being a US citizen and getting punished for Donald Trump’s decisions. It’s wrong and makes no sense.

Unfortunately, you're supporting the dictatorship in Russia by providing your services from abroad. Russians understand that the sanctions are going to hit them hard because of Putin's actions and only Russian people can stop him. The change can only happen from within - poor or rich, weak or powerful, everyone in Russia needs to stand up against Putin to stop the war.

The change will occur within much faster if Russians have a safe and secure means to communicate with the outside world. It sounds more like you (and others who support sanctions) are more interested in making Russians suffer as some sort of revenge rather than invoking any kind of meaningful change in their governance.

They did have those secure means for communications up until now. Nothing changed. Or, dare I say, it changed for the worse. The regime in Russia got worse by the day and the people of Russia, at best did nothing, at worst cheered Putin on.

>It’s wrong and makes no sense.

Of course it does. The responsibility for the actions of the political class has to be carried by the local population. Post-war Germany wasn't like "oh that wasn't our country, you're looking at it with the wrong scope! It was just Hitler!" - I hope you see how this still holds, even though the most Germans would never have approved of Hitlers atrocities. This is not a 1%-issue, you seem to misunderstand the dynamics of power. The leaderships (here: Putin) power can only be sustained when its delegated to them by their people. Your throne is worthless if nobody listens to you, and if people listen to you depends on their trust in you acting on their behalf. If your actions lead to their economic demise, you lose their support, and in consequence, your countries policy will change. This isn't the West seeking to have russian civilians suffering. Its Russia, the country, as a whole, that started invading Ukraine and made nuclear threats, to which the world is now retaliating by any means necessary.

What you’re saying is absurd. It was 1 man who did those things, not “Russia, the country, as a whole”. I just try to imagine how I would feel if suddenly my life was devestated by foreign nations all because our president made a bad decision. When I did everything in my power not to elect that president, I voted against him, and I spent countless hours trying to convince others to vote against him as well. But ultimately I as an individual am powerless. So why should I suffer the consequences for something in which I had no control over and nothing to do with? It is injustice. Group punishments are wrong and only used by the most morally abhorrent nations in the world such as North Korea.

> What you’re saying is absurd. It was 1 man who did those things, not “Russia, the country, as a whole”.

So who else is responsible for making sure countries aren't crazy dictatorships where “1 man does things, not the country, as a whole”, if not the population of that country?

Or, to turn your usual whataboutism back on you: So you're advocating the Saddam Solution. If a nation won't itself take the responsibility for the dictators it accepts and condones, others must take it for them.

Those are the only two alternatives. So in saying that Russia won't be responsible for getting rid of Putler, you're inviting others to come in and get rid of him for you. Thank you, I hope someone will!

Oh, and if you try to counter that "That will only lead to WW3, with nukes!"... Well, then the priority becomes figuring out how to make a first strike either so overwhelming or so surprising that there is no response from Russia. If the Russian people has any problems with that, maybe they should reconsider their stance on responsibility for their own leadership.

> So why should I suffer the consequences for something in which I had no control over and nothing to do with? It is injustice.

You had and you did. You, collectively as a people, have not deposed the dictator. Whose responsibility is that, if not yours?

Germany underwent collective de-Nazification after WW2, because the nation of Germany was held responsible for democratically voting Hitler into power and not gettting rid of him when he turned the country into a crazy dictatorship. So why shouldn't the same go for the Russian people and nation?

That is justice, not "injustice".

You should get in trouble. Ordinary citizens of russia must finaly get that russia started WAR. Many still don't beleieve it. As mass media shows only BS about freeing Ukraine from fascists, info has to get to them via collapsed currency, economy, denial of services and other alternative means.

I support free speech and access to a free, open, and uncensored internet for everyone on this planet and I wont discriminate based on nationality.

> I wont discriminate based on nationality.

When a whole nation turns evil, you should.

