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> any men will take a beautiful woman for sex, but providing for her long term is another thing

Looks like you never dated a Russian woman. Beware! You may end up totally dominated and providing her long term :).

Jokes aside, poverty combined with increased materialism and class division was indeed a big problem in Eastern Europe after the fall of USSR. Lots of women simply wanted "something better", which is to be translated that they valued money a lot more than true love. Social values were turned upside down. Thieves and crooks became the new social reference for success. You could no longer impress a girl with just a smile and a guitar. It was somewhat normal to prove your masculinity by fighting on the street or spending lots of money in a stupid way. Police rarely bothered, unless someone "important" person was involved. Crime proliferated to unbelievable levels. People were stealing things like tires, fuel and windshield wipers. At some point I had to lock the battery of my soviet car with a padlock (battery costed nearly half of monthly income and for some people over here it still does). Oligarchs were born out of criminal activity and questionable privatization of government property, such as factories and land. Later it turned down most of oligarchs had connections to the ex-secret service ranks. Some of them were loyal to the US, others to Russia. Most medium to large business is still controlled by such people or their offspring. Foreign investment often needed their blessing. It is a long story indeed, but I feel that after more than 30 year of "transition" to the new form of rule, people are slowly returning to some of their previous values, such as family, friends and other non-material things.

Maybe you got down-voted by pissed-off Russian men, but your prediction regarding what will happen in the Russian society is spot on. The problem with the alcoholism and prostitution over there has already been pretty bad, but now it will of course get much much worse.

Unfortunately, so far in history Russia has only been a one huge long tragedy. Navalny gave a speech at his kangaroo trial that his wish is that Russia be happy. Maybe some day they might eventually figure out how to make that happen. But maybe not. 50 / 50 chance perhaps. But the next best thing would be that Russia does not spread tragedy to all other countries with radioactive fallout, and also no way to say for sure if that might happen or not, but does look likely.

He's getting downvoted for the retrograde gender attitude. Even if he's making a valid point, casually using language like "men protecting their women" and "any man will..." makes me roll my eyes and reach for the downvote before I even realize what's happening.

It's nice that there are terms for any combination of words out there. But to get to the real point it's necessary to cut through the bs (reduce semantic complexity) and just say it like it is.

Yes, men protect their women and children during wars. Sounds raw and simple, but that is the truth. I advice you to think about it.

OP wrote, "any men", not "any man", which is grammatically incorrect, so I assume it's a typo of "many men" which is not definite, and is a reasonable assumption in my opinion.

Context is very important here. Saying that in NYC or Paris, sure that’s ridiculous. In Russia? That would not surprise me. Our ideals of society should not prevent us from seeing a current reality.

I am somewhat familiar with Russian history and it really has been pretty terrible for the Russian commoner in the last 500 years. And the Russian elite prefers drinking champagne in France and shopping in Milan to improving their own nation.

Yes, I do feel sad for the Russian population. From the start of the invasion, I knew how much collateral damage Russia would take and that the damage done would last for decades. But then, the country of Russia is invading and destroying Ukraine right now. Just because no one bombs Russia, you cannot assume there are not damages to the country. The obvious way out would be massive public resistance to end this quickly.

Also, this should be a warning to any people who currently feel the temptation to elect a government which is basically fighting democracy. The effect in Russia is obvious, but it isn't as if there aren't such tendencies in other countries. Just watch which political parties try to discredit free media and you have a good first indicator.

> but what's happening in Russia as a result of sanctions is quite tragic in itself.

No, it's not. Your actions have consequences. Russia has been attacking neighboring countries and taking parts of their territories.

Moldova 1992.

Chechnya 2000-2009.

Georgia in 1992 and 2008.

Ukraine in 2014.

They are using the standard scheme of "oh, this part of your country decided to become independent, we will flood it with our troops and defend them, and then install russian puppets to rule over it".

Enough is enough. Russia needs to understand that this will not fly. You lose your job? Cry me a river. Look what you did to Ukrainian cities.

(i'm a russian immigrant to the US)

We have no idea what the higher order effects of this will be.

There is an article in the Atlantic how this could cause a depression in Tajikistan.

This couldn't possibly be at a more fragile global economic time either after 2 years of COVID.

The economic damage of this is not going to be isolated to Russia. We have practically injected the global economy with an unknown economic poison and we have no idea what it is going to do or how far it will spread.

You know. Just because Putin doesn’t call it a war, it is a war. West is fighting with a different kind of attacks.

Also, you probably never dated an Eastern woman, they are not weak at all :)

Only false information will get you a fine or a criminal conviction. If you report facts backed by hard evidence you'd be safe. To get 15 years you'd need to create some fakes on purpose that led to for example mass casualties at the war zone.

That's not how it works in Russia. Say, you film Russian soldiers shooting Ukrainian civilians. Plenty of videos of that. You post it on Youtube with an accurate description. The Ministry of Truth calls their henchmen to bring you to face the court. They ask you - what is this? You tell them - I filmed it myself, it's all true. OK, but can you prove it's Russian soldiers and not Ukrainian dressed as Russian? You: ... Them: OK, enjoy your 15 years.

You can't prove anything based on physical evidence if you dig deep enough. Anything can have an alternative explanation, however unlikely. Aliens, quantum fluctuations, you name it.

a lot of business will be bought up by Chinese for pennies.

I feel exactly the same way and while #IStandForUkraine, my pessimistic side of me thinks that pushing Russia to extreme isolation is not going to have the expected result in the long run neither. This is an absolute tragedy.