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Comment by hutzlibu | Hacker News Reader

I still do not see the logic of punishing people who left russia - as they obviously do not support the war.

If they stay and get drafted to fight in the war for real, how does this help?

And sure, they could try to organize revolts - but would you? That is extremly dangerous and a million times easier said than done.

Fleeing the country is a strong peaceful revolt on the other hand. Helping those people will mean helping an opposition that one day maybe wants to go back to russia to build up alternative structures.

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You’re right. I like to think that I’d stay and fight / protest if I was single. But as a father with young kids, I’d be getting the hell out of dodge; and I’d hope to find a safe place of refuge. The rest of us need to be supportive of refugees from both countries.

> I still do not see the logic of punishing people who left russia - as they obviously do not support the war.

Just an idea: perhaps it's easier to circumvent sanctions if you can move abroad in order to make money transfers. You could also make money transfers for your family and friends while you're there. Or even create some kind of a business, where you're a middleman. Perhaps the sanctions can be improved in a way to not hurt people leaving russia, but obviously as it increases complexity, it also requires more time to prepare.

Still, a russian may make money abroad and then return to russia with the money. So "improving" those sanctions would effectively decrease them.

>Fleeing the country is a strong peaceful revolt on the other hand

No, it just ensures that the only people left in Russia are the ones who support Putin.

And like I said, Ukrainians have no choice. Why should Russians? As another poster said, even autocracies need a certain level of support to operate. It's not fair to punish Russians but their country is literally waging a full scale war while threatening the west with nukes. They can stop it.

Or we can all wait until Kyiv looks like Grozny, millions have died and we're sacrificing the Baltic states to "prevent nuclear war"...

Right, if you were in power people fleeing over the berlin wall would have been shot from both sides, not just by the soviets. Cause they should have stayed inside and overthrown the soviet government. Same goes for north koreans, shoot them and send them back, let them fight the government.

The Soviet Union was ended from within... Thanks for proving my point.

And the people who wanted to flee, played their part in it. It is bad for the morale, if you have to shoot your people for wanting to leave. And they did get shot - but not from the other side, too. They were welcomed once they made it. And still it worked.

The only reason it didn't fall sooner is because you didn't shoot enough fleeing refugees. Got it.

^ the above is a nice example of a strawman[1]. Obviously putting sanctions on citizens of an invading country is very far from shooting them, and yet asats decided to portray his debater as a leader who would murder other people, because perhaps it's too exhausting for him to have an actual, substantive conversation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

The argument was not about the imposition of sanctions on the citizens but about punishing the mostly anti-government people that are currently fleeing the country.

Also my debater accepted the argument and wrapped himself in that straw.

Every Russian who leaves is a Russian who won't get conscripted, who will pay no more taxes to Putin. They know what's going on on the inside and can share with the rest of us so we can make informed decisions. And aside from all of that, they no longer have to fear for their lives if they oppose the regime.

From both a humanitarian and a strategic perspective, embracing Russian defectors is the very most important thing that we can be doing right now that we aren't already doing. The only reason not to do so is hate.

> From both a humanitarian and a strategic perspective, embracing Russian defectors is the very most important thing that we can be doing right now that we aren't already doing. The only reason not to do so is hate.

No, the most humanitarian thing to do is end a war in which civilians are actually being killed.

Not embracing those who supported Putin get to this point but suddenly flee when they're personally inconvenienced.

How does persecuting Russians who flee Putin's regime help end the war sooner?

To make it fair why not have them renounce citizenship and publicly disavow Putin or something? State their full name, former address, etc. Just to make sure they don’t support Putin and never have.

I think many would, if they can find a state who gives them papers instead. Being stateless is no fun.

Yea I can't imagine. The whole situation is just shit and it is all because of one guy.

My wild hope for this situation is that somehow Putin and his gang are ousted, and we can Marshall Plan Russia into a successful, prosperous European democracy. Even make them a partner with NATO like we tried to do before. Admittedly the Russian people would have to want that, so that's a precondition, but I'm hopeful.

> it is all because of one guy.

It's not. There's many ways in which you can get in contact with russians. And many of them actually support putin.

Yes, you can say people are indoctrinated. But maybe so is putin - that's the problem with determinism.

hitler was not one guy. putin is not one guy.

I'm against lifting sanctions when putin dies. Much more has to be done.

Yea you’re right.

North Korea imprisons friends and family of their defectors, btw.

Yep. And to take this further this would be like someone strongly supporting the North Korean regime and then when they faced the consequences of their actions just skipped down to South Korea and lived happily ever after while millions have suffered for the regime you actively supported. Sorry no sympathy.

Putin is persecuting them. I just said we shouldn't embrace. There's a lot of middle ground.

Ask someone like Alexei Navalny or Mikhail Khodorkovsky why they stayed to fight and be jailed instead of fleeing. Fleeing doesn't help.

Russia hasn't been conquered since the most recent Russian Empire was formed. But regimes have fallen from within...

Stayed?

Khodorkovsky hasn't stayed after he got out.

And Navalny overplayed his hand. It appears he really thought it was about him, not the movement he had created, otherwise he'd have had his wife run for office, which is what wives of those arrested in Belarus did.