According to your logic the whole entire nation of Ukraine is evil because some Ukrainians decided to shell schools and homes. https://youtu.be/PGl5USbBLIo

Calling a whole nation evil is bigoted and ignorant as it gets. The Ukrainians deserve to be invaded but even if they didn’t, there are countless brave Russians risking their lives speaking against an evil murderous government, and you call these people evil? Shame on you.

Troll troll trollety troll.

> Could I (US citizen) get in trouble for providing free VPNs to Russian nationals?

Yes if they do anything illegal and it's traced to your account.

> Would these Russians get in trouble for using my US based VPN?

Maybe, depends on laws in Russia.

> I want to support Russians during this difficult time

How about Ukrainians?

> Yes if they do anything illegal and it's traced to your account.

Since when are VPN operators held accountable for their user’s actions? There are plenty of free VPNs out there. We don’t hold Cloudflare responsible when someone makes a death threat using it’s free Warp VPN. Because that makes no sense. If someone committed a crime using my VPN the Netflow /backbone transit logs would prove I didn’t do it and the case against me would be thrown out.

> How about Ukrainians?

They are already getting plenty of support and don’t need VPNs because their internet isn’t censored.

He said he is a citizen and not an operator.

If he was planning on buying subscriptions for Russians then some operators will hand out his details if something illegal was detected.

If he was planning on setting up a VPN of his own on his own connection... then he's in trouble.

Imagine child porn and how hard that would be to fight.

> I disagree with sanctioning and punishing ordinary citizens for the actions of the rich and powerful 1%.

... I no longer buy this. The war is, unfortunately, very popular with ordinary Russians. And I hope you don't have any illusions that the citizens sincerely support their dear leader Putin.

I don't know what would convince you, but if you're American I will assume that you can't read Russian. So for an English source look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_2022_Russ... which is far from unbiased source, but it has a good list of references. So far the anti-war protests gathered barely a couple of thousand of people across the whole country. Even if you multiply those numbers times 10 (because people are afraid of police), and then by another factor of 10 (because official numbers may lie) you will still get a negligible number like 0.01% of the population.

At the same time Berlin alone has had 100k+ people on the streets.

But if you can read Russian, then just take a peek at pikabu.ru and d3.ru (which are like reddit in Russia) or any popular livejournal accounts. You will find too many anti-ukrainian sentiments describing us all as literal nazis [1].

Our soldiers are also finding smartphones of dead Russian soldiers and there has been quite a few photos of their communication back home ( https://i.imgur.com/1OZXgfw.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/oXUL2FJ.jpeg ). The first photo is his communication with his sister where she's asking about the war and "hohols" (derogatory term for Ukrainians), the second photo is his communication with his "beloved girlfriend" where the girlfriend asks to show no mercy to "them", "them" being hohols ... errr ... Ukrainians, I presume, because we, allegedly, would show no mercy to them; which is ironic because if you guys could just fuck off back home it would be really swell.

[1] calling Ukrainians nazis is a fucking bullshit -- our president is jewish, who got elected in an actual election by 73% of the country. Oh yeah, and the runner up candidate (ex-president) is also jewish. And yes, we, unlike Russia, did in fact have an actual elections. If Russians are so against nazis then why the fuck Russian PMC (private military corporation) Wagner is involved here (on the Russian side, of course) whose commander is this fucking asshole with an actual nazi insignia: https://newlinesmag.com/wp-content/uploads/utkin-tattoos.jpg ( from this article https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/the-wagner-group-files/ )?!

At this point I believe that Russia is pretty much North Korea -- their rulers have such a tight grip on their citizens that the citizens are now truly brainwashed into thinking that their dear leader is God incarnate and that the rest of the world is indeed out to get them.

