HN call for help: Thousand of IT specialists flee Russia as job market collapses

Thanks for acknowledging how horrific the decisions by the Russian government are. Still I must oppose to mentioning the fate of people in both countries in a single sentence.

When I read "no care for peoples lives, either in Ukraine or in Russia", I want to say there is a drastic difference between risk of death at all times and living through an economic depression.

A friend of mine is sheltering in place in the basement underneath the rubble of what remains of their home. They can't move with the elderly (if moving as in option at all¹), food is limited, no heating. Your family is in a hotel in Dubai.

¹ see e.g. https://twitter.com/JosephStec/status/1500068587633061890

I don't know where you live but it's astonishing to see how quickly people in the west criticize those fleeing war or economic collapse for minor comments or actions - do you think you would always say the right thing if you were in that situation? Cut the guy some slack. He's obviously desperate, even if he's not in a warzone

Yes, I understand that too. But for me that doesn't mean I shouldn't comment on it.

Is this really necessary? Of course there is a difference between hiding from bombs and having financial lives turned upside down. That's not the point. Do you sort all beggars on the street and choose who you help and who you won't based on the severity of their situation?

Economic depression is an understatement. Hospitals crumble. Financial system crumbles. People will be dying due to missed screenings and having no money for doctors. This is a fact. Bombs are part of the equation, and calling this “just an economic depression” is the same exact line of logic that ruling party follows to justify the war.

Part of my family (wife’s brother, her parents) are still in Moscow, with very dire outlook on financial side. Our relocation is the only feasible way to keep them out of poverty.

I can confirm everything you said about state of IT industry, it matches my experience.

Our team is in process movingto Bulgaria thanks to BESCO (write letter to them right now if Bulgaria is an option for you). We are getting some help acquiring visas fast, but getting tickets out of Russia is harder with every minute (literally). We are leaving all our lives behind and fleeing in shock, hoping one day to be able to return, to help those who couldn't leave.

Stay strong.

If you like cold weather and having lots of green space Canada has a large number of tech jobs that pay well by European standards. For someone with skills and/or education a work visa is VERY easy to get. My family member is an immigration consultant and can help out. I don't get any compensation for posting this. Feel like Canada as a destination is underutilized in the Russian community. If you are interested in advice please email dina[at]doorwaytocanada[dot]com

Thanks a lot for your support! I’ve relayed this information to our community

There are lots of smart and experienced IT guys who is not supporting this war, and government in general. Many of them participated in protests and tried to stop it, but it failed. And now it is dangerous to stay here ((

P.S. I do agree - Ukrainians in even more need.

Supporting them with just a work outside of Russia - will help a lot.

Exactly, we cannot support each other if one of us hides in shelter, and another has 0 money or is mobilized to “fight for motherland”

"not supporting this war" -- means nothing to your future and the future of your family. Stop saying it. Support stopping the war!

"I do agree - Ukrainians in even more need." -- oh, really? Getting someone's country with its people demolished and that's funded by your taxes is "even more"?

Regardless of someones stance on the situation, some questions as it relates to a knowledgeable IT/Software person fleeing a country and the logistics of getting paid might help us all.

* What method(s) of payment are capable of receiving that could help?

* Are you able to establish a bank account in another country or is it down to cash or crypto? If crypto, do you have a way to reliably withdraw into local currency for food/shelter?

* Do you require special work visa's? Or is the only alternative a "under the table" (i.e. off the books/unofficial) type of arrangement?

* If someone were able to hire/pay for work, what assurances are there that you can produce work on a daily basis? (I assume risks include many things if someone is mobile, doesn't have internet, etc.)

Probably sounds crazy but if you speak English you probably can adjust and thrive here in Argentina. The government is friendly so they won't deny a visa or anything. We have open borders by constitutional mandate so you can even become a citizen after a few years.

In some ways the further from Russia the easier it will be. Countries in Europe feel very close and very connected. Asian countries and even countries like Australia and NZ not so much.

AU/NZ are looking on and supporting Ukraine, but they lack the deep involvement.