Wrong question. If Russians have a choice, why not Ukrainians?

People who don't wont to fight are bad as soldiers so why force them?

> Wrong question. If Russians have a choice, why not Ukrainians?

Ask the Russians who are bombing them and preventing them from leaving. Russia has already broken the cease-fire meant to evacuate civilians.

Or ask the Russians who started the war. Ask the Russians carrying out their leadership's orders.

Russians are the ones taking away Ukrainians' choices.

Their government prevents them leaving too if they are male.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/02/25/russia-i...

And that people on the outside are helpful was proven in World War II were many germans fled.

> And that people on the outside are helpful was proven in World War II were many germans fled.

Ah yes so effective. Only 40 million killed.

So you would have been in favor of punishing german jews (like Einstein) for leaving nazi germany?

They were german citiciens after all, so they were all 100% responsible for the war and holocaust?

It is a complex world and oversimplifying solutions rarely help.

> Russia has already broken the cease-fire meant to evacuate civilians.

Russians are claiming the contrary.

https://tass.com/society/1417395

Of course they are. It's the Ukrainian Nazi-Jews killing civilians, not the people who invaded their country and are currently levelling it...

The ukranian army benefits from the human shield. The russian don't since they can't attack without causing civilian deaths (and the associated backlash).

But I guess you believe the Russians are eating civilians alive if they can.

You're repeating Russian propaganda that is straight from the German Nazi playbook. "If you don't defend your cities we wouldn't have to kill your civilians there."

>the Russians are eating civilians alive if they can

the Russians are indiscriminately bombing Ukrainian residential areas, including using prohibited cluster and vacuum munitions.

When it comes to eating, the Russians are marauding stores for food and alcohol as Russian military supply is broken and stolen in typical Russian fashion.

I don't know what nazi propaganda was. The narrative of the russian officials is like the ukranian army places its heavy units in residential areas which makes them difficult to attack without causing collateral damage.

Cluster likely, vacuum unlikely. They are not covered by geneva convention and I don't think Russia signed no-use treaties for them (it doesn't make these munitions less horrible).

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-oldvideo-notrussia...

>I don't know what nazi propaganda was.

without knowing of a minimum of related history, you're still feeling like you cam meaningfully comment.

>The narrative of the russian officials is like the ukranian army places its heavy units in residential areas which makes them difficult to attack without causing collateral damage.

You feel necessary to repeat Russian propaganda again. According to that Russia propaganda the Soviet defenders of Stalingrad are guilty of Stalingrad destruction not German Nazi.

Anyway, if Ukrainians are hiding heavy units in residential areas when why all this tremendous amount of videos of the widespread residential destruction by Russian bombings contain no Ukrainian weaponry? Showing destroyed Ukrainian tank which was hidden in the children sandbox would be a great propaganda scoop for Russians, yet somehow they still haven't managed to show anything like this.

On the other side there is huge number of Russian tanks, armor carriers burnt on the city streets. Why those Russians were in the city? It is very reasonable to suspect that in those cases the Russians have been using the cities as human shield. Tons of videos like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-pBMdUWhws , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge07_whd1v0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khPbavvcP38

>Cluster likely, vacuum unlikely.

again, you either repeat propaganda or more likely talking what you don't know about.

Cluster - the "spines" of the Uragan and "Smerch" cluster missile in the attacked areas is a clear evidence, like here for example https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1497205591814684678?s=...

Vacuum - in the linked video the explosion is pretty characteristic of vacuum munition https://www.youtube.com/shorts/H6Hj5VoZN_k . And there is a number or reports of Russian TOS-1 "Buratino" - vacuum munition missile launcher, and that weapon "shines", ie. extremely damaging in cities, not open field.

The guy you are responding to posts nothing but pro-russian propaganda.

"No, it just ensures that the only people left in Russia are the ones who support Putin."

It does not, as only a very tiny fraction of those who want to get out, can actually get out. And some choose to stay because of family, buisness, whatever.

But those who left will be the reminder of the status quo for everyone - especially if it was the well educated who left.

"And like I said, Ukrainians have no choice."

But this is the choice of the ukrainian government. I am against mandatory conscripting and would not accept to be force drafted myself. And I would not want to fight next to people who might flee any second.

"They can stop it."

And have you stopped the iraq war? Or closed guantanamo? Or stopped the war in yemen?

Why not? Or are you in support of them?

Russia declared a cease-fire to evacuate civilians but has already broken it.

> And have you stopped the iraq war? Or closed guantanamo? Or stopped the war in yemen?

I'm not American. Ask a yank.

> But this is the choice of the ukrainian government. I am against mandatory conscripting and would not accept to be force drafted myself. And I would not want to fight next to people who might flee any second.

Ask a woman who's been raped why she wore a short skirt... You should be asking why Russia is killing civilians, not why Ukrainians are defending them.

So which state are you from? I know only of a very few, with their hands mostly clean.

But you get the point, that your possibilities as an individual (with maybe responsibilities for a family) are quite limited to stop the actions of a whole state?