I am Ukrainian living in Kyiv. On 24th of February I woke up from the sounds of rockets bombing the shit of my city. I've been a programmer since as long as I can remember myself, but now I'm making Molotov's to help repel the invaders because I'm now 100% sure that I will be "cleansed" on some trumped-up charges of being a nazi in case Russia does indeed take over Ukraine. And cleansed here means imprisoned or killed, and I'm not being dramatic here, this is the exact term used by Russia as one of their explicit stated goal of this so called "special operation". The best I can hope for is that I'll have few more years to live until I'll be used as a cannon fodder in some other bullshit war Russia starts.

This war is literally an existential threat to me. And from the looks of it, majority of Russians actually support it.

Why are there videos of civilians living in the disputed territory claiming that Ukrainian military forces shelled their schools and homes? https://youtu.be/PGl5USbBLIo

For the exact same reason you will find a lot of videos claiming that Ukrainian military shot down MH17.

Absolutely agree on everything else; tiny nitpick only on one part of the Nazi thing. No, of course Ukraine as a whole is far from "a Nazi nation"; far less so than the Fourth Reich based in Moscow!

But, the nitpick: Wagner kind of cancels out with Azov, doesn't it? That shit really reflects pretty badly on Ukraine; I think she should disavow them.

Are you seriously trying to help Russians evade sanctions that the West want to put on them? Not sure what you are trying to do with this

I don't think you understand what "evade sanctions" actually means. OP is telling people to prepare for the impact of sanctions.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The point of those sanctions is to hurt the Russian economy. Here the OP is a western guy trying to tell people in Russia how to minimize the effect of those sanctions.

Don't get me wrong, I wish that there was no war, and that everybody could live in peace and prosperity, in Ukraine and in Russia, but what OP does is trying to limit the impact of our economical sanctions on the Russian economy

It's not like they're under a cuban like blockade...

Seems like this barrage of sanctions and anti-Russian sentiment will do nothing but push Russia further toward China. I really don’t see the West removing them easily, even if Russia withdrew immediately. No one seems to care about arriving at a solution that will minimize bloodshed. Instead the media is more reminiscent of 1984 and drumming up a war against Eurasia than of rational realpolitik.

This is the true birth of a multipolar world. Let’s hope it doesn’t lead to more conflicts.

> Seems like this barrage of sanctions and anti-Russian sentiment will do nothing but push Russia further toward China.

It seems like it's doing massive damage to the Russian Economy. They can go towards China but that won't help much, plus China has ambitions of its own so it may end up de facto a vassal of China if it's not careful...

> No one seems to care about arriving at a solution that will minimize bloodshed.

All the sanctions were announced beforehand, Putin still decided to invade... The only way to minimize bloodshed now is to force a withdrawal and get some guarantees somehow it won't happen again. (either Ukraine in NATO or properly armed by NATO)

If the sanctions didn’t work before, I don’t know why they would work now.

I don’t have the answers, but certainly any move toward more militarization of the world is usually a bad thing.

> If the sanctions didn’t work before, I don’t know why they would work now.

Just look at short term effects: Ruble is down 30%, Russian banks in EU are going bankrupt, interest rate jumped to 20% so anyone with a loan in Russia is screwed... There's talk of seizing people's savings... Nobody can buy foreign currency... Perhaps they'll go back to trading with Kent cigar packs like in former USSR.

Longer term, it's assumptions, it's doubtful sanctions will go away any time soon, I'd look at Iran and Cuba for possible effects.

It also decouples EU and everyone else from Russia and it grants some immunity to Russian influence. (harder to do election meddling if you're cut off and everyone is against you)

> I don’t have the answers, but certainly any move toward more militarization of the world is usually a bad thing.

Proper defense does tend to prevent invasions. It's a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of folk that Russia will invade at any opportune time and it's best to be prepared.

Do we really want biggest nuclear power in the world totally alienated long term?

If you meant Russia, there has to be consequences for its actions, so yes. Nobody wanted the war or to have to impose sanctions.

If you meant it as a praise, biggest nuclear power, after some point it doesn't matter anymore, both US and Russia can destroy the world by themselves. (also note that warheads on wikipedia doesn't track MIRVs, each of those can split off in space and target multiple cities on reentry)

In NATO there's also France/UK that can destroy Russia by themselves.

