Open Letter to Visa and Mastercard from IT Specialists Fleeing Russia | Hacker News Reader

Open Letter to Visa and Mastercard from IT Specialists Fleeing Russia

83 pointssmugglerFlynn138 comments

Alex here speaking from the Russian IT community (40k+ people). Please read our message.

Switching off Visa and Mastercard transactions abroad will lock thousands of IT specialists within the regime. These people are now trying to flee the country.

We wrote about the situation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30552091

Over the past two days we had 300+ resumes submitted[0], connecting these people with more than 30 organizations from Europe, US, Canada, India, Turkey, UAE and other countries to help them urgently relocate. Many of those looking for reloc are Ukrainian people by nationality who happen to live in Russia.

Lot of these people rely on scarce savings which they still have on their bank cards, as many were fired from their jobs over the past week. Getting cash is practically impossible right now, even in Moscow.

These people won’t be able to purchase tickets to get out. Those who already flew away won’t be able to finance themselves, as many still rely on Russian sources of income and try to work remotely while looking for another job.

Me and other community admins practically beg you, from all of our IT communities, to reconsider the decision, or give us more time.

Signed,

oleg@hey.com (admin of 36k members IT community) the.noble.activity@gmail.com (admin of 1k member IT community) @zzzybkin (admin of 7k member IT community) sasha.milenkin@yandex.ru (admin of 1.3k member IT community) crimes@hey.com (admin of 3k member IT community)

0 - all resumes to date are published here https://t.me/joinchat/AAAAAE3nUawZ4YX6AtDCFg

You can help by posting in the comments type of help, or relaying above information and our contacts to your local recruiters and hiring managers.

View on HN

Gathering 15 comments within 15 minutes is very rare on Hackernews. 12 of the 15 comments are from accounts created today. Have people from the mentioned IT communities been asked to come to this page and to create accounts?

I think there were a link to this post posted in one of the community channels, and some people that didn’t have an account just decided to create one to show their support

@dang and other mods

We have asked people in our telegram channels and communities to share their experience in the comments. I know this breaks the rules. I hope at war time this would be acceptable, given the cause.

Posting all this is a huge risk for us.

All these stories which people post here are real. We are not Putin to bullshit people with lies or manipulate people to vote for things they don’t believe in — much less than 1% of people in Russia know that hacker news exists.

We gain $0 from this activity. I fact, me and a couple of close friends worked 24/7 over the last two days to help as many people as we can to connect with 30+ recruiters and hiring managers.

One of the problems is that it's very difficult to explain to people that does not use HN what is a good comment in HN. In particular, many of the comments are to short, and that doubles the negative effect on the community.

I suggest that the new users that still can edit their comments to write a longer and more personal version. If they can not edit, just self-reply to their own comment and add three or four paragraphs. (Front end or back end? Emacs or Vi? Preferred language? City??? Age range???)

I understand that some may not like to share too many personal details, so I added a few question marks. But if the idea is to show that there are real persons suffering on both side, some personal stories are better than "It seems to be true". I also understand that many may not write English too well, I'm a native Spanish speaker and I make a lot of orthographical and gramatical mistakes here.

Also, avoid cut and pasting the same "personal" story many times, it will cause an even worse effect.

The idea is not foolproof:

* It is possible that dang does not like this longer versions neither and still decide to ban all the new accounts.

* It is possible that someone will acuse you of being a gpt-3 bot, and adding orthographical errors on purpose, or even nastier things.

* I don't expect the community to be super happy with the green account after the expanded comments, just less unhappy.

I think all of these are valid points.

If half of our lives were not criminalized over the past few days by new laws, if 12+ free speech media orgs were not shut down in just three days, if my friends were not hiding from the bombs in Kiev, if our chances to flee the regime were not cut down drastically by political decisions, I would follow these by the book.

Regarding bots and copy paste — feel free to join our Telegram and conduct select Turing tests on people who post their resumes. Maybe that will prove you we are not a bunch of bots, but people in extreme danger who fear for their lives and their families.

Just to be super clear, I don't think that you or the green accounts are bots or shills or whatever.