AU/NZ can be a bit of pain visa wise, but there are plenty of IT jobs. You do need to be able to speak English, but in my experience dealing with teams overseas (mostly China), it's not unusual to have to pause a conversation while someone looks up the meaning of the word before continuing.

Similarly, there is a large expat population in Thailand, and there are definitely opportunities for tech people. Thailand only has 30 days visa free for Russians, however it's possible to extend the visa for a further 30 days by going and sitting in a government office waiting in line for a few hours.

It's also possible to do a border run to reset this (it's not like Europe where it 90 days in 180 days.

There are various agencies that can help get longer visas once you're there as well.

[0]: https://visafreecountries.com/russian-passport

Edit: Sorry for the misinterpreted news below.

Regarding Thailand, I would not be so optimistic. There is a report (https://lenta.ru/news/2022/03/05/problemsss/) that Russian bank cards just stopped working in Thailand (Edit: hotels only). So one would somehow need to rely on cash only while searching for the opportunities.

Edit: I should have checked the source: https://www.atorus.ru/news/press-centre/new/59021.html which says that Russian cards still work e.g. in shops.

I will launch a Job Board for Ukrain software devs arriving in Germany specifically, to connect them to companies open to hire them. EU is changing law to allow ukrains to get work permit easier, faster, for longer.

However, I would advise everyone to try to be a freelancer if possible. It is a LOT easier for companies to hire then, even from other countries.

We lost connection to our iOS dev living in Kiyv couple of days ago.

Wanna collaborate? How can I contact you?

https://matrix.to/#/!XBsViwGeTelMcIVWGE:matrix.org?via=matri...

I'm in Bulgaria and locally there is a big dev need. Everyone is welcome.

I'm sorry that you and many other innocent people have to suffer in this madness.

Contact me on the same twitter handle as this hn one for nonpublic info.

Dzhovani, you are a legend. Thanks for your support.

I am reposting my "who is hiring" post - we are hiring remote.

We are a startup building high performance machine learning systems on CPUs. Our core technologies are hash-based algorithms that accelerate neural network training and high dimensional near neighbor search.

We are looking for engineers with 3+ years of experience building and shipping high performance systems. Machine learning and C++ experience is a big plus, and definitely tell us about any AI publications you have, we’re interested! If building a new set of machine learning tools from scratch sounds fun to you, get in touch! Feel free to email me vaidhy [at] thirdai.com. Our website is under active reconstruction using Hugo (that’s how early stage we are), but feel free to find out more about us at https://www.thirdai.com

Thanks, sent this information to our teams

Telepathy Labs in Singapore is hiring Full Stack / Backend / DevOps Engineers

Job details on LinkedIn, we’d welcome experienced and qualified professionals from Ukraine or Russia

Disclaimer: I work there / hiring manager

Cool company name, by the way!

Thanks a lot for that! I’m relaying this to our telegram.

<rant>

Some of the responses on this thread are appalling. Misanthropes are dehumanising people based on nationality. I wonder:

Does every German bear responsibility for WW2?

Does every US citizen bear responsibility for the genocide in Yemen (I could about 60 countries here...)?

Does every Ukrainian bear responsibility the Azov regiment crimes?

WTF is wrong with you ppl? Get your shit together.

You're acting as if a 5-year old in Russia is a lesser human being compared to a 5 year old in Ukraine. They're both 5-year olds.

</rant>

Blessed or cursed by where you are born. These people are leaving Russia because they will get thrown in jail for protesting. They're at high risk of conscription in a war that don't agree to.

I have spoken to Russians and Belarusians over the last few days. They're against what their government is doing. Leaving is one of the only options.

In some ways, IT leaving is worse for Russia than just the sanctions. That 'talent' will never return. That loss will linger.

> Does every German bear responsibility for WW2?

A generation of Germans made the choice not to let the past define them, and through hard work bootstrapped themselves and their country to become a leader for human rights, democracy and economy.

Time for citizens of Russia and its allies to make the same decisions.

Yes, but this was after we lost the war (thank god). This change came not from within. The absolute vast majority supported the Nazi party until the end. You can read about it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification

Thanks for that.

Maybe we should make a table with a no. of victims per country so we can distribute blame more fairly? Can also probably automate and gamify this. Good thing most leaders who made these decisions are gone and we can shift anger to actual citizen instead.