No praise, just a fact. There should be consequences, I agree 100%, I am just afraid that some kind of consequences could provoke even worse outcome in mid-long run.

At some point you have to call a bluff or you'll slowly lose everything

> If the sanctions didn’t work before, I don’t know why they would work now.

Because these are different and harsher sanctions. That's why people are complaining more about them now, and why they might might perhaps finally work.

> I don’t have the answers,

Yeah, that's becoming abundantly clear.

> but

...you like to bloviate?

> certainly any move toward more militarization of the world is usually a bad thing.

"Every country has an army. Its own, or someone else's." (Can't recall where the quote is from, but that doesn't make it any the less true.)

Judging from your other comments, you haven’t bothered to educate yourself very much on this situation.

Please, be trollish elsewhere and waste someone else’s time.

"Be trollish"?

I'm not the one spouting the Kremlin's talking points.

Relying on Chinese infrastructure providers may be a good bet at this point. Indian SaaS providers too, to an extent.

Also, stable-coins (BUSD on Binance / DAI on Uniswap) or anonymous coins (MobileCoin via Signal or Monero via a wallet like Guarda) may prove helpful in the face of collapsing Ruble.

This anti-Russian trope spreading is infuriating. If Apple and Google can stop their Pay services, of course everything else will be stopped. But that also means I don't want to be on those services either. It is too much power to give to Amazon, Microsoft and Google. I will actively move my own services to solutions that don't act like arms of the US government.

Any service you use is going to act in its own best interest.

What service will you move to that will exclusively act in your best interest?

Best bet is to pick a side.

I'm not sure I get it: are you saying you do not believe the international community should hold Russia accountable for its murderous incomprehensible actions in Europe?

They aren't holding Russia accountable, they holding Russians accountable and that seems like a terrible thing.

So how does one hold Russia accountable?

By holding Russians accountable for continuing to allow Russia to be a dictatorship.

They're not holding Russians accountable, they're hoping that Russians will hold their own government accountable for once. Just, like, for once.

This is also the point of terrorist attacks: that the people will be so outraged when they learn about the terrorists' motives for the attack that they will rise up and "do something" about their government.

Americans can't be this shallow. This is ridiculous. THINK about what you are suggesting with these sanctions regimes. Sanctions are a crime against humanity, too.

Sanctions are not a crime against humanity. Nobody is forced to accept your currency, or to trade with you. Nobody is forced to provide dollar currency to the murderous, lying regime which has invaded Ukraine. Many Russians are supporting this evil war, out of cowardice or ignorance. They should share some of the pain. That may help them to wake up.

When sanctions result in a population starving, or children dying because they don't get medical care because of sanctions, they are crimes against humanity.

>They should share some of the pain.

Such utter totalitarian-authoritarian nonsense. Did 9/11 stop the US from bombing innocent people in the Middle East?

Russia isn’t starving and children aren’t deprived of medical care. As for 9/11, that is a pure red herring.

Maybe they are not currently but they could. Look at Cuba, US sanctions prevent even common medicine and food from being imported. I was on the receiving end of sanction (better say my parents, I was young living with them) in Yugoslavia. Sanctions just produced extreme poverty, hyperinflation and give more reason to bad actors/dictators to appoint even more extreme measures and justifications for them. Guys who are in power can even more easily hold to the power and use force against the populous. Destroying free media and maxing propaganda and sadly average person falls for propaganda if it is fed to him daily. IDK of one good example where sanctions toppled a dictator, Cuba, Yugoslavia, North Korea, Iran, Russia, etc... Not saying nothing should be done, but this wide spread canceling of everything Russian will hurt ordinary people who will be in even less power to do something now.

Sanctions helped end apartheid.

Your experience is valid and interesting. Still, unless you’ve got a better alternative, and until sanctions do actually cause those potential harms, I think they are the best weapons we have.