Yes, is anything wrong with that? People related to tech startup world want to be heard and thats good motivation to come here and support the thread (as did I)

It's true. It scares me.

I urgently left Russia with almost no cash; this morning, after reading the news from Mastercard, I miraculously managed to withdraw about 3k, but I don't know how to adjust my life in the future yet

To get a job, I need more documents than I managed to take with me, so for now the only source of income remains in Russia, but how to use it is a huge problem (not to mention the exchange rate due to which my salary decreases every day)

You are IT guy, You'll get a job just fine, don't worry.

If you are qualified, at least.

Russian here. Foreign HNers, please, realize that our country is essentially occupied too, and being a protester is equal to being an enemy to the government. We tried to protest, 10 years we were protesting - and it has only helped the government and sent many people in prison. UN had good reasons to establish the basic rights for life and freedom - so please, respect our rights.

Rubbish, your country is not occupied. People who rule your country are your people, supported by majority of the population, even if brainwashed

You should know that people who run the country were practically appointed there with no independent vote, use fearmongering and violence to stay in power for 20+ years, and rewrote our constitution three times by rigged popular voting.

Are there any examples in the modern world's history when dictatorship has been changed without an access to the mass media? Belarus tried but you can dive deeper to the results of the protests - especially pay attention to the pictures taken in prisons. I know, we all want to stop the war in Ukraine but it's not possible for now without starting a civil war in Russia itself.

You must live in functioning democracy? Sadly, that’s not like that everywhere. Not living in Russia but I know very well how it feels when your country is ruled by a dictator with no free media. And these authoritharian governments don’t relly just on media, they also put pressure though employment, business, police, arrests, beatings, and every other instrument available. It can feel like occupation.

Thanks! There is a reason why fleeing the country was common even before this war. My friends describe the feeling as a “stone slab hanging above your head 24/7”.

This. The citizens deserve the government they've got. They had years and years to protest, but sharting the moment their balls are pinched.

And then you decide to punish people who trying to help you right now? That's f"{awesome}"

Help yourself, do something to stop your dictator. 140 millions of slaves.

>citizens deserve the government they've got

We protested for years in the USA, and that didn't shut down Gitmo, or keep us from going into Iraq.

I haven't ever voted FOR a presidential candidate, only against a worse choice. How do I deserve that?

Life isn't simple. Governments can be captured by Oligarchs and Autocrats. The will of the people largely goes ignored.

> The citizens deserve the government they've got

Why?

> They had years and years to protest

And russians have been massively protesting since 2011. I, personally, protested a year ago and got caught (I was too young for earlier ones). Now I either stay and protest and end up in prison, or flee. And FYI prisons in Russia are terrifying.

Sorry but I want a normal life.

Ask your putin to respect your rights.

If you are occupied then stand up for defense. Stop whining and trying to escape.

American here.

I deeply regret that you have been caught up in this stupid war, but I simply don't know what else to do. The person who represents your country has decided to launch a brazen and unprovoked attack on an independent, sovereign democracy. The rest of the world cannot roll over and let him do it, lest he try to conquer even more land in the future. We have to make him feel as much pain as we safely can.

The Russian people are the source of Putin's power. They comprise his army, control his oil wells, and choose to follow his laws. I realize that on an individual level, you may not have the practical ability to defy Putin, but you are still collectively enabling his actions. And while that's absolutely not your fault, I don't see a way to punish Putin without also punishing the population that enables him.

I do wish that my country was more open to refugees; I am sorry and embarrassed that so many Americans hold racist views towards immigrants. But I'm not sorry for anything else.

Look, there's a lot of people like me, who just want to move out to some normal country, get a job and be good citizens. But we must move fast, because there's a chance that iron curtain closes any time and we're trapped here for ages. Cutting off the transactions leaves us one option: to get a new job and a working visa in a few days. But it never happens in a few days. Please give us time to move and keep our current jobs for some time.