We now have over 197 resumes posted just today in the past 7 hours by people in despair: https://t.me/joinchat/AAAAAE3nUawZ4YX6AtDCFg

A web resource would be easily shared IMO, while telegram requires ppl to download the app and join.

Already working on it. If anyone is interested in contribution - message me.

No pm functionality here

email is at the end of the post

I think Ukrainian IT need more help

I’m copying here my reply to a similar comment.

There is a huge Russian-speaking community in Ukraine. Most non-regional IT communities in Telegram have lots of Ukrainian people, many relocated back and forth between two countries in the past.

Long story short: this post has no aim to focus on helping only Russians, if you have resources to support any kind of IT relocation regardless of nationality, please step forward.

Are there sanctions that we should be aware of when hiring Russian contractors?

You can't pay to any Russian bank using SWIFT, Wise, Payoneer, Paxum, and probably any other MC/WU/Amex/Visa powered platforms, since recently. Other than that - no.

SWIFT will disconnect in 12th of March banks from sanction list.

Not "any Russian bank". Of course it's possible that in future all Russian banks will be under sanctions.

Right now even bank transfers between Russia and Ukraine works fine. My ex-girlfriend still has a way to support her parents in Kyiv.

If you meant possibility of total blockade: it's probable.

Zelensky campaigns exactly for that.

At least his ideas more realistic than Macron voiced: to block bitcoins in Russia.

That’s up to your local regulations, none from Russian side that I know of (so far)

> Yesterday I had to emergently evacuate my family from Moscow on a flight to Dubai, leaving behind my apartment, car and my whole life.

What happened? Were you in danger?

If I had a choice between being locked out of my investments and in a country where the economy is falling apart or being locked out of my investments and in a much more stable country, I'd pick the latter. I'd be out of work regardless but at least there would be some near term chance of job opportunity somewhere other than Russia.

At any time now a martial law can be declared in Russia, closing borders, interning foreign citizens, conscripting any male 18-60 to serve as cannon fodder in Ukraine, confiscating savings etc.

Following the news I'd guess that the situation in Russia is deteriorating rapidly, especially with the currency becoming worthless and accounts being frozen. Who knows what kind of draconian laws the authorities will come up with to counter the coming social unrest? Better leave now while you can still afford it.

We already know. Over the past days they have criminalized most of the ways to convey information about the conflict, with 10-20 years of imprisonment. As a side-consequence, most of the non-government press in Russia does not exist anymore.

I work at Shopify. It appears as of a day or two ago, I was told that we're relocating people from Russia to Canada.

Of course this situation may change, things are fluid, but it may be worth applying to the careers site and seeing what happens.

https://www.shopify.com/careers

<3

Working for SinnerSchrader (part of Accenture Interactive). We have an office in Prague. And due to Corona do mostly remote stuff. We are looking for tech people [0].

I have no idea if anything might work out. But it might be a chance.

[0]: https://sinnerschrader.jobs/en/

I hope that Accenture actually thought of this when they terminated the 2,000+ people they had in Russia a few days ago.

I agree. We (regular employees and even our Management) have no idea what Accenture meant when the leadership mentioned that they intend to care for these people.

We all hope to receive more clarification on that part. Personally I might understand that this is a difficult situation even if all involved persons really mean well (and from what I could experience especially the Accenture leadership are actual well meaning people - at least the ones I got to know). While also navigating difficult political waters.

How do you pay people without Swift? What can be done to help our (now sadly former) Russian colleagues without putting them in danger for working for a US/western company?

Can you transfer people? But still - how to pay them?

I don't have any more insights than the official communications from HQ. But I still am hopeful that as much as is possible is being done.

But yeah - the situation is s*t. Sorry for the language.

(and all that coming from me who has quite a difficult view on/relationship with our parent organization)

Swift only hurts couple of banks which are under sanctions, and only transactions done over swift. Money transfers are not fully blocked. I highly doubt this is the real reason.

relayed <3

I am helping with relocate to Kazakhstan, send me the details at info@withpublic.com

Thanks <3! I’m relaying this info to our telegram.

