Roskomsvoboda statement on foreign companies’ sanctions against Russians [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Roskomsvoboda statement on foreign companies’ sanctions against Russians [pdf]

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143 pointsEugeneOZ172 comments

Kind of wish the comments here would focus more on the need to fight the Russian propaganda. The point on how isolating the Russians helps the propaganda seems like the most important take-away.

Instead comments seem to focus on how Russians deserve punishment, but how productive is this type of punishment? I would think it's an important goal to turn the Russians against Putin.

'Isolating Russia' -- Didn't they just ban FB and Twitter there? Aren't they cutting off their own internet as well? How is this the west doing?

The west is not isolating them, just they are self isolating. All independent media had to shut down there.

> The west is not isolating them, just they are self isolating.

Western services are also cutting them off. I get the sense that's helping Putin.

An example:

> Namecheap: Russia Service Termination

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30504812

Maybe a DNS service is not the best example, but I feel like it's not the only service that I've seen do this.

EDIT: Better example:

> Internet backbone provider shuts off service in Russia

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/5/22962822/internet-backbone...

And your point is? They can use their own services, nobody wants to prevent that. But guess what? Putin doesn't like its citizen's to be able to read outside sources and is shutting things outside access himself.

Even BBC has to restart using AM radio for its russian services (not done since the Cold War).

Stop 'victim playing' and blaming the west, when you should be blaming your leader for the massive censorship going on in Russia right now.

> Stop 'victim playing' and blaming the west, when you should be blaming your leader for the massive censorship going on in Russia right now.

TF? I'm not Russian.

I put a better example.

Look i get it, you are angry but stop telling people that their leader is someone and accuse them of "victim playing", was Trump your leader? Has anyone told you that you are playing victim? Was Bush Jr your leader the guy who attacked two Country's and lied about Chemical weapons in Iraq..where did i heard something like that lately?

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-moscows-claims-of-bio...

It seems nobody here actually read the OP, jumping straight to the flamewar in comments.

Lumen and Cogent already stopped peering with Russian ISPs. It's not Russian government, and they are doing the dirty work for the Russian government.

This is not about punishment or providing services, this is about peering and basic connectivity at the backbone level. It can break the Internet as the common medium, and not just for Russia. This sets the precedent that undermines decades of development and can make the biggest contribution to peace in the history of humanity fall apart into different bubbles.

>can make the biggest contribution to peace in the history of humanity fall apart into different bubbles.

Very powerful message and on point, it's no wonder every dictator shuts the net down when things start to turn/burn internally.

The Internet — both the network backbone and the many websites that operate on the Internet — is mostly operated for profit, and running it isn't free. Collecting payment from Russian sources right now is dodgy; payment providers are unlikely to help, banks are sanctioned, and the risk of not getting paid is high. Moscow currency exchanges have been shut down, and we see the government decree that bonds denominated in foreign currencies will be paid in rubles. Certain foreign entities are seeing their property and businesses in Russia nationalized (as a kind of retaliation for ceasing business).

This environment of elevated risk is ample reason for any international business to avoid business with Russian nationals, other Russian entities, and anything to do with Russia, generally, at this time. It is unfortunate that Russian citizens may see less of the outside world as a consequence of these high level sanctions and of this politically risky situation. It is not the responsibility of these operators to remedy that.

If history is any guide, businesses are totally ok with dodgy payment methods (Russia paid Pepsi with warships once) and dealing with governments that are not that respectful towards private property as long as profit is expected. The main risks now are reputational. Cynically, I would put it that way - withdrawing from Russia has gone viral, all the cool kids are doing it.

There are examples in the article.

Russia is isolating the Russians. Roskomnadzor is throttling and blocking the Russian people's access to the wider internet, not Western providers.

> not Western providers

An example:

> Namecheap: Russia Service Termination

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30504812

EDIT: Better example:

> Internet backbone provider shuts off service in Russia

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/5/22962822/internet-backbone...

I think the impact of this action compared to state internet censorship is insignificant.

Right. I put a better example.

OK, Western providers do this, too. But I think the much bigger problem is that all independent media, everything except reliably pro-Kremlin sources, is being very aggressively shut down from the inside. And that includes access to outside channels and programs.

While I generally agree that the West should not be shutting down the information pipes, in this environment the additional harm of such actions may be minimal.

I'm not sure Namecheap should be used as an example of a Western provider. While I think they're technically based in the US, according to their CEO they have many employees in one of the Ukrainian cities currently being bombed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30506813

Right. I put a better example.

As long as The Internet is available to Russians, people will find a way around Roskomnadzor blocks. All it takes is a single 100Mb VPS to provide VPN connection for 10-20 people. It's decentralized and can't be blocked, at least without making it criminal offense which did not happen yet.

But West, blocking Visa essentially made it impossible for average Russian IT guy to pay for VPS. And if The Internet would be cut off, the game is over, the entire country will be brain washed by Russian propaganda exclusively. I guess, it should be possible to use UnionPay to buy VPS in Turkey or something like that.

I, personally, don't believe that western propaganda is one bit better that Russian propaganda. It's the same half-truths, half-lies, just picked differently. But what I do believe is that every person must have access to all points of view, without any exclusions. And must be encouraged to learn all points of view for important subjects.

I strongly disagree with this "both sides are the same" BS. One side has made it illegal to refer to Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a war, the other has not. Yes, it's virtually impossible to reports news without some bias affecting that presentation. But it's a disservice to the world to claim that those are even vaguely the same thing.

> As long as The Internet is available to Russians, people will find a way around Roskomnadzor blocks. All it takes is a single 100Mb VPS to provide VPN connection for 10-20 people.

