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Comment by waihtis | Hacker News Reader

> This is an obviously fake story

Yet you provide no data to convince anyone otherwise. Outside of scrap, also electronics stores over here have signs now which denote the amount of electronics you can carry over the border into the Russia (not exceeding the value of 300€) which suggests there is a reason to do so.

Related to your article, if something sounds ridiculous it's the explanation given in your article of the unemployed man travelling from Russia to take drone pictures of a cottage for a friend. Very reminiscient of the two "tourists" "just visiting" Salisbury.

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> Outside of scrap, also electronics stores over here have signs now which denote the amount of electronics you can carry over the border into the Russia (not exceeding the value of 300€) which suggests there is a reason to do so.

Yeah, sanctions. Luxury goods are limited to 300 euros. https://tulli.fi/en/-/import-and-export-sanctions-on-goods-a...

The purpose is not to disrupt Russian military supply chains, but to make Muscovites pay higher prices for their grey market iPhones.

>Related to your article, if something sounds ridiculous it's the explanation given in your article of the unemployed man travelling from Russia to take drone pictures of a cottage for a friend. Very reminiscient of the two "tourists" "just visiting" Salisbury.

The Norwegian government agreed that his story checked out. Also, I'd suppose that wealthy unemployed men make up a decent chunk of tourism in general.

The purpose of sanctions is not only to limit access to luxury, but also to restrict things that are loosely considered dual use "things", such as components that can be repurposed to be part of military purposes - see https://ek.fi/ajankohtaista/uutiset/venaja-pakotteet-qa-vast... section 8) since you seem to be fluent in Finnish

Your previous comment is exclusively observing the effect of sanctions on luxury goods.

You generally can't buy the mentioned dual-use goods in your local electronics store. Look up the "EU dual use control list", it mostly covers exotic stuff like electronics adapted to operate in extreme (temperature, radiation) environments.

I totally believe Russians importing broken/used electronic stuff, but I completely believe it’s because throwaway culture hasn’t caught on as much there.

Could be due to culture, skill or poverty/economics. Or all three.

At least on aliexpress, reviews for random spare parts/components are often from Russians.

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