First of all, I wish you and your family stay safe. Nobody in Ukraine don't want death to _all_ Russians, however we hope all Russians who crossed the border with weapon in hands, will die here. After all, they _always_ have a choice: if a soldier don't want to kill Ukrainians and destroy our cities, he can surrender in Ukraine.

Second, I'm afraid you don't know what "emergently evacuate" means. Completely. Family evacuation is when you're in the car with 2 kids while Russian helicopters attack Gostomel (city near to Kyiv) and go just above your car. Emergency evacuation is how now people try to leave Bucha, Irpin', Mariupol, Kharkiv, Chernihyv, Sumy. This means that their lives are _really_ can end accidentally because of warefare.

Third, my question - if you didn't support Russia government, where you did for the last year? Last month? While Putin collects hordes on the border with Ukraine? Oh, you opened eyes only when West sanctions start working...

I don't blame you. However, all this pain that we feel here in Ukraine, because you (and millions of Russians like you) didn't interested in what _your_ government and _your_ leader prepared for last 10 years. Interesting questions - what is your position about Crimea?.. That was a bright sign that Russia goes to hell, but you was blind.

I understand your emotions and your viewpoint completely.

Thanks for posting. This is very enlightening details from the inside. Why do you think you have no hope for getting your portfolio back? Is Main reason for exodus is reduced salary or reduced value of your salary? Or is the work disappearing because of companies moving out?

I see three reasons for the exodus: reduced salary, firings of an extreme scale which already happen, and political views. Most people I know have started relocating due to the latter, but former two now start to take major impact.

Regarding portfolio - exchange has been frozen indefinitely, depending on measures taken by central bank nobody can predict what would happen to the stock price. They have also blocked most ways to move money out of the country. Possible economic default is also a possibility.

I visited UAE recently, and was considering moving there.

You can find tons of offerings from local offices that can help you get employment visa that allows you to work for other UAE employers whilen sponsored by the office (advertised as freelancer visa, however it doesn't really allow you to work as contractor for UAE clients), you can find many posters everywhere in Dubai.

In case you are not there yet, just check dubai.dubizzle.com (craigslist like in Dubai). this is about $2050 for two years visa, you pay less per person when getting your family members.

A more expensive and robust option, is to work with through umbrella company like freelancervisa.com , they will issue invoices for your local client in their name, they recieve the fund and give it to you, the only fees is that 2 years visa is kinda double the first option (plus you have to charge your clients %5 for VAT).

Also if you are impacted with Upwork (or similar) cease of operations for residents Russia, moving to UAE and opening a bank account will fix this for you, you don't have to be able to work legally with UAE clients if you won't work with UAE clients, so the $2K-ish option should be good

Also, UAE is pretty robust in terms of money remitance and crypto friendly, in case you can't take your family with you.

Good luck

How hard is it for Russians to get a work Visa in the EU or Schengen? You might make it to St. Petersburg and then just cross over to Finnland or Estonia. It's just 200km to their capitals. IT people are still in strong demand especially if your salary expectation are below average.

My understanding is that EU has stopped all visa processing for Russians.

this sucks :(

Take a look at these images and then ask me to give a damn about your IT career https://twitter.com/lynseyaddario/status/1500469003780771846

Is this necessary? The guy is trying to feed his family, not add another zero to his bank account. Would you want people to tell you the same thing if there was an economic collapse where you live? I hope people would extend the same courtesy to you if you or I were in the same situation.

Yes, I do think it's necessary that these sanctions aren't by-passed by sneaky bastards with Dubai boltholes, thanks for asking

These sorts of comments are completely unnecessary, uncharitable, and against HN guidelines. This person is not hurting anybody (least of all you), and not doing anything that the rest of us wouldn't do in the same horrendous circumstances. He's also doing something to help lots of other people.

I have added an Airtable form where you can add your relocation details, I shall share the data with only trusted hiring managers and IT companies. https://www.withpublic.com/

Happen Space - Building Metaverse Event Platform Looking for : C# Desktop devs (or willing to learn), Go Backend Devs

https://happen.space

Location: Bangkok, Thailand

Email - jobs@happen.space

Thanks, relayed

Sorry but your country has been canceled.