> Sanctions just produced extreme poverty, hyperinflation and give more reason to bad actors/dictators to appoint even more extreme measures and justifications for them.

No, bad actors/dictators produce extreme poverty and hyperinflation.

> Guys who are in power can even more easily hold to the power and use force against the populous.

Too bad for the populace. Maybe they should have got off their arses and got rid of the bad guys a little earlier, eh?

> Destroying free media and maxing propaganda and sadly average person falls for propaganda if it is fed to him daily.

Do you really think it's sanctions from the West that have turned Russian media into propaganda mouthpieces?

No, but Yemen children are.

So .. Why are we supporting the KSA by shipping it weapons and refuelling their planes, then?

Because we learned that genocide by sanctions is an effective weapon, as per Iraq, Libya, etc. Alongside the children of Yemen, we are directing this same policy at the children of Russia.

Lack of large reaction to Putin's behavior goes through the stomach and smartphone apps of Russians. Remember 1989 and what the stage of famine and cold and lack of basics had to be, for Romanians to finally take the streets and bring Ceaușescu down. Hard! If the Russians can still sit comfortably at home, playing with Amazon, FB and Google, while their Ukrainian brothers are killed, that is no incentive for uprising. So - sorry - but action in this area seems to require a little incentive.

This is the point of soft power. Enough pain, and people revolt against the dipshits that earned them the pain.

but if you cause pain to people, aren't you the dipshit?

Not if that people have accepted and are condoning a dictator that is causing even more pain (including to that people themselves); then they are the ultimate dipshits.

what about everyone else?

What about them (us)?

It's not the rest of the world that keeps putting dictators in power in Russia, is it? It's the Russians.

there isn't a single country throught history where the population would be unified in their political opinion, you aren't responsible for actions of your neighbours and there are no justification for using people as tools to hurt economies and states

> there are no justification for using people as tools to hurt economies and states

Yes of course there is: That's the only way to do it. What else do you think economies and states are, if not people?

entitie composed of many things, some of those things are people

I haven't paid attention to what Google, Amazon, etc. are doing, nor do I particularly care.

NATO, EU, Switzerland and a few others are not trying to hold Russians accountable. They are trying to hit the Russian economy strong and hard to demonstrate that Putin's Russia cannot afford a war against the West. That's after Putin and his representatives articulated several times and in no uncertain terms the threat of a nuclear attack against the West.

Are people going to suffer for it? Absolutely. That's the definition of a war, even if it the West has chosen to use money to wage it, rather than deploying soldiers.

Is it worth it? Time will tell, I suppose.

All I can tell you is that in the past week, I have spent time role-playing/strategizing the entire situation with friends (that's how I evacuate stress, YMMV) and, based on the information I have at hand, I would have done the same if I was playing the West.

Would you support banning all US accounts to hold Biden accountable for attacks in Yemen?

Are you asking me? Pretty sure I didn't advocate for holding anybody accountable.

edit Clarified.

I misunderstood, ethics aside why would you think this is a good strategy? From the cases I remember sanctions are making thing worse, are there any examples of sanctions working out as 'intended'?

Examples of an economic blockade hurting economically a military power?

I would need to double-check, but I'd be surprised if it didn't hurt Napoleon's army, as well as Hitler's and Mussolini's, for instance. I remember that one of the reasons for which the Allies won WWII is that towards the end of the war, the Wehrmacht had considerable difficulties finding fuel for their panzers and logistics and had insufficient ammo for extended fights.

Hurts bystanders, too, of course.

If the international community wants to hold Russia accountable, it should pressure Western Europe to stop buying Russian gas. Infrastructure companies grandstanding is idiotic.

Those aren't mutually exclusive. Europe's dependence on Russian oil and gas exports has been a major topic of discussion - a search for "Nord Stream 2" might help you get up to date.

Are the existing gas pipelines shut off? Europeans could become the change they want to see and endure a couple of cold years and stop buying gas from places like Russia and Azerbaijan.