Many of us have people who rely upon us: parents, friends, charities and funds. We need our bank cards working to be able to help them. I cannot just donate to my local homeless shelter from a foreign card because — surprise — it will make the shelter a "foreign agent" effectively closing it. And I'll need to send money to my mom because — surprise again — her pension from the government is just about $110/month (11600₽ IIRC). How can I relocate and not abandon people that I care about? With this thing going on, I've got no idea.

as you read this full blown disconnect form the Internet is being signed off — check other threads here on hn

I’m going to suggest something a little wild. Russia has way too much border to protect. What happens if you take a car, and head to another country.

I don’t know what the fuck to say, the west have to change policy:

10,218 people from Russia have fled in 2020 and applied for asylum in other countries. This corresponds to approximately 0.007% of all residents. The most destination countries hereof have been the United States, France and Germany. Overall, 83 percent of the asylum applications have been rejected. The most successful have been the refugees in Portugal and in Mexico.

If the Russian people are under a police state, why aren’t we granting these people political asylum, no questions asked?

It truly scares me how an entire nation of developers just became cut off of the IT community as well as the rest of the world just because they happen to born at the same place as one crazy dictator.

What scares me more is that we seem to have this dictatorship thing going for hundred of years already :-/

This is ridiculous action from visa and mastercard. Goverment make taking more than 10k $ cash abroad illegal and another strike come from payment systems.

Whats the plan, do they want to trap most talented and qualified specialists from Russia here? And cut off any oppotunity for us to make world better in tech companies across the world? This make relocation extremely hard!

Corporations’ actions are very questionable. No one inside Russia will notice the effect, only those who relocates.

This already provoked mass cash withdrawal by people in Georgia and Armenia. No one benefit from this

If I were them I'd be up on IRC buying crypto at a premium. And that appears to be happening.

Yes, thats what people doing in Turkey for example. In the end of the day it just adds a layer of complexities for those who relocate and does zero pressure on goverment, as the majority of population who stays will not notice anything

Hi, I'm developer of True Mafia (the largest Telegram game bot).

My project helps to entertain more than 20,000 Ukrainian children right now, while they are in bomb shelters. If the bot become stopped, they will cause inconvenience to parents during this difficult time. The civilian population needs support, and I help with this at my own expense.

But now I have a problem. Can't pay rent to my European servers even with my own money. So servers will be turned off and deleted soon...

I just wanna tell that payment restrictions work against Ukrainian people. Please, help to stop it.

How do you think, would I be able to pay for my hosting, if central office of my bank would be bombed?

And the value of that chat-bot is questionable, by the way :D. You just trying to plea for morality that you are helping children. By the way, bot has lots of ads.

And children in bomb shelter can play Mafia IRL, not using cell phones. (if there are more than 5 participants).

Not convincing.

I know it looks like a bad joke, but people really need an entertainment, even if the war is going. I'm not asking you to pay severs. I'm asking to make ability to spent my own money on it.

Are 3-4 advertising message per month - a "Lots of ads"? Seems you're not so familiar with the project.

Just go to the streets, stop your bloody dictator killing those children.

Bro, it’s a police state. Putin has people beaten and jailed for years.

Ukrainians defend their country, why Russians can't? Why Ukrainians dying while Russians afraid of spending night at police?

A nighgt? Lmao. You easaly get tortured and then get a 10 year sentence here for that stuff. People from 2011 protests are still in jail

Thats a funny argument, I didn’t see much germans succeeding in protesting against their bloody dictator in 1939.

Protests work if and only if the goverment is willing to allow them to happen and listen the croud.

Thats not the case in police and militarised state

Ok. I admit that perhaps there is not so much ads. But they present. So I guess it can pay for it's own servers. You told you are paying for it from your own expenses.

I urge you guys to start buying bitcoin and looking to replace all your services with platforms that accept bitcoin. You can get a VPS provider with bitcoin payments.

The whole situation sucks, but developers are resourceful and for all the bitcoin hate, here is literally the golden opportunity to use the damn thing. Use it. Binance didn’t even block Russian purchases just for this very reason.

fully support the blockage of these cards. Coming here and whining cause your comfortable life is ruined? Tell this to families in Irpin, which got bombed when evacuating. You have a chance to protest and shout your position yet you choose to turn your face from the problem and leave all alone with it`s problems. So why someone should sympathise you again?

