Binance to terminate Russian ruble deposits
cointelegraph.com
cointelegraph.com
So seems performative more than actually meaningful
with every exchange in the world refusing to work with rubles, the russian people are becoming completely cut off from crypto markets
> At the same time, support for the Russian military action has neither increased nor decreased. Three in four Russians (76%) continue to say they support the military operation, with 43 percent expressing strong support and 33 percent somewhat supporting it.
Apologies if I accidentally condemn the 24% of Russians who aren't neofascists (and yet, can't be bothered to protest, lest the state get upset).
You go to prison for making anti-war statements in Russia, you know?
https://meduza.io/en/news/2023/11/08/prosecution-requests-ei...
Eight. Fucking. Years. For some anti-war price tags. The same sentence you get if you plant drugs as a group of corrupted cops.
https://meduza.io/en/news/2021/06/07/ex-police-officers-conv...
It may shock you to know that in some countries[1], dissidents have been willing to take personal risk of jail time to make their voice heard.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny
edit: I see from the downvotes that the ethical rules that apply to russian civilians do not apply to USA civilians, for some unknown reason.
One was an illconceived and halfassed attempt to remove an explicitly genocidal dictator, with the goal of replacing him with some fantasy liberal democracy.
The other is an attempt to eliminate a democratically elected government, permanently annex territory, and culturally and linguistically subsume Ukraine into Russia by any means necessary.
It's not the same.
Edit, yes, it's racism. I don't care about whatever power structure you imagine to be necessary, it's in the dictionary.
At the same time, I'm not familiar with any evidence any Russian living abroad is facing "racism". (Most of my family live in US/Canada/Australia).
I'm in the US, and I just pretend I'm Polish if people ask what kind of Slav I am. Russian gets the shitty comments and nasty remarks.
Not sure what your anecdotal evidence is supposed to mean, but it ends up not meaning much.
Western strategy is based on containing Russia to limit their government's ability to cause harm. Most would prefer that Russians chose overthrow the government and replace it with something more palatable, but so far they have been unable or unwilling to do so. The next best alternative weakening their economy with sanctions. That necessarily hurts ordinary Russians, because they are part of the same economy as the government.
It's not racism, because your family is being punished for their actions. It may feel unfair, but the world is unfair.
As long as Rwandans pay their taxes, they are contributing to recruiting child soldiers. This is a good reason to be shitty to Rwandans in general, no matter where they are in the world.
My family is in Russia, they're fine. I'm the one experiencing the racism. Justify that.
You also mentioned the US invasion of Iraq. Sanctions against the US would have been justified at that time, but they were impossible, because the US was too big to sanction. Around that time, there were serious discussions in Europe whether Putin or Bush was the bigger villain. Putin had not gone particularly bad yet, while Bush was obviously a villain. Memories of those years helped Putin maintain a favorable image in Europe far longer than could be justified based on his actions.
That's all immaterial compared to the actual discussion here, and I appreciate you clarifying your position.
But, yeah, I was appalled to see how many folks had so much shit in their heads. There's a very significant fraction of the population that aren't just pro-war but openly hold neo-fascist views (while in a strong denial that those views are such - mental gymnastics with syncretism of incompatible values is a long-held tradition).
Russia is truly a cursed country.
You forgot to put the quotes around the term "election". Elections in authoritarian states are just a mockery of the term. It was repeatedly mathematically proven that every recent election in Russia was rigged.
Edit: Clarity
There were numerous protests, and they all were suppressed.
> With the russian military bogged down in Ukraine seems like the right time to throw one.
An uprising is not a likely event in a highly atomized society where no one trusts anyone. And Russians were trained to distrust anyone but themselves and their immediate family for at least a century.
Plus, there are plenty of siloviki working on internal affairs, protecting the regime. Witch hunts are all-high since '30s there.
And there's probably no single reason why the history is the way it is. It's absolutely not like "Soviets were there and that's why it is the way it is". There's probably not even two or three or four reasons why - but some complex set of causes and effects that led the world to where it is today.
Don't get me wrong, please. I'm not absolving the responsibility by blaming Soviets for Russian problems. I'm just mentioning one of the potential factors, saying that Soviets had contributed to this.
Soviet legacy is probably way less important than