-your friendly neighborhood UN

regular ukrainian people would be laughing at your suffering (and wish you and your whole nation death), but yes. its a tragedy too. on the other hand you wouldnt have any problem finding a job anywhere. turkish airlines still fly to russia. where i would go if i were russian - bulgaria, serbia, montenegro, greece, turkey, the west...

Some of these regular Ukrainian people are my close friends hiding in a shelter as you read this. I’d be purchasing charter flights for them if that was in my power. Every day I pray that they stay alive.

We fled to the US from the USSR with nothing but the support of American + Italian volunteers and fellow immigrants for housing and job hunting. I'm sorry for Ukrainian and Russian citizens suffering from this - I have family from both sides of the border. As much as things change.. :(

So: We're hiring remote contractors, and for folks who want to make a difference, half our customers use our GPU visual graph intelligence tech for investigating problems like misinformation, money laundering, and state-sponsored hackers. Given our backgrounds, not an accident. See https://www.graphistry.com/careers , esp if you do fullstack JS for any of viz/UI/webgl/data.

But most of all: You, like many immigrants brave enough to go forward, sound youngish and skilled. Western countries will enable you and your family to rebuild and thrive.

Thanks, relayed to community!

has it become impossible to work remotely from russia?

I assume you mean staying abroad while keeping working for the Russian company.

You need to understand the scale. Just today Yandex (one of the largest IT companies in Russia, think “Russian Google”) has announced[0] they are at risk of default. That’s 10 000 people, and Yandex is not the only large IT company.

Companies like EPAM also have plans to evacuate people, that’s north of 30k people in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia and it is not clear how many layoffs there will be.

0 — https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5240531

The whole Russian economy is going to collapse. Gazprom is down 87% in Europe since the Russian markets were open. That is a giant energy company with oil up huge.

The ruble took another massive hit again last night. Any Russian financial company is probably already wiped out.

I wouldn't be shocked if the market doesn't open next week, it is not reopening and everything is going to have to be nationalized.

We have never seen this before with a modern economy. In the 1929 market crash 25% of the US population were still farmers. Russia is 5% farmers. Most people are directly exposed to the fragility of the modern economy.

what about the other way around (living in russia working remotely)

People fear what happens next, those who can do their best to leave. We focus on it as it seems to be a major crisis.

But you are right, people who stay will need help as well.

Good luck getting paid. The banks are pretty much all under sanctions. There's no SWIFT transfers, so no deposits from abroad.

My first thought is, with the current sanctions, how would you pay the remote worker? I can't imagine any company right now thinking it's optimal to hire somebody residing in Russia.

Go back and fight for freedom. You fed Putin and his authoritarianism for years. While was good, you all enjoyed it. Now you leave Russia and after the War, regardless of Putin, regardless of how many people die in Ukraine, if the business are good again in Russia, you will come back home.. is that fair? I think it's not.

Fight Putin on the streets

I think Ukrainian IT need more help. People lost not only job, they lost homes, life, relatives and any future.

Nobody denies that, but I don't think it's an "either or" situation. Resources spent on helping the fleeing and dislocated people to organize, like networking and bootstrapping communities in foreign countries, wouldn't have necessary been spent on Ukrainian developers help. They are likely to benefit from this too.

I just dont think there is much goodwill with russia right now and righly so, i understand the population is not to blame but who else kept and elected the dictator, at some point you just have to say No and thats what is happening now on a global scale so russians will actually feel their governments actions. In sorry this hits you but enough is enough..

This is the first, and most important thing I learned from my grandfather.

He was at pearl harbor when it was bombed, he was in a submarine under Tokyo bay during the war, he was part of many battles in the pacific, and finally nearly killed in a collision and received the purple heart among other medals. He was then part of the occupation of Japan after the war.

What did he decide to teach me after all that?

That the Japanese people are/were good people that were fooled and otherwise coerced (forced) into the war by evil leaders. Much like Russia today.

I've carried this with me my whole life. And will continue to try to spread it around (compassion).