I assume you're an American living in a warm climate? I get the sense you don't understand what you're asking for.

Gas isn't just used for heating people. About 20% of Europe's power is generated using gas, and there is not enough spare capacity to compensate for that.

Germany is currently looking to extend the operating life of its nuclear powerplants and will indeed have to consider replacing them despite pledging not to. France and the UK are ahead on this, with the latter investing heavily in small-scale nuclear reactors. The first of those will still take another 10 years to arrive, though.

Even if gas was just for heating buildings, what you're asking for would kill quite a lot of elderly and vulnerable people. In the UK alone, it's estimated that 3000 people die each year due to fuel poverty already, and the UK is far from the coldest country in the region. Europe is not California.

You are of course correct that we should reduce dependence on fossil fuels (Russian or otherwise), and it was a major error of judgement by our leaders (over several decades) to get us into this position, but that cannot be rectified overnight.

I grew up without running water, electricity or heat in the 90s. I've had to read by candlelight, breathed kerosene fumes indoors to stay warm and burned old newspapers to climb up to the 10th floor apartment where we lived in complete darkness. I know exactly what I'm talking about.

It's pure hypocrisy that you want the other side to suffer now, but you want to roll off your reliance on Gazprom on a timescale of a decade as to not be inconvenienced.

We have a goal, but there is a limit to what we'll sacrifice to achieve it. It's no more complex than that, and definitely not hypocrisy.

The USA has a longer story of military aggressions, that killed far, far, far more people.

Do you think Amazon should stop doing business with the USA, or are you saying you do not believe the international community should hold the USA accountable for their murderous incomprehensible actions around the world?

It's that it's Europe and yes the western democracies have a double standard of looking out for each other and near adjadcencies above other countries needs but that's because there's so much more to lose in terms of institutions that are very hard to build and can unfortunately very quickly be torn down.

The problem with this is that it only gets applied against the enemies of USA and never to USA and friends.

Not to Saudi Arabia, not to USA/UK/France, not to Israel.

Libya, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Armenia, etc are not worthy victims (see manufacturing consent).

The war fervor and demand for generating damage against "the others" is at an all time high and is very clearly propaganda.

There's no context (2014 to now, interesting things have been happening in Ukraine) nor desire for peace. It's full on white Vs black and calls for action, not diplomacy.

Those of us who have been following Geopolitcs for a while and remember Iraq and others... Will be way more skeptic than to buy a simplified narrative of us Vs "terrible them".

They basically have no other choice than closing the account for unpaid bills, if Russia is removed from payment networks.

This isn't political, but a result of sanctions applied by politics.

Don't get me wrong, I am not really defending the big players, because they generally have a lot of trashy things going on.

I'm really just pointing out the obvious results of political changes.

> This anti-Russian trope spreading is infuriating.

I'm sure the Ukrainians feel the same way about the anti-Ukrainian trope saying they are being run by neo-Nazis.

Ordinary citizens of russia must finaly get that russia started WAR. Many still don't beleieve it. As mass media shows only BS about freeing Ukraine from fascists, info has to get to them via collapsed currency, economy, denial of services and other alternative means.

This is no anti-Rusian trope, this is the result of economic sanctions which Apple/Google and everyone else must obey.

Every Russian passport holding person is responsible for this conflict. The sooner they understand this, the more country remaining they will have when this will end

When is the world going to come down on us western passport holders? It’s no coincidence we have the standard of life we do, we took it from the marginalized and the weak over the past centuries

> Every Russian passport holding person is responsible for this conflict.

How, exactly?

To take action to end it. We are in "unstoppable force vs immovable object" situation. Putin does not have an option to lose. We don't have an option to lose the country once again. These things historically are only resolved by genocide and mass population displacement. Alternative is removing a single person from power.

Nazi Germany wasn't stopped by any of those.