No, we don’t have a chance to protest. It’s simply not how it works here. People in Europe have a chance to protest, people in USA have a chance to protest, but not the people in Russia. We don’t. When you protest in Russia you just get jailed the very same day and that’s it.

Early last century Lenin and friends were also getting jailed, yet they kept protesting and at the end took the power. If they could do it so can you.

Sure, but even then you never know in advance if you are part of the Lenin-equivalent or Martov-equivalent faction in that scenario; revolutionary victories can be quite Pyrhhic.

Lenin didn’t know if he would win, I’m pretty sure he knew the risk. In Russia today life is too comfortable to protest and people feel they have too much to lose. Until this changes nothing will change in Russia. That’s exactly the point of sanctions.

Protests never work under a dictatorship. See the Belarus experience and how much people was protesting. I believe that fleeing of IT guys will hurt Russian's economic more than being tortured in the jail.

Any possibilities of protest in Russia are suppressed. Putin has been doing this for decades. We don't have that much support. Visa/MS blocking affects ~1% of the population who want to flee.

And why it is not an Open Letter to putin to stop a bloodshed in Ukraine? That is what you should do.

Well, there was an Open Letter on change.org which was signed by over 1M people, its author was shortly arrested. Also, there were more than dozens open letters from various communites (IT included, 33K signatures). The only impact those open letters had is that now there is a new law in Russia which prohibits (up to 3 years in prison) any public calls to stop Russian army from doing what its are doing. This new law can (and will, in individual cases) be interpreted as "signing the open letter == call to stop a XXX == law violation".

Russians are doing protest, signing petitions, writing letters. But saying anything against the war is criminalized, risks are really high. And this letters most likely will be ignored, as they were ignored in the past. People are trying to reach companies, that are more likely to hear them.

I do not know if you are talking about this in the news, but there are many such letters why do you think that we are silent? we simply do not have a chance to be heard, and you draw conclusions that everything is because of our tacit consent — it's actually not

https://zona.media/article/2022/02/27/vse (article in Russian about letters against the war to Putin)

from comedians (260+ people) https://meduza.io/news/2022/02/27/rossiyskie-komiki-napisali...

doctors (there is an English translation; 6k+) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rJPD7_klO3KDWzmd5RdJwpeH...

from IT (which was signed by 33,494 people) - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScEsxsoXl_7R4aD5F8-...

as well as teachers, architects, animators, musicians, and many others

biggest "open letter" (petition) https://www.change.org/netvoyne - has more than 1 million signs (not only from Russia, but it has). Peskov (Putin press secretary) reacted: "It's bullshit and sign cheating with bots"

You even can't use word "war" in massmedia - you'll be instantly blocked in russian internet and fined for 5 mln rubles (about $50k for now). If you want be approved massmedia you must use "special military operation" phrase. They even want to block whole Wikipedia because of this

4th March was signed new law - you can go to jail for 15 years if you participate in meetings against war, if you call war with word "war", if you posting some information against russian army.

Any money sended to Ukraine (even if you have relatives and want to somehow help them) are considered as betrayal of Russia and you could go to jail for years.

the open letter from IT guys was signed up in the first days of invasion by 30000 people from the field (by the time I signed it). Long before this thread.

But Mastercard and Visa block in Russia does not stop domestic purchases [1].

Are the IT companies not paying their domestic employees ?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/06/russians-vi...

Have Visa and MC already been shut off completely? Visa said it's working on shutting them off in the coming days, you should at least try to use your card to purchase a plane ticket out ASAP.

I will describe my personal case.

I still receive money from company based in Russia. This block was announced on the first day of three-day public holidays in Russia, when banks do not process corporate transactions.

Even if on Wednesday morning my company will arrange an advance payment, it won’t get to me in time to withdraw cash via ATM (Visa ban will become active on Wednesday night, and Mastercard has already stopped working for many people earlier today)

I don’t know if that was planned, or was just an unlucky coincidence, but there is no buffer to really do anything.