My grand-grand father was sent on a train to Siberia during WW2 after spending two years in a solitary confinement at Matrosskaya Tishina[0].

Every once in a while the train stopped, and each stop they asked random people to step forward. These people were executed in front of others. However, majority of passenger have arrived to the final destination (prison camp) alive.

Those who made it alive were never the same, they were broken, psychologically.

Their families too. My grand-grand mother hang herself shortly after his arrest. My grandmother was deeply traumatized for the rest of her life by that (she was a little girl who found her mother hanging from the chandelier).

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrosskaya_Tishina

I heard that corpses of dead prisoners were thrown from train windows between stations.

It was even in TV Series .. I forgot title but that moment I remember very clear.

It was shocking. Unbelievable!

The history of Stalin times in Soviet Union is trully horrific. It's worth knowing just to be aware what kind of hell can be arranged on a mass scale by an evil dictator. It should be taught in all schools across the world, along with the deeds of other XX century evil mega mass murders.

For learning more, I personally recommend starting with "Kolyma Tales" by Varlam Shalamov. Aside from the educational part, it's a great piece of literature.

Varlam Shalamov is a master of short form, although IDK how well his stories translated.

About educational part: it's a frequent misconception. "Kolyma Tales" are not autobiography, it's a fiction.

E.g. His depiction of thieves wars reads as documentary but it's not. There is not a single personage that has direct match in reality. For some: it looks like combination of several real persons, some has no real analogues. The same with events, chronology and geography.

To write a documentary was never the goal for Shalamov.

And keep in mind that it's a perception of Shalamov who always was a man of weak health.

Dostoevsky was in similar or even harsher conditions but he found the strength to see in criminals around him not only infernal bad.

If you suppose that Dostoevsky is not relevant: there are other authors with similar experience.I

For example: Ahto Levi, Estonian, Hitlerjugend on start of WWII, conscripted in SS near end, after war - criminal, repeat offender, member of nationalistic gang -he's one of thieves that Shalamov depicts.

His "Notes by Gray Wolf" shows both degradation to beast and then return to human.

Man, not to start political flame here, but you have no idea how many tricks they use to bend your mind and force you to fear authority.

We had no real election over the last 18 years, even the one on 2000 was fueled by fear and manipulated people to vote for a certain candidate. It was all downhill from there.

We had constitution revised in a major way twice just by popular vote, with all edits being made to keep people in power staying in power and destroying institutions.

You don't elect a dictator.

There is a huge Russian-speaking community in Ukraine. Most non-regional IT communities in Telegram have lots of Ukrainian people, many relocated back and forth between two countries in the past.

Long story short: this post has no aim to focus on helping only Russians, if you have resources to support any kind of IT relocation regardless of nationality, please step forward.

Ukrainian men are forbidden from leaving the country, so, when talking about relocation, you could at most only help the Ukrainian IT women.

i have a web3 startup and live in Tbilisi. We are looking for a few devs for a small project. if you know any who have landed here, please let me know.

TG/Whatsapp: +7 985 614-16-87

relayed <3

Bro, we put sanctions on you for a reason, not to help you after they hurt you.

It definitely hurts Russia if their most talented workers relocate out of the country

sure, but hes asking for remote work as well, for those staying in Moscow.

I think its very funny, him speaking about 2hours a day, like his in grave danger. He didnt mention anything about being presecuted.

I happen to know people stuck in Ukraine fearing for their life so please excuse me that I find it hard to emphatize with him. I would feel bad if he dint overstate how bad his situation is.

Maybe I was not 100% clear on that.

People who look for remote work need it to stay somewhere _outside_ of Russia and work remotely from there. Relocation is no easy feat, at least to do it quickly. Especially with half of the flights out of Russia being shut down.

This person is fleeing their home of decades, their family and friends, for the unknown with barely anything to start from the ground somewhere. Did you expect them to single-handedly take Putin down themselves? If they didn't vote for Putin, they have my utmost sympathy and I wish I could help. Anti-Putin Russians are also lesser victims in this war on Ukraine. Remember, protesting Putin and the war can now lead to 15 years in a Russian gulag.

"bro" we put sanctions on the gov not to hurt your everyday Ivan. Its not like they live in a democracy and russians can just do anything about their dictator gov.