Nazi Germany did not have VPNs. Information is there, so far. It's a personal decision to look at it or not.

And for that the German people was held responsible.

This doesn’t answer my question: how is every Russian passport holder responsible for this conflict?

Responsibility is a very precisely defined concept: how are they all responsible?

> how is every Russian passport holder responsible for this conflict?

By not having removed Putler from power.

So, every Russian citizen is responsible of that? Are they also responsible of not having solved world hunger or of not having cured cancer yet?

Why are Russian citizens without passports any less responsible?

In Russia (as well as Ukraine, Belarus and maybe some others) passport is the name of internal ID. Everyone gets it.

Passport used to travel is called foreign passport.

Geez.. this whole comment section is a terrible take.

By this logic 9/11 was fully justified.

It is really incredible to see these terrible takes being proliferated as if they don't mean more bloodshed, turmoil and suffering.

It seems the lesson of 9/11 was not learned, and there will simply be more events just like it until Americans understand, they do not have the exceptional moral authority to get away with crimes against humanity and war crimes, if they're not willing to grant those same 'rights' to other nation states too.

Oh wait, they do grant those 'rights' to other nation states, its just a matter of whether those states have the moolah to keep American military industrial complex partners in caviar ..

By this reasoning, American citizens are responsible for the murder of millions of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan .. Yemen.

I mean, fair game.

don’t understand why comments like these are seen on hn,

is every american responsible for the countless deaths the US and their profitable war machine caused?

how about anyone living in [1]?

I safely bet the majority of people on this planet would prefer money spent on conflicts be invested in research, development, health and education.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_confli...

FAANGs are not actively invading another country based on nonsensical reasons

I havent seen what Russia's and China's combined military stats are to NATO yet.

Russia lead on most nukes, US everything else, but China is 3rd and we know they have some very disciplined military and a far larger population.

Here in the UK we have been forbidden in law from interacting with any Russia entity, so Russian bank accounts are frozen, cant provided good's or services to any Russian entity.

There is data here, IDK how reliable it is https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php

It's a bit alarming that some HN posters are saying that Ukraine never applied to join NATO. That they did is the central seed of the John Mearsheimer lecture 'Why is Ukraine the West's Fault?' [1], which got about another 2m views in the last 48 hours.

Mearsheimer provides a direct quote demonstrating NATO's resolve to eventually incorporate Ukraine, which was pledged at the Bucharest 2008 summit.

Bush was also pushing for NATO's membership in 2008 [2].

Mearsheimer's narrative depicts a cornered Russia determined to make Ukraine so politically toxic and disrupted that it would cease to qualify for NATO membership. Therefore, yes, if you say 'Ukraine was never going to get into NATO', that's true after 2010, and more so after 2014. But Ukraine did want to become a NATO member, was promised that it could enter, and had some notable US advocates for membership.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 [2] https://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/04/01/ukraine.anal...

Anyone still thinking this is about Ukraine joining NATO is completely delusionary.

Putin literally said, he doesn't think that Ukraine is a country.

This always was about Putin needing another win either for his reelection or before he dies.

Basically, it is American duty to make it possible and easy for Russia to take Ukraine. First by making vague promisses of help to make them give up nuclear arsenal in nineties, then by making sure they are cant join nato and third by making sure they are demilitarized.

Yes, if America did the above, Russia would not had to do actual full on war in there. They would be able to just take it.

I know you’re going to disagree with this using some silly rationalization, I won’t respond to after this because it fundamentally sounds like you don’t believe is Ukraine’s right to self determination and you think that they should be bound by deals the US or Russia have made on its behalf in the past which Ukraine had no say in.

Here it is, NATO is fundamentally a defensive organization, and Ukraine is a democratic country they should be free to choose who they do deals with, I’d feel the same way if they freely and democracy decided to align closer with Russia.

I think saying NATO antagonize this is people treating Ukraine like a colonial holding of Russia and that Ukraine doesn’t have sovereignty. This is fundamentally wrong and goes against any countries right to self determination. I don’t care if it’s the US or Russia trying to dictate terms to a third country, it’s wrong either way.