You cry because you can't get your money, I cry because my City is being shelled and I have to hide when I hear the siren.

We are on different levels.

And couple other Cities are half grounded.

We are on different levels, and it is not comparable at all. I have no idea what it means to hear the sirens.

But several of my close friends from Ukraine do, as they hide from the same exact bombs as you.

I cry because I have so little impact on this, I cannot stop the bombings, and the least I can do is help people flee for their lives. And this feels like so little, but that’s all I can do right now.

Putin's demands seem reasonable. he wants ethnic Russians in the east of the country to stop being terrorised and murdered and he wants to be assured NATO can't create a security threat for Russia in Ukraine. Is there much public support in Ukraine to end the invasion by agreeing to his terms?

NATO is creating a security threat? The countries from the Eastern Bloc have run towards NATO because they're afraid of Russia and potential annexation. The only security threat is in Putin's head.

I'm really scared to stay in Russia. Saying anything against the army has been criminalized recently. Police is torturing and beating up people on peaceful protests.

I work in IT, and many of our western partners are stopping our partnership. No new software, no new hardware from other countries. I can't see how my company will stay afloat and pay me.

So I want to flee the country, I can't right now and moving will be hard for me financially. Disabling my visa card will make this already unbearable task even harder.

In Ukraine, people are dying because of your silent agreements and constant whining. No one will wait for you anywhere, stop whining and run away from your country.

I do not want you to take the jobs of Ukrainian guys who will survive after this war. They will survive without home, some without family, some without legs or arms.

If this people have such problems, then they can go and protest against this banning, instead of asking to cancel such things.

And after that they just end up in jail and won’t be able to post anything anywhere anymore.

"These sanctions, including VISA and MasterCard block, endangered and condemned thousands if not tens and hundreds of thousands of people who have nothing to do with Putin's decision to invade Ukraine. Hell, it endangered 145 millions of people in Russia. Because these sanctions don't hurt Putin or his oligarch supporters but they hurt regular people, who are now facing simply the danger of default."

It is with the support of our citizens that the government invades other countries, so all citizens within the country are responsible. Unite against the Putin regime, we need go to the streets. Unfortunately, the collapse of the country is inevitable and only a change of government can change that. Sanctions will only increase until the withdrawal of our oil and gas.

Im totally support and really appreciate to admins about this activity! The most specialists are searching the ways to leave Russia (who really can move to other country). And this action (block all cards with your processing) is really block our lives... I don't know what will happened in next week, but I beg you too..

Also I dont know what we should do.. especially if our country's government doesnt support our point of view and doesnt want to hear a voice.

Your could check this petition from Russian IT what has been closed (bc of the newest laws) - https://www.facebook.com/100001799497723/posts/7286233221446...

People offering to "protest till you die" in Russia are so simple-minded, even when comparing "Revolution which russian people needs to do" with the series of revolutions at 2004, 2014 in Ukraine - ukrainian protests were receiving international support, had strong opposing political forces, and even support from russian oligarkhs such as Khodorkovsky, while their country wasn't even near comparable with Russia neither in terms of size, nor in time under pressure spent.

Russians now just receiving hate and restrictions from each possible side in a authoritarian (totalitarian already I beleive) country and they are still expected to do the same thing.

I'm russian DevOps who fleed from the country 2 years before that, but only for one reason - crazy Putin's regime. And I have many friends from IT, who now are running headlong from conscription into the troops which was declared, from closed borders, from police pressure and jail sentencing due to their political views.

Please, let them escape country, by disabling Russia issued cards outside of Russia you only turns them - people who already mostly opposite to dictatorship - into bums, and do nothing to Putin himself. Business, don't share falsey support please.

The point of the service denial is to agitate precisely this kind of reaction from the public with the desire that they revolt against Putin. Of course if they do, many will die or get locked up in a dark cell somewhere up but it will complicate things for Putin.

The other tactic the western powers have is to try and get as many Ukrainian civilians killed as possible for the propaganda effort. This is why they promote lobbing molotovs against tanks etc. Putin desires to kill as few civilians as possible as he can easily win the war. Winning the peace will be more difficult and they need to make it as difficult as possible.