And like I said, leaving the state is very effective protesting. No more state support anymore from that person, but one more who had enough. That gives the remaining something to think.

> Russia declared a cease-fire to evacuate civilians but has already broken it.

Any support this is actually the case besides "the ukranian officials said ... "?

https://tass.com/society/1417395

The Nazis were stopped from outside and the USSR by people from it's government because of it's economic downfall.

> The Nazis were stopped from outside

Yes, after killing 30 million+ people. It would have been much easier if Germans didn't enable them or someone took out Hitler in 1938.

And we punished Germany for generations because of it. The US still has military bases there to this day.

Germany has been fully sovereign since 1991; they can ask the US troops to leave whenever they want to. The existence of US basis there now can hardly be considered “punishment”.

Ah well, we do have quite some Reichsbürger (think QAnon people) who indeed say, germany is still occupied.

But after Trump made the actual decision to pull out all US troops, there was rather lots of whining, because the military bases are important for the local economies ..

I looked it up and the ratio of German soldiers to US soldiers is about 2:1 in Germany. Pretty remarkable when you think about. They are kind of outsourcing their military to the US. And that's a choice the Germans made, and are starting to reverse.

> And we punished Germany for generations because of it.

Poland, who fought Germany with the biggest % casualties, ended up in a much worse state than Germany, because of russian occupation in the form of communism (Germany had a healthy part to take over after USSR collapsed) and no participation in the marshal plan.

So I have doubts if we can speak about Germany being punished for generations.

Hold on. US industrialists (so called fascists) enabled Hitler. Without them he would have never won any election and started all those wars and purges.

but do we all agree that the World history would be different if the ordinary german people would oppose the concentration camps and genocide? The ordinary russian people are IMO in the same position right now.

They. Have. To stop. Putin!

So you would have been in favor of punishing german jews like Einstein, for getting out and not staying to change the system from within?

If he was supportive to Adolf H. until the point that it wasn't comfortable for him anymore? Absolutely, but that was never the case. I have/had a lot of friends in the IT industry from Russia. You absolutely couldn't engage in any political discussion without them exercise their whataboutism.

We live in beautiful times. We can ask everyone, e.g. the OP, if he can give some links to his opinions here on HN or on twitter or elsewhere - where he criticized russian government for attacking Ukraine. Surely some russians did it, but most sadly didn't.

Exactly. They had a lot of chance to do it, while the Putin monster wasn't as powerful as today.

Examples:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissenters%27_March

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_Riot

Warning: I do not support this war in any way. Or Putin, or his propoganda and cronies. And I also supported opposition in Russia financially as much as I could afford. And I publicly codemned this war.

Yet here is the problem: western countries allowed Putins regime to exist and grow in it's power for 15+ years and no one cared until this terrible war started. But before there been a lot of other events.

No one gave a damn when Putins olygarchs got rich and moved hundreds of billions of dollars out of Russia. They owned tons of real estate abroad, their children study abroad and most of their families moved to live abroad.

Around 2012 mass protests in Russia was supressed and a lot of people landed in prison. Some opposition leaders were killed.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine and annexied Crimea. Again there been little resistence from EU and US who supposedly have to guarantee sovereignty to Ukraine after this country gave up nuclear weapons.

When Navalny was poisoned and then imprisoned. Again no one really cared.

> Around 2012 mass protests in Russia was supressed and a lot of people landed in prison. Some opposition leaders were killed.

"Maximum penalties were fines of several thousand rubles or imposed labor of up to 200 hours" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932013_Russian_prot...

That's how it works, but can he incarcerate millions of people?

We have good examples of non-violent protests that won against such regimes:

We did in GDR. We went to te streets. The machine guns were mounted on the top of every single train station. We went to the streets anyway. Not with stones, but candle lights.

We have examples as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otpor#Strategy_and_tactics

We have literature about it https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/...

We have as well examples of violent protests through the History that worked (I don't support it, but we cannot deny their efficiency) https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-violent-protests-...

Could they incarcerate millions of people? Nope, but even in Belarus it was possible to incarcerate tens of thousands of people. Half a million people on street couldn't win against 20,000 of people with guns.

Main problem that in Russia people who live in Moscow are too well-fed and their standards of living are too high to go and protest with a risk to lose everything. And protests outside of capital mean very little since distances are too big. No one gonna notice if 1000 people in small russian city will land in prison.

Again I wish that people in Russia were as brave as those in ukrainians protecting their home, but I personally is not the one of brave ones. I wish I could do more to prevent this. Sorry.

Is fleeing make me a bad person now? Nope, I dont think so.

> Is fleeing make me a bad person now? Nope, I don't think so.

For sure not. You do what you have to do. But it is important for us to reflect about it. Who is able to do more damage to Putin without any risk of a new nuclear war? The russian people.

I totally agree with you on this point, but unfortunately it's will take months or even years of economic crysis before reasonable amount of people in Russia understand this. Little too late for Ukraine or Russia itself.

> That's how it works, but can he incarcerate millions of people?

Don't underestimate Russian capabilities when it comes to punishing regular people - 18millions went through gulag system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

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