What I really think this is about is Russians are fundamentally humiliated that other former Soviet countries like the Baltic states and Poland have a fair greater standard of living than Russia exactly because they embrace democracy and cooperated with western countries. Russia just wants to wreck Ukraine for aligning more with the West and improving their economy because they’re afraid of having another example of a former Soviet country prospering of their doorsteps making it ever more obvious how badly the rulers of Russia treat their people.

They did, in 2014 their democratically elected president chose to stop/delay EU talks because it would cost the country much more at the time (Russia was giving them 1/3 price for the gas and much more money than EU wanted to give). Then Maidan happened and the rest is history.

I agree with you in principle, but it is a sad reality that we live in a world where it is not the case. If you had a bully in a classroom, you would not go around provoke him, you would try to live with him even though you don't like him.

As for the NATO membership, yes Ukraine can want to join, but NATO had to accept them, all members had to approve before that happening. NATO could have said publicly that they would not accept Ukraine into NATO for at least 20-30 years, and that they would not put NATO equipment or troops in Ukraine, that would not prevent Ukraine from doing whatever they wanted with their own military.

There is a reason why not European countries are in the EU. Ukraine wanting to be in NATO does not automatically make it wise for NATO to accept them. Kosovo (which US recognizes as a separate country) cries on all bells to be accepted in NATO, but it is not happening, why? Because it is unwise at the time to do that. NATO loses nothing, and bully is not provoked.

> They did, in 2014 their democratically elected president chose to stop/delay EU talks because it would cost the country much more at the time (Russia was giving them 1/3 price for the gas and much more money than EU wanted to give). Then Maidan happened and the rest is history.

Sounds like he severely misread the room, turned dictator in the people's eyes for wanting to sell out their freedom for thirty pieces of silver, and was deposed in a revolution. You know, like sometimes happens (and sometimes not) when democratically elected leaders turn dictator.

> If you had a bully in a classroom, you would not go around provoke him, you would try to live with him even though you don't like him.

Maybe you wouldn't. But that never works in the long run; sooner or later someone has to give the bully his comeuppance. Better sooner than later.

>Here it is, NATO is fundamentally a defensive organization

"We came. We saw. He died."

This was the victory speech at the end of a NATO led incursion that destroyed Libya, turning it into a failed state. It's now on its second civil war.

> destroyed Libya

I guess you seem to forget the civil war that was happening before NATO got there. The one the was so atrocious that not even China or Russia vetoed it when the proposal of interfering was voted on at the UN.

This is not morally equivalent to what is being done to Ukraine, not even close. There is criticism to be put on the mission in Libya, but it should be that NATO didn’t stay long enough to stabilize the country and support peaceful nation building.

Or maybe you think war crimes are just fine and no one should ever try to do anything about them.

I’d like to see you defend that position to people that survived nazi concentration camps. Or a Rwandan who saw their family butchered over arbitrary tribalism.

You’re a cowered.

I never said it was morally equivalent. However, it makes NATO an offensive organization.

It makes NATO a threat to Russia.

> John Mearsheimer lecture 'Why is Ukraine the West's Fault?' [1], which got about another 2m views in the last 48 hours.

Yeah, I've seen linked all over the 'Net in the last week. Overwhelmingly predominantly by raging pro-Putler trolls, so you'll forgive me if referring to it doesn't exactly increase your standing in my eyes.

> Mearsheimer's narrative depicts a cornered Russia determined to make Ukraine so politically toxic and disrupted that it would cease to qualify for NATO membership.

Heh, guess I'll have to watch it, after all... But, judging from your summation here for now: So that means it's only "the West's fault" in the sense that they didn't immediately accept Ukraine into NATO back when they applied, right?

Arsehole dictators don't understand "soft-power" reasoning and pleading; they need to be faced with fait accompli.

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