They will desire revolt...abroad, against meaningless western "collective support" moves from huge businesses.

Don't go too deep here, it's only an advertising campaign and collective ostracism action, which can't be avoided by Enterprises without loss of reputation. So they often trying to do something, but almost nothing at the same time, minimizing own damage (but causing it to narrow categories of users).

> The other tactic the western powers have is to try and get as many Ukrainian civilians killed as possible for the propaganda effort.

Actually, I'm pretty sure Putin & his friends are the ones killing civilians, not the western powers.

I am a software engineer in Russia. My future wife is studying in France. We are both against what Russian government and army are doing.

I have less than 3000$ of savings and no ability to work remotely from other countries because I can't get my wage outside of Russia now. I can not leave without severe financial and logistical issues to even meet her again and I don't really have many places to go to. She can not return here, nor should she because it is dangerous, and she can not withdraw cash from her Russian bank accounts where most of her money is to support herself in France.

These sanctions, including VISA and MasterCard block, endangered and condemned thousands if not tens and hundreds of thousands of people who have nothing to do with Putin's decision to invade Ukraine. Hell, it endangered 145 millions of people in Russia. Because these sanctions don't hurt Putin or his oligarch supporters but they hurt regular people, who are now facing simply the danger of default.

I tried to pay with Mir Pay and it is just doesn't work. I live in Armenia and I don't know how to pay for anything. I don't know how to live without Visa or Mastercard

Thank you for the Letter!

I have created a petition to Visa and Mastercard to revert their decision. I will be glad if you help by signing and spreading it

https://chng.it/KjNsb7KdNj

The decision of Visa and Mastercard hits those trying to flee Russia because of political persecution and those whose relatives (often unable to escape due to illnesses) remain in Russia.

Please, sign and spread!

scary to stay in Russia.. it’s terrible.. if u disagree with government - be welcome to be beaten by police or/and proceed to jail..

guys, as a teenager I heard from my parents about the protests of 2011-2014 in Russia and they didn't change anything.

I was at the protests in 2017, 2018, 2021 in Russia and they didn't change anything.

today I decided to go to Germany to help my aunt, whose husband was not allowed to cross the border of Ukraine,

because this is the only action in my area of responsibility that can definitely change the world

On the other hand, protests of 1917 did change everything, so maybe people should keep trying.

The war is war, but Russians that will leave Russia now are the last wave of normal people there. Those who remain will suffer a lot.

We are locked in a financial trap or cage, isolated from the rest of the world. IT sector has the most open-minded and kind people.

Fully support!

Hopefully out of this, crypto will be more widely accepted by anyone wanting the russians expat bussiness.

Crypto won't work if they cut themselves from internet. It would be forked chain :D

i agree. cutting russia from visa and mc systems actually helps the russian government by making it easier to retain IT talent to build internal systems and close off the country with over 150m people from outside world, which is easy to control

This reflects fully how most of us feel right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il65k-wEP4s

Can you purchase Monero off of RU bitcoin exchanges with an internal RU credit card? That would be one way to liberate assets from the ruble if you're trying to get out.

I'm gonna leave Russia day after tomorrow, heading in Turkey and I just don't know how I supposed to pay for anything there with all my blocked cards:(

you're lucky you managed to get a ticket. try to get as much cash as possible..

Bitcoin? Gold? I don't know what the Turkish market is like.

some Turkey shops & markets accepts MIR cards, so you can try to issue instant one in your bank

I agree Situation gets worse and worse every day, more and more people wanna leave their country. Leave them some ways to do that

Sorry to break it to you, but regardless of your letters MasterCard and Visa won't return in the near future.

First of all, you don’t understand how sanctions work. That’s simple: 1. your country withdraw forces – sanctions are eased 2. your country restores Ukrainian integrity. Punish war criminals and pay reparations to cover Ukrainian losses – sanctions removed.

Sanctions are designed to force populace and politicians to realize what benefits of free world they lost.

I am sorry but I’m going to be bit emotional.