The things is, there is no way to buy a $5 VPS/VPN now in Russia "thanks" to Visa / Mastercard actions.

> Russia is isolating the Russians. Roskomnadzor is throttling and blocking the Russian people's access to the wider internet, not Western providers.

Let's not help them do their job, then, even a little bit. Some of the recent sanctions/pullouts are probably counterproductive, e.g.:

1. Visa/Mastercard cutting off service. - It seems like a big result of this has been to make it more difficult for Russians to flee the country. If you want to harm the Russian government, one way to do that is through a brain drain, so make that easy.

2. The Cogent disconnection. - If an authoritarian government wants to disconnect, then the correct response is to try to do the opposite.

3. etc. - e.g. the Namecheap thing. Maybe they should have enacted a content policy rather than just cutting off the whole country. Though their response seems forgivably human since they have so many people in Ukraine.

IMHO, cutoffs should only be done strategically or for reasonable tactical reasons (e.g. cybersecurity threats). In some cases if you want to Russia's actions, in some cases the best action is to leave, but in other's it's to stay (or carefully change policy).

> If you want to harm the Russian government, one way to do that is through a brain drain, so make that easy.

I'm doubtful of that. I think an authoritarian government might benefit from a brain drain.

Even if a brain drain were desirable, there's no way the effectiveness of that outweighs the harm to the economy that the cutoff by Visa/Mastercard would have.

> Even if a brain drain were desirable, there's no way the effectiveness of that outweighs the harm to the economy that the cutoff by Visa/Mastercard would have.

My understanding is that the cutoff only affects 1) foreign cards in Russia and 2) Russian cards outside of Russia, because domestic Russian credit card transactions are cleared with a different (domestic) system. So it mainly affects tourists and expats, and probably has minimal impact on the domestic economy.

> 2) Russian cards outside of Russia, because domestic Russian credit card transactions are cleared with a different (domestic) system. So it mainly affects tourists and expats, and probably has minimal impact on the domestic economy.

Wouldn't that also affect online transfers that cross their border? For example, their international purchases and payment of services, and also their receipt of payments from international employers or clients.

Brain drain when combined with other sanctions makes more difficult the transition to autarky. There are plenty of things that Russia relied on and needs to quickly design and manufacture locally.

Cutoff by Visa and Mastercard has zero impact on local economy. They do not handle local transactions for their branded cards. But indeed, they made life much more difficult for a hundred thousand Russians who are fleeing the country at the moment.

Russians have been living with Putin in charge for the last twenty years. I doubt that anyone immune to the propaganda will suddenly start to believe it, and I also doubt that people that believe the propaganda could have their minds suddenly changed.

Or put more subtly, the sort of Russian that generally believes Russian media isn't particularly likely to have bought a VPN to access alternative perspectives if only their Visa/Mastercard still worked. The sort of Russian that would have done that is fairly unlikely to believe that the war must be going well because it's even harder for them to access Facebook.

Even if that's the case, it's still not helping.

Either access to the global Internet is not, in fact, economically valuable, or yes, it absolutely would help (in the sense of harming the Russian economy, that is)

I'm not against harming their economy, but am against harming their access to information. I don't think doing the former necessitates doing the latter. In the cases where they overlap, I think the harm to the economy is negligible.

If the Russian government thought that the parts of the Internet they still allow were any threat, in excess of the economic or strategic benefit it provides, they'd have already cut it off. I think the viability of any kind of Internet-based propaganda war are badly over-estimated by its proponents, especially when the other side gets to filter out entire sites that are inconvenient. It works much better against a foe that's far more open (so, us).

I want to keep open the possibility that the Russian government's ability/competency to censor the internet effectively is what's over-estimated.

Depends on which scenario you consider more likely: ordinary Russians to turn against their government because they preferred thd relative prosperity and consumerism it brought to the austerity the war brought, or ordinary Russians to turn against the government because having cheerfully believed and consumed state media over foreign alternatives, they'd rush out to buy VPNs on their Mastercards to consume the foreign alternatives as soon as Putin blocked them. I'm going to go out in a limb and suggest the former is more likely.

For the vast majority of the information on the internet, Visa/Mastercard is going to be irrelevant to Russians' ability to access alternative perspectives anyway

It's not a matter of whether propaganda is "believed". The goal of propaganda is not to redefine the truth, but rather to destroy the notion of truth. It's about shifting the Overton window, giving backing to cognitive dissonance, and obscuring the true extent of how bad things are. As such, even those who do not believe it are still affected by its relative quantity versus truthful messages.

Many of us believe that Internet or not will have basically no impact on this question of turning Russians against Putin.

I have lived through the entire life of the Internet and seen only the exact opposite things happened that we all expected and hoped would happen with free and open access to information. Conspiracy theories thrived rather than got rebutted, political discourse worsened, it did not improve. The power of large corporations increased, power was not democratized.

Perhaps without Internet young people will be bored and when young men are idle they tend to turn to the kind of violent uprising Russia probably needs.

> Perhaps without Internet young people will be bored and when young men are idle they tend to turn to the kind of violent uprising Russia probably needs.

That seems way too improbable.

Absolutely, what is the first thing a Dictator would do?...right shutdown the internet, but what if the Western "Community" shuts it down? An internet shutdown by someone else is the wet dream of the Government, Russnet (the russian Intranet) will still work and probably connected in the future to Xinet (name is TM by me, and ping is blocked on it). Two perfect Intranets, and probably also swift will get changed in the future with china as the exchange knot to russia and swift.

That's a terrible decision for every Russian who wants to have a chance to find different information's.

In Russia the name Cheburnet was born from a speech of parliament's member who initiated the laws for the autonomous mode for ISPs, he threw something along the line "we'd basically get our own network, we could name it Cheburashka, for example".

>The point on how isolating the Russians helps the propaganda seems like the most important take-away.

Russians have had all the ability to watch the videos of Ukraine destruction and to get all the other true information about the war. They wouldn't. All together with Putin they have for 20 years been resurrecting the myth of "Great Russia", which in its current form is pretty much nazism (or like Ukrainians and Baltic countries usually call it "russism" ['rashizm']- short for "Russian Fascism"). Even directly facing the truth Russians refuse to believe it and dismiss it as fakes, propaganda, etc. They like to think of themselves as a "Big Brother liberating the smaller one". That is kind of mental blindness which just can't be pierced by any normal way. They need pain to wake up back to reality.

There is only one way to deal with such a nuclear empire - like with USSR the Russians need to be pushed down to the level when they will lose any respect, fear of and obedience to their government while their government needs to be struck hard to lose economical and as result political power.

It's super important that removing their internet services etc does not remove the propaganda, and Russia was passing laws prohibiting these sources of actual news from publishing said reality in Russia.

The purpose of the sanctions is to reduce support for Putin from the people he actually needs to support his regime (russian billionaires, the government, the army, etc), and to cripple its ability to support its army.

> Instead comments seem to focus on how Russians deserve punishment, but how productive is this type of punishment?

Historically, making the people hurt through sanction is the most effective way of getting rid of a dictator

> I would think it's an important goal to turn the Russians against Putin.

They're paying $150 for days-old individual McDonalds burgers on the web

This is how they get turned against Putin.

> comments seem to focus on how Russians deserve punishment, but how productive is this type of punishment?

That's angry, polarized people giving into being cruel. It's understandable. I thought I was jaded, but the horrors coming out of Ukraine are breathtaking. But the Russian people deserve none of this, nor what is coming for them.

There are two sanctions/decoupling strategies: a fast strategy and a slow strategy.

The fast strategy aims to convince elites to change course. If Putin withdraws, he gets his economy back. That's unlikely here; the real targets are his generals. The slow strategy is about degrading capability. It's a worst-case fallback for when the fast strategy fails. Smaller economies power smaller war machines. Brain drain, industrial decay and material shortages make unmanageable threats less potent.

Drawn-out sanctions undermine the appeal of popular uprising. External pressure tends to bring people together, which in this case means tolerating eroding freedoms in exchange for security. And starving, broken people don't revolt. When we deploy long-term sanctions, we're putting a nation in international quarantine. Despite the terrific cost, to ourselves and the innocent people there. The image of decades-long sanctions forcing people into the streets against their own government is a fantasy based on the fast-strategy success of the South African example.

You don't get it.

The sanctions aren't about punishing Russians, nor about getting Russians to reject Putin.

It's all just virtue signalling. It's literally irrelevant what impact it has, if any.

alternate communication channel: sanctions and systemic choking

see https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1501676859741904898 for details

maybe (maybe) putin reality distortion field can keep working, or maybe russian will start to wonder why everybody is leaving russia all of a sudden (including many russians).

I think it is a very important point.

I perfectly well understand (and share) the anger against Russia, and desire to use sanctions and withdrawal of companies/services as a tool to reduce the quality of life in Russia and through that (hopefully) affect the policies of the Russian state/change the government. One can argue whether they will be effective, but it is a tool that is used as an alternative to pure war, and so I'd argue it is better.

But in the same time, I certainly recommend for every company to think a little bit whether their withdrawal is going to make the regime life easier or harder. I would think that withdrawal of Cogent was counterproductive. Similarly I think the stopping of Mastercard/Visa (effective immediately) mostly hurt people who just recently left russia under the threat to their lives (like independent journalists).

All that said, it's hard to ask companies to make a careful analysis about the consequences of their actions on Russian regime as that's not their job. So for sure there will be unintended consequences like hurting some people who were fighting the regime, and consequences helping Russia. I just hope the companies will try to minimise those and think a little before following the current pressure to disassociate from Russia.

It’s intentional to hurt Russian citizens economically. It’s up to them to decide to form a government that doesn’t invade others. Aside from war, this is the only thing the West can do to stop this insane aggression.

Yes, that is okay with me and understandable. It's just if the West says, lets cut off the Internet from Russia, I think that will just help the Russian government, so therefore it's not a good idea in my book.

If it would help them, they would've done it themselves. They've already taken out Twitter and Facebook without any hesitation.

But government can't take off Telegram, for example. Despite they tried multiple times. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_Telegram_in_Russia And thanks to Telegram, people in Russia could find non-propaganda sources, even when Russia blocks them.

VPN helps too. A lot of people use it.

While Putin has money from oil and gas, he could sponsor war and destroy protests. Let's take away them, stop or reduce buying oil and gas. Regime becomes weak and Russian people could resist it.

Since Telegram is unmoderated there is all kinds of propaganda on it though. You may not know what to believe is that is your only source.

This won't work because a) many of the current measures mainly hurt the most westernized part of the population (i.e. those most critical of the current regime) and b) this plays perfectly into Putin's narrative that the West hates Russia and the Russian people.

It still works. The people who know Russia is the aggressor know the truth, and eventually people less susceptible to propaganda do regain power.

Sanctions are to stop the flow of money to the war machine that is currently indiscriminately killing civilians.

What goes beyond the sanctions, like business withdrawals from Russia (Visa, MasterCard, Microsoft, McDonalds) is a business decision to mitigate a geopolitical risk. The management board does not want to be ”stained in blood” and is willing to give up on Russia than in any way be associated with Russian war propaganda. Furthermore it is likely that the current shareholders are going to lose the Russian business any case, due to nationalisation, credit defaults, oligarchs taking over, local mob bosses taking over, etc. Russia is a country run by thugs, the only law is Putin’s word and when thugs see an opportunity they will use it.

I agree, and I support most of the sanctions and business withdrawals, especially when there is personnel and tax payed in Russia, but again as an example, if you are Russian opposition, you don't want to be hosted in Russia, as the hoster will take you down on government request, so you have to be hosted abroad. And now if the west just decides to terminate every contract from a Russian citizen, I'd say that'll hurt more the enemies of the government than not. But it's just my opinion, and you can't expect every business to make that kind of analysis.

The free flow of information is a tough question. The Russian opposition is literally killed in this point, and only opposition that can operate has left/is leaving Russian. The only free flow of information for Average Ivan is using Telegram in this point. People are so soaked in disinformation that they do not believe anything outside Kremlin’s evening news. And it will only get harder, as Putin wants to copy all the latest gadgets from Chinese firewall. I feel Chinese are happy to do some export business here.

Broad sanctions have more purposes than the 2 primary ones (limit funds available for war and make life harder for leaders).

Sanctions of the kind we see now will, not only as an unfortunate side effect, for example

- disproportionately cause working age and educated people to leave the country causing brain drain and furthering the demographic crisis

- lowering the risk/reward threshold for ordinary people to protest the regime. People with somewhat comfortable lives might not risk prison to protest the war. People who can’t eat or who lost their life savings in a year might.

I agree that when consumer brands boycott Russia it’s likely mostly optics and fear of consumer boycott. Not much can be done about that. It just happens to align with and further the sanctions.

It’s important that Russians are given international news, however. Cutting communications seems counter productive.

I am all in for rational decision making, and here is a point to consider.

All the world bullies are carefully watching and figuring out if they could afford their own might makes right exercise. A companie's action or inaction will be noted and taken into account.

Just remind everybody what is going on in Ukraine: https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/russia-presses-offensive-as...

Non-AMP link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-presses-offensive-as-ukr...

I agree with this statement. Cutting people off from the internet in today's world is akin to cutting them off electricity.

I also worry that while the West seems to be in complete agreement that harsh punishment on Russia is fair, it may or may not be the case in the future that such punishment is reserved to those who "deserve" it.

Cutting off the electricity is less damaging. Because if they have no sources of information, then all they have is propaganda.

If they have no access to free chat apps - they have no safe way to communicate.

It just can not help them to overthrow Putin.

I see the point in economic sanctions - people should be forced to go to the streets. Brutally forced, if needed. I agree that it's necessary.

But they still should have access to information (not only propaganda) and secure communication.

In almost all cases, cutting off the electricity over any significant amount of time will also make it impossible to access the internet. It is therefore impossible for only the second thing to be worse than the first & second thing.

Without electricity, you have solar chargers and wifi/4g.

OP's point is that "cutting off the internet" means cutting off access to the Western internet, and not "all internet".

There are ways to deliver propaganda without the internet (television, lessons in schools - it is being heavily used right now), but there are no ways to spread the real information without Internet access.

Short-wave radio is an option

Or printing pamphlets on the hectograph.

Cutting off the electricity is less damaging.

Without electricity, no internet, to a first approximation. So I tend to disagree because one mostly entails the other.

And no propaganda, so it's still less damaging.

Propaganda was delivered via air drops back in the day. Perhaps Ukraine could deploy leaflets via helium balloons or similarly primitive mechanism.

The people in Mariupol have been cut off electricity, water, and are starving. Without electricity, even mobile goes down. No electricity, no Star Link. No electric cars. No photos from your smartphone (it dies eventually, like all batteries). Zero communication. Its objectively worse than no internet. Besides, the Russians were centralized on their own walled garden anyway. They still have their RUnet, and Putin was alreafy censoring the internet heavily as far as he could (including by centralizing in Russia).

The last line is not quite correct. Twitter is blocked, Tor bridges are being blocked regularly. Other than that, there are no significant bans. Nobody removes messages from Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber, Signal, Matrix.

Censorship right now only works against the .ru websites and newspapers - they can't post anything and can’t even call it war. One of them is still calling it a war, though - Meduza.

Also, independent radio stations were closed.

This document is only about access to western newspapers, websites, and chats like Matrix, Viber, Signal.

It's almost as if there currently there is a imperialist war going on in Europe that includes the systematic destruction of civil infrastructure such as hospitals, power plants and residential areas.

Cutting the aggressor of from electricity and internet is of course the least thing you should do. Arms supply is ofc better, but hey, doing this will not hurt.

And hey, if a little bit of economic inconvenience is not "deserved" for a fucking invasion, how high would you like to have this bar? This is as high as it can be.

And imagine the country being supplied with electricity was constantly using it to disrupt the electrical supplies of its neighbors for political and economic benefit.

Decades of Russia shitting all over the internet, both as a state and egging its citizens and organized crime to do so privately, has finally come home to roost.

Both of you can be right.

Cutting a country off from the Internet can be an extremely serious step and subject to great risk of being abused... while also being a reasonable response in the case of an unprovoked military invasion of a democracy and targeting of its civilian population.

Russian Government itself is working hard to isolate their segment of internet so they can control it and firewall it Chinese style to push their propaganda unrestricted. So willfully cutting it off for them is essentially helping the enemy.

There used to be Radio Svoboda to counter Soviet propaganda. Nowadays West need to be working hard to ensure there is internet in Russia and news and communications are available, so regular people cans see non-government news sources and dissidents can securely coordinate. I don't understand why it's so hard to comprehend.

They've had open access to the internet until now and look where we've gotten. Having open access to the internet was not convincing enough Russians to condemn their government. So maybe getting people inconvenienced enough to show them the world condemns their actions is a better shot.

>Having open access to the internet was not convincing enough Russians to condemn their government.

But they have been - there has been an unprecedented amount of protests in Russian cities..

The logical conclusion of this argument is that no negative action can be taken against a state, as said negative action might later be taken wrongly in the future. Thus we have to just let Russia invade Ukraine and kill everyone there.

> Cutting people off from the internet in today's world is akin to cutting them off electricity.

Russians have no reason to complain when they're cutting of Mariupol's water and food supply. There's already a case of a child dying from dehydration.

Is it Russians, or their government? This distinction matters, most of us who live in the US or Europe would also personal responsibility for war crimes by this standard.

Putin is not on the frontlines. His citizens are.

Not all his citizens are. And his soldiers are following orders. Are you in favor of giving US citizens punishment for the crimes of some of its citizens in Afghanistan and Iraq?

>I also worry that while the West seems to be in complete agreement that harsh punishment on Russia is fair, it may or may not be the case in the future that such punishment is reserved to those who "deserve" it.

Nor is it immediately clear that this strategy is actually a wise one when you consider all other geopolitical variables in play. Setting the conditions for a Russo-Sino alliance in the Pacific Theater is something that should give everyone pause given CCP's increasing bellicosity regarding the Taiwan question. "They deserve it" is not really a guiding principle for policy grounded in anything other than whatever peculiar moral constraints elites set for themselves.

If we could cut off Russia's electricity like we could the Internet, without that being likely to escalate to a hot war with them, we'd do that too. We'd be crazy not to.

Are you saying 1.) Russia doesn’t deserve punishment or

2.) although Russia does deserve punishment they shouldn’t be punished because sometime later someone who doesn’t deserve punished will be punished

By that logic how could any action have a penalty or punishment?

As a thought experiment:

Let’s say that you had a magic button you could press that would mirror every act of violence done in Ukraine with one in Russia going forward. So the next time a Hospital blows up in Ukraine, a Hospital blows up somewhere in Russia. Perfect symmetry.

Would you press the button? Because if you would then sanctions of any kind are dramatically less drastic than that.

Keeping ordinary Russians connected to the outside world is a win for all sides. Every news outlet in Russia that wasn't totally state controlled has been shut down. Rain TV was the last to go.

There is a downside to this too: Russian propaganda is aimed abroad as well, and it is surprisingly effective in spite of us having access to alternative news sources. Their talking points and quotes show up all over the internet, including on HN, with alarming regularity.

A well funded troll farm will find a way to connect to the western internet. A poorly funded dissident will not.

"We strongly condemn the actions of governments and the private sector, represented by the owners of websites, social networks, online platforms and marketplaces who resort to arbitrarily blocking accounts of or restricting access to users from Russia and arbitrary labeling of the content of Russian users."

It's hard to take them seriously when they don't even condemn the war crimes of their own government.

I don’t think you can entirely separate the accountability of a government from the accountability of its people. Take Apartheid South Africa for example:

Tremendous external pressure was applied on South Africa which affected its people. I was one of them. This created the impetus for internal change and resulted in, first a referendum to determine if South Africa would become a democracy- and then the actual transformation.

The world must continue to apply pressure on the whole of Russia. It sucks for the Russian people. Trust me, I get it.

Look at the polls. Russian people support this war. They deserve everything that's happening to them in retaliation.

This is hard for many people to accept. The Russian people guilty. If we believe in democracy, then accept that it's the majority will of the Russian people to support Putin's decision to send forces to:

- bomb hospitals - kill children - rape women - massacre civilians - destroy homes - bomb a holocaust memorial site - etc etc etc

Russia will not recover from this in any of our lifetimes. When the true scale of this terror inflicted upon Ukraine is known by the world, frankly, everyone will be shocked beyond belief.

Hello from Kyiv

Which polls? Please be specific. Are the polling methods and results beyond the influence of Russian State?

Further, even if they are correct, to what extent is their response based on incorrect or insufficient information (which I strongly suspect)?

https://twitter.com/alexey_minyaylo/status/15007899530428211...

1807 polled in RU, 59% said they support the russian invasion

https://www.dorussianswantwar.com/

Media controls are difficult there, but still, this is just a guy on the internet who does his own polling apparently (both links about same). Would be good to have more data.

The people deluded by state controlled media are both victims of the media colluding with the regime and putting their head in the sand, their complicity is not so binary.

(A bit like run-up to the Iraq war?)

I'm not sure I buy the argument that this will provide "cover" to the Russian government to isolate the country from the global internet. What cover do they need? If we are to believe that the Russian people are powerless to stop the invasion of Ukraine, then wouldn't they be equally powerless to stop their government from disconnecting them from the internet, with or without cover?

This PDF doesn't contain text in Russian to don't push back people who can't read Russian. It was done by me, text was not edited at all, only russian pages removed.

Original document (ru, en, fr): https://roskomsvoboda.org/uploads/documents/statement_of_ros...

Web version (ru): https://roskomsvoboda.org/post/zayavlenie-protiv-otklyucheni...

What about not shutting down the internet but replying to ten percent of all requests with information and images about the war instead of the requested page?

Russia-phobia isn't going to help the Ukraine. Hate in any form isn't going to help.

This is not Russophobic. This is war-crime-critical.

Oh and when attracted you can surrender or fight. If you fight you might loose, but if you don't, you lost. Hate is not only justified, it does absolutely help.

Sanctions targeted at the leaders making the decisions in Russia seem war-crime-critical. Indiscriminately screwing over random citizens who may not even support the regime or war isn't war-crime-critical.

The sanctions will stop when Russia halts its invasion. It's not like this is a one-sided affair. Russia has decided its invasion is worth more than sanctions on its own people.

No country owes it to any other country to trade with them. Any country absolutely has the right to revoke its willingness to trade with other countries on a case by case basis. Any country or organization that sanctions Russia is doing the right thing, too; all decent people in the world should be using all non-violent means at the minimum to make war so costly for aggressors that war becomes near-impossible. If anything, Russia is not sanctioned enough currently.

Edit: Don't forget that there are > 2 million Ukrainian refugees currently who have been forced to flee their country. Those that continue to live in Ukraine are having their homes and infrastructure bombed or disconnected. The suffering of the Russian people due to these sanctions pales in comparison to the suffering that the Russian government/military is directly inflicting on Ukrainians. Those sanctions will be lifted as soon as Russia stops inflicting harm on Ukrainians.

What is your history with sanctioning? What country are you from?

Have you ever sanctioned anyone before in this manner? Israel? Syria? Iraq? The US? China? India?

I never said sanctioning couldn't be done. I'm just saying if your sanctions affect random citizens who are already powerless, and not the leaders of the country, then you're just being an asshole, and no, you aren't helping.

Sanctions are a step down from going to war. Are you advocating that sanctions should be skipped, and we should just go straight to war?

Sanctions are just one of the few tools in the toolbox that can be used to punish a country's leadership, besides going to war.

I've already stated that I'm okay with sanctions that target the actual leadership of Russia but not random citizens who already have no power over their government.

How is that possible? Leadership already steal from their citizens anyways.

Are you claiming that sanctions on Russia will affect ONLY the average citizens of Russia; that is, are you arguing that sanctions on Russia will have ZERO effect on the country's ability to wage its aggressive war in Ukraine? It seems to me that this is your implied argument here, and if so, that's straight up incorrect.

If that ISN'T your argument, is your argument then: "Sanctions will affect both the Russian government's ability to wage war AND the Russian people, and because the sanctions affect the Russian people, they are not justified" ? Could it ever be the case that sanctions could affect only a government's ability to wage war and never the people of a country? Are you then arguing that sanctions are never justified no matter the circumstances? How far are you willing to take this argument? Should a country be forced to trade and engage in business with a country that is currently invading them?

I really don't understand exactly what you're arguing here and I'd appreciate clarification

>The sanctions will stop when Russia halts its invasion.

I kind of doubt that. I think it might bea while until these sanctions are taken down.

Dialing back the sanctions are a key bargaining tool. They certainly will be reduced as the invasion stops and recedes. And they'll be dialed up as they continue

War is a interaction between nations as a hole. Just like Russia as a uniform entity attacks and supplies this war (via taxes, e.g.), Ukraine as a whole is the victim of the attack. It is the responsibility of the average Russian joe to ensure he has a non-war-warmongering government. If the fails that responsibility, he will have to suffer the consequences. Even With or without any sanctions, just as the natural course due to the nature of war.

Keep things in perspective: No body wants to send the average internet user to la Hague. That's the place for Putin and those who fly the air raids. This is just making this average day a bit worse for the sake of stifling Russias ability to sustain this attack.

All of this will stop the moment the invasion stops. Russian Joes wants it to stop? Fine, go complain at those who choose to continue the war. There is a direct cause-and-effect relation there.

I'm for opening up the internet there - even as others point out there's not much we can do when RU has their own great firewall.

But two things in response to this:

- While hard to know with certainty, there is strong evidence a plurality of Russians support the war. Caveat given what they are swayed by Putins' gov media lies.

I read 58% in this source and I can't find it but I think Navalny org said 50%. [1]

Furthermore yes while it seems young conscripts were sent into Ukraine at this point it would be very clear to those on the ground what they are doing. I get they are probably making calculations about punishment or even death for desertion. But they aren't ignorant at this point but active participants.

Russian civilians aren't close to wholly innocent.

- I'm afraid that targeted sanctions have not and will not work.

I'm not sure if punishing the population economically will cause regime change. I hope it will. They have to fight if they want it - yes I understand the deadly costs of that but it's a choice millions of people are making in Ukraine and have throughout history. One reason there is more sympathy than say Afghanistan.

Even if lowering life quality in Russia doesn't cause change, this is a response to obscene attacks; i think the sanctions are actually less than proportional/reciprocal. proportional would be 'kinetic' military but that's obviously super dangerous.

Should always remember humanitarian aid through.

Sadly this high road is being bombed in Ukraine right now (maternity ward is just another stressed expletive filled morning for me)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/08/russia-publi...

Look at the polls. Russian population is supporting this crazy war. They are not some innocent bystanders.

I am afraid of Russia.

Who isn't afraid of a corrupt super-oligarch that seems to have the authority to kill tens of thousands at a whim with his nation-state army and doesn't answer to nobody?

Nevermind the nuclear button!

I think being a Russophobe is the only rational stance.

>"I think being a Russophobe is the only rational stance"

You gonna start chasing them with pitchforks in your own country?

Well if they come in armed convoys…

I'm pretty sure there have been (and still are) more than one country leaders that fit your description. Some of them even come with a complimentary nuclear button.

Russian propaganda is that this war is because of the west's Russia-phobia and hatred.

And is pointing out that Russia used the internet extensively to meddle in numerous elections and the societal issues of numerous countries, and openly condones organized crime and private citizens engaging in hacking against anyone not Russian "Russia-phobia"?

If you want to keep filling up your car with gas, maybe stop setting people's barns on fire all the time.

That's why call it Putin's war. Russian didn't vote for it.

Some did. If most would object you would see millions in streets, not few thousands.

> If most would object you would see millions in streets, not few thousands.

Not when the consequence of that is being beaten up, tortured, and then put in prison for up to 15 years (as per the recent law changes). Oh, and getting your relatives punished as well, despite them having nothing to do with it. Here is a take on it from Human Rights Watch[0]. Just the knowledge of such consequences makes a person just shut down, carry on, and not worry much about anything except your own and your family's survival.

Side-tangent: sometimes I really do wonder what kind of cushy and sheltered lives some users on HN live, where they instantly jump to "if people don't protest in millions, it means they support Putin". I think I am pretty comfortable now, but I still very clearly remember what it was like living in Russia (before I escaped to the US over a decade ago), so these types of replies grind me the wrong type of way.

And yes, there are plenty of people who actually support Putin in Russia, and we need them on our side. Some support him out of ignorance, some for other reasons. But, I think, it is a bit less surprising if you phrase it as "Plenty of Russian people supported the special operation for liberating people in Ukraine". It is a blatant lie, but more and more people in Russia are opening their eyes to this being total bs. Sanctions help, outside news drumming up the reporting of the conflict help.

On their own, those things don't seem that wild, but if you couple total brainwashing with extremely severe and brutal consequence for even questioning the narrative, you get an extremely repressed population that will be heavily discouraged (even within their own heads) from protesting.

0. https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/09/russia-brutal-arrests-an...

Putin has broad support in the Russian population. And that support went up after the annexation of Crimea and the start of this war. I have family and friends in Russia, all of which have access to international media, and many of them are still at the very least moderately supportive of this.

This narrative that Putin is somehow solely waging a war with the entire population in opposition is an absolute meme. If the Russian people were sick of him they'd depose him, elections or no elections, Russians have done it to their leaders plenty of times.

Plenty of times? Any examples, please? I’m really curious.

start with the February and October Revolutions and go from there. If there's any country that knows how to depose a Tsar, it's Russia.

In any country as vast and populous like Russia leaders always depend on the consent of the governed autocratic or not. I know it doesn't fit into this comical worldview where every Russian is secretly an American yearning to breathe free, oppressed by Putin.

It's one single example. Sponsored and organized by the west :) What are multiple cases? All the next rulers have died quietly in old age.

I hope putin will be the second case.

I was saying this at first I now see more and more evidence that Russians as a whole aren't wholly innocent.

Firstly can't ignore the rise of putin and him gaining more power & popularity after similar attacks. He at least used to be broadly popular, even though he messes with the actual elections.

And a LOT of Russians support the war.

Here is a poll I put in another comment puts at 58% support. I read another I think from Navalny said 50% but I can't find it so grain of salt.

complicated given they only see lies on TV.

But at this point the conscript soldiers know what they are doing. A lot of Russians ARE connected to the West and know the truth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/08/russia-publi...

At some point you have to take personal responsibility for the leaders you elect or your failure to keep a poor leader from office. If you didn't vote for them due to apathy or whatever, it's not an excuse. Apathy can have its own form of malignant harm. If your leader is causing global malignancy and harming innocents, only so much sympathy can be invested in the general population from others. Also from what I've gathered from other Russians, not just ones friendly to westerners which are more prone to be against the war, it seems just as many Russians are for the war as against it.

What a novel repudiation of the very concept of tyranny. Are any governments really oppressive, when they're all actually operating according to the consent of the governed? Why do tyrants even bother with the apparatus of repression? The population is technically repressing itself, according to this view.

agree with this

Exactly, Ukrainians need to change their strategy, because hate won't work against Russians. Instead they need to attack the Russian invaders with flowers and confetti. This will surely stop them.

Hi from Moscow.

Right now Putin spend billion dollars from oil and gas to sponsor war and inner forces which harshly destroy any protests.

The only effective sanctions *against* Putin – is to cut down buying gas and oil. But Europe and other countries resist to do so.

Yeah, it may sounds promising to someone that cutting Russian off the Internet will help protests, but it's not. Regime is still incredibly rich and could sponsor any aggressive activity.

First thing that West must do – to make Putin's poor. And then Russians could resist against him. Right now he has multi billions army and law against unarmed citizens.

The Internet was totally open for Russians until 2 weeks ago.

Yet that did not stop the war, even after months of warnings and pleas from the entire world. People of Russia did not try to stop Putin from the inside, too few went to the streets to prevent the war from starting. They did not do enough to protest against the illegal annexation of Crimea and the creation of the 'republics' in 2014.

Most services were up until the day the war started, people could share information freely, they could use the word 'war' and 'peace' without risk of being arrested. Yet that did not help.

In fact, the power in Russia is known to exploit the unlimited access to world Internet to spread out misinformation, get involved in hacking political campaigns in other countries, kremlin bots, ransomware gangs, etc.

Due to this war, Russians are no longer considered trustworthy partners in politics, business, sports, science, arts, etc, so companies choose not to be associated with Russia because that hurts their business in other countries around the world.

I mean, to the world Putin is Hitler now. Would you agree to Hitler keeping all his international privileges while he was invading other countries ?

Businesses have to do what they have to do. Sadly that means that those 22% percent of Russians who oppose the war will have to endure the full impact of the world's emotional reaction to what the majority of Russians allowed to happen (and currently support).

> The Internet was totally open for Russians until 2 weeks ago.

It was not. Roskomsvoboda was created to track blocking lists in 2012.

It's been 10 years since internet started to be blocked in Russia.

It was totally open from the side of the rest of the world. Like 99% open even from the inside.

You are pecking on a branch, but the argument you reply to speaks about the forest.

Even the most ideological putinists will lose the battle to their refrigerators soon - because of economic sanctions.

It will lead them to the streets. And at this moment they'll look for a leader, for the truth, for the information and secure communications (free of censorship).

This statement is not about lifting the economic sanctions, it's only about Internet access.

We should be beaming our own propaganda into Russia in massive quantities.

Maybe the massive sanctions are a pretext to this: drop the sanctions and let goods and services flood back in. Only the goods and services will be stuffed full of war images and demoralizing content.

I'll just leave it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_anti-war_protests_in_Russ...

I started out deploying the righteous spear of whatevs but I think I need some more context here.

What is Roskomsvoboba?

quote: Roskomsvoboda is a Russian non-governmental organization that supports open self-regulatory networks and protection of digital rights of Internet users. The organization aims to counteract censorship on the Internet and to popularize the ideas of freedom of information and self-regulation.

Sanctions against Russia should focus on stopping the war, and not merely on punishing Russians.

I think that cutting off internet in Russia punishes Russia, but doesn't do anything towards stopping the war. On the contrary, eliminating internet will further cut off Russians from the truth, resulting in further brainwashing of Russian population, more support for Putin, and ultimately more Ukrainian deaths.

Does the global Internet, or does it not, provide immense value to an economy? If it does, then of course we should consider cutting them off. If not, then IDK why we're all so well-paid.

I think the "we could use it to counter propaganda" angle is weak. If Russia thought that might work, they would have already cut it off.

> I think the "we could use it to counter propaganda" angle is weak. If Russia thought that might work, they would have already cut it off.

More to the point, Russia does think that might work, and has been selectively cutting off the parts that it sees as enabling that. What's left is what the Russian government sees as useful for themselves.

Yes, that's a good point. They've shown themselves entirely willing to cut out the parts that they think do them more harm than good. What remains is the part they think is net-beneficial, so unless we think they are very wrong about that it may well be sensible to cut off their access completely, to the extent we are able.

AFAIK, Russia did not yet turn off YouTube because many millions of Russians use YouTube for entertainment purposes (not for politics) and turning YouTube off would piss off that huge part of the population.

It would be more convenient to have YouTube turn itself off, since in that case those millions of Russians would be pissed off at YouTube & USA (instead of being pissed at the Russian government)

If Russia weren't capable of lying, to good effect, about who shut it off, we wouldn't be worried about this to begin with. I don't think it matters who does it.

Internet is a source of truth, and cutting off internet eliminates Russian access to truth. I think that Russians need to see the truth to attempt to effect change on Russian government, which is needed to stop the war.

Cutting off internet will not stop the war. In your opinion, what is the most realistic, fast way to stop Russian war on Ukraine ?

Quite a lot of condemning, demanding and calling for actions from the western society. Yet, not once was the word "war" mentioned. Not once were the actions of the Russian government and Putin condemned.

How about you - Roskomsvoboda focus your energy on stopping the war, so Ukrainians can also enjoy the benefits of new technologies?

Are you aware that there is a law (published a few days ago) and people living in Russia can be sentenced to 15 years in prison for calling it war?

> so-called "special operation" in Ukraine

You can't take them seriously when they parrot the Kremlin's language. They only use "so-called" to avoid calling it what it is: a war of conquest. Putin explicitly said he wants Crimea and Donbas.

Russians can be heavily penalized by calling this anything other than the Kremlin’s official line.

The (Russian) author lives in Barcelona, Spain. What penalty would he receive?

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/cv/oz

I am not the author of the statement. So I do call it war: https://twitter.com/eugeniyoz/status/1496855352310222849

Imprisonment of his relatives in Russia. This is not unheard of.

I'd say that for this level of formality, it might very well be (completely unheard of). For authors feverishly calling their countrymen at home to rise up, sure, but for something like this? Would be a waste of prison food.

I'm pretty sure "so-called" and scare quotes were supposed to communicate in bright flashing lights that they don't think the label is accurate.

TL;DR Cogent did what Putin was doing for the last decade: destroying free internet in Russia.

What a joke. This is troll bait intended to start a flame war.

What an interesting case of self-describing sentence!

They’ve had the open internet in Russia for a while and yet they’re still committed to dear leader, as witnessed by Russians lack of effort to depose him.

This statement should really target Russia for the same thing, so yeah it’s troll bait. It’s propaganda to instigate “ooh the poor Russian victims of their own indifference.” discourse.

We can see in this thread it worked.

Circle around logical propositions all you want, theorizing has little value when the behavior is concrete.

Precisely the issue with the post, it encourages my behavior.

It is with sanctions as it is with war civilians, progressives, everyone will get hurdled up in it. Arguing for one but not against the other is hubris.

If western internet were that dangerous to the Russian Regime they'd already have it blocked. They already did it with FB and other sites.

This "Statement" looks a lot like a false flag.

These measures definitely hit many users that aren't causally responsible for the acts of their government. Some may even be in open opposition of the acts committed in their name.

Unfortunately, the latter is but a small fraction of the population. The vast majority of Russians are remaining silent. The chance that these blocks will prevent any of that group from learning about the war when they still have not been reached at this point is slim. Blocking of accounts doesn't usually prevent you from reading the news, anyway.

Russian media is downplaying the event. Making peoples' lives inconvenient has the chance of making them take notice, which is a first step.

It's not about the inconvenience at all.

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