The sanctions most definitely were, are, should and will be targeting much more than the government.

Unfortunately this is true - apathy or indifference with the leader forms partial complicity with the actions in Ukraine. Even if only 1%. The economic success of an individual contributes to the evil leader's actions by providing money and resources to the military as taxes (etc). It's sad but until a million people march on Putin and hang him from the yard arm to restore their beautiful nation and start restoration payments to Ukraine, the sanctions need to be very heavy and target the entire country as a whole. Sad situation.

I think this is an overly simple answer to a complex dynamic. If you invest time researching victimization, you will understand why victims are usually not in a position of power to decide their fate. Some even actively support the perpetrators — that’s not a sign of a real will, but a symptom of submission.

All this is achieved by perpetrator through fear and manipulation. There is a reason why societies keep ending in this kind of situation, and this reason is not a lack of will to “stop the abuse”.

Human mind has dozens of biases, those who exploit them and add physical abuse to the mix very often end up on top. In USSR this exploitation was made into an art, especially at earlier times (30s and 40s).

not sure this is realistic

million people get together? you need some kind of leadership. this mean u have someone u can aim your snipers at / throw KGB at to disappear into a gulag and never be seen again...

russia is not exactly usa where you are free to buy assault rifles in grocery store, or where you can buy even a small gun for that matter... its not like bunch of guys decide to storm Kremlin over the weekend and magically overthrow the gov

I mean it happened in russia in the past, but it was literally at a cost of several millions dead, not sure if this is the right solution

It is entirely realistic and has happened several times in modern history, at least a few in the last decade

Two examples of not "single leader" protests happened in 2013, in Brazil and Turkey

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Brazil

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

P.S.: I don't have an opinion regarding whether Russian people are "responsible" for staying in Russia and "fixing" their government, but I upvoted everyone answering to this part of the thread/topic in a civil manner. Not many other places I could witness a discussion like this that does not degrade into insults

I was talking in context of russia. of course protests happen everywhere sometimes they have a result sometimes not. but look at russia's history and how they deal with people who try to stir things up..

This is to hurt the Russian government and economy so that the leaders can reconsider their decisions. They live in an authoritarian regime, the citizens are negatively impacted as a side-effect of the decision of their leaders. Have some empathy, I'm sure a majority of Russia citizens are not ok with the war.

No, this is to affect the people. People without jobs or money have time and motivation to march to the capital to enact the needed policy changes to get the sanctions removed.

Tell me you have lived in a democratic society your entire life without telling me.

Honest question here:

Have you considered, as an able-bodied young man, doing the honorable thing and "cleaning up" your country?

Young American patriots did the same back in 1776. Maybe it’s time for your people and country to enter the modern era.

I'm going to link to a thread by a Belarusian today on twitter[0]. It sheds light on Belarus which is applicable to Russia.

Highly recommended read.

[0]: https://twitter.com/AlinaLeonovaSF/status/149945792856210227...

These two situations are literally not comparable at all. For one thing, England didn't have massive police and secret police force estabilised in its American colonies which could just immediately disappear any people who are starting to organize any kind of resistance. The Russian despots were always extremely good at snuffing out any internal resistance, that's how they stayed in power for centuries.

> England didn't have massive police and secret police force estabilised in its American colonies which could just immediately disappear any people who are starting to organize any kind of resistance

It didn't, because the colonist didn't let it happen.

Democracy and freedom aren’t privilege, they are rights earned with blood.

The capabilities of the modern Russian state to control and inflict harm and terror upon its people far outweigh the capabilities of the 18th Century British Empire in regards to its American colonies.

The modern idea of a police force didn't even exist at the time.

I’ll leave this one for the audience.

The problem is that over 50% of Russian people stand behind Putin. They get their news and political views from watching state-run TV.

Surely his approval ratings must have taken a massive hit?

The OMON, military and state media will also loose their life savings and suffer under the war and sanctions.

There's just so much protests they can handle and with more and more people with nothing left to loose, the momentum can quickly overwhelm them.

It's not gonna be easy but you're running out of options. Best of luck if you choose to fight.