So basically you say to help IT specialists, but Visa/MC works same way for everyone. If you are IT specialist (and you have actual skills) you can find a Job abroad. You are also allowed to move $10k in cash abroad by new Russian law. That can be enough for start. And you can use Crypto for more. Binace is still operational. You can ask for an asylum in other country and then open account in local bank and use Visa/MC than. That’s not convenient and so on, but if you are dedicated to leave Russia you can! But you know who can’t? Male populace of Ukraine. They aren’t allowed to leave country.

Many IT professionals: Works from their basements, took arms in hands, help becoming volunteers(paying from own pockets). But you ask to make exceptions to Russian IT guys. And by the way IT is quite Wealthy in CIS countries, but you write “scarce savings” which is laughable.

Your people are responsible for your leader. But you want to have some ease-off for few days, but people of Ukraine don’t have those days. If you want to change it – remove Putin from charge.

Just force government to stop this madness and Visa/MC would be back (in a while, after Ukrainian losses are covered)

Purchasing two flight tickets out of Russia right now, using rubles that have now devalued 50%, will cost a monthly salary of a senior developer. Booking hotel for two weeks abroad will cost the same. Half of all the flights out were now shut down.

Those who are lucky to still keep their jobs (many people are not) — those are competing the clock as their chances to get out reduce every single minute. People who lost jobs and have no liquid money investments are totally f*d.

I closely know at least two people who have relatives in Ukrain and now have no resources to support them.

I have several close friends there, and I know that the only way I can support them, once chance presents itself, is from abroad. Because in Russia right now I would get 20 years of imprisonment for that according to recently accepted laws.

The West gave (and continues to give) Putin money in exchange for his oil and gas, which allowed him to arrange Georgia 2008, Crimea 2014 and completely destroy the opposition in Russia with this money. The West completely ignored all of this (when compared with the current sanctions). And now the West has decided that only the Russians are to blame for this, and it is Russians civilians alone who must fight Putin and his forces, created with the West money, even after the destruction of the opposition. But the West is completely innocent. OK.

Hi everyone. I understand the idea of blocking Visa/MasterCard in Russia for destroying economy and hurting Putin, and I kinda agree with it. The only problem — this sanction will also lock a lot of IT-people inside Russia, which is provide another chance for Russian economy (due to this people have upper median salary in Russia and they have massive influence on local market). Also this sanction will slow down the "brain leaking" from Russia, which is also can influence on stability of Putin regime.

In Ukraine, people are dying because of your silent agreements and constant whining. No one will wait for you anywhere, stop whining and run away from your country.

I do not want you to take the jobs of Ukrainian guys who will survive after this war. They will survive without home, some without family, some without legs or arms.

Did Visa and MC cut off transactions voluntarily, or in compliance with sanctions?

I was not able to find any source that hints at compliance. Given their announcements were posted almost simultaneously, there is a high chance some political factors are at play.

For me the fact that dozens of media just practically reposted press release from Visa / MC with no checking for the reasons is an interesting insight into the way modern media works.

The closure of transfers is now not only affecting IT, but also free media :(

I have a ticket in Turkey, but I don't know how I will pay for life

I'm totally agree. We're in a same situation right now.

Victims on all sides.

'In war people who don't know each other kill each other on orders of people who know each other but don't kill each other.'

I can't quote my SO enough with this saying.

While I am also still trying to understand why this war makes sense to Putin and Russian leadership in their heads.

This issue affects thousands of anti-war/anti-Putin folks who fled Russia.

I am agree

It seems to be true

I fully support

Absolutely agree. IT specialists living in Russia are in awful situation. Blocking visa/mastercard actually damages civilians more than Putin's regime

If I look at it cynically from a strategic position this is probably why it is done.

Hit the civilians so that they go to the streets against Putin.

That's probably the idea. I just know of no case where this had worked (but I might just miss all the successful examples in history).

Sadly it is the normal people who suffer most.

Problem is that for just saying something like "no to war" at the street you can be inprisoned for years in Russia. Goverment have so much brute forces like police and OMON so they can handle anything.

I saw videos of Ukrainian civilians stopping your country's tanks with their bare hands.

Now go check out the video of a 10 years olds getting arrested for holding a sign with “No war” on it.

https://youtu.be/YlVkGERhHkg

I'd rather protest together with the kids and get jailed, beaten and tortured than to run like a coward and let the fascists take over.

Of course you do.

I'm in college now, they threaten to expel me if they see me at a rally. And there's an army right there, and most likely to the front...

and still let the fascists take over

Putin propaganda says that russian military forces has been ordered to minimize collateral damage as possible. (minimize != avoid. just minimize)

So, if civilian could stop tank with bare hands just because he is civilian, not a soldier, not trying to kill russian soldiers or throw molotov bottle to tank - may be (just may be, I am not sure) this part of propaganda is true or at least truthy

Actually for protest it's only 15 days.

And in our time in Ukraine in 2014 we didn't let Police to drag people out of crowd. We hold the line. But your people for some reason allow police to drag individual protestors.

That's sadly.

I was looking for a job when Putin started this inhuman war.

Now it's even more difficult to find a job, even in the open world, and in conditions of urgent relocation (without relocation from the company) I can only count on casual earnings with payment to my Russian cards.

Please, let's find a way out!

I have the same problem. People who support Putin don't have problems like this, because they will not leave Russia. MasterCard and Visa just created problems for people who against Putin's politic.

It is quite simple, really. You country, with support of brainwashed majority of the population has invaded another country. Private businesses, undoubtedly under public pressure, responded. Why should an exemption be made for your community? It's not like a visa card for an IT professional will differ from a VISA of FSB "professional". 100% behind Ukraine and VISA/Mastercard on this.

People in power fly private jets and have no limits on amounts of cash they transfer over the border. 0 f given for Visa or Mastercard. In Russia, only scarce middle class really knows these words.

We don’t deserve this harassment just because we living in Russia

Oh, but you do. If collective responsibility was not a concept you were aware of before, you will certainly learn it now, just like the Germans did after WWII

yes, I understand what collective responsibility is, as well as collective irresponsibility. in Russia, 90% of the population are below the poverty line and, due to their ignorance, are subject to propaganda from federal channels, which have been under the control of the state for many years. the remaining 10% of people go to rallies, defend (trying to) their position, try to convey their thoughts to the rest. but the policy of "fear", promoted by our government, quickly extinguishes all these people. we take to the streets and risk losing our jobs (and someone loses). now there are even fewer of us, because the government spends the budget not on the welfare of the people, but on its control and intimidation. why these 10% of people should be responsible for our government? for the remaining 90% of people? we were always against it, but they shut our mouths, put us in jail and ruined our lives. we are used to this from our authorities, but we are not used to this from the rest of the world.

This completely sucks and I'm sorry for you. One if the goals of these sanctions and other actions is probably to snap the other 90% out of their trance. If all the daily things they take for granted don't work maybe they will ask why. Will it work or backfire? Who know but meanwhile Ukrainians is rightfully demanding as much pressure as possible.

I am sorry for everyone in this mess, but the faster Putin is forced to stop in Ukraine the sooner it can return to normalcy.

May I try to spoil this view with two insights?

First, this move by Visa and Mastercard did nothing internally, all the Visa and Mastercard issued cards will work due to local processing center. Absolutely zero impact for poor people who shop in Pyaterochka and then go home to watch TV propaganda for a leisure. Only educated people abroad (foreign students and runaway workers) will suffer.

Second, gov media spins these measures and gains more support internally. Their approval ratings now skyrocket because they have invested years into building vision of enemies who want to hurt through sanctions. Common people now run to them in fear and agree to trade even more of their freedoms for “protection”. Just open up the list of laws introduced over the past week, and see for yourself.

How is the rest of the world supposed to distinguish between 10% who sit at home but are against it and 90% who sit at home and are for it? And why should it?

Choices have consequences. Always.

oh, really? What did you do when Russia occupied Crimea / Eastern Ukraine? What you did when Russia was bombing schools and hospitals in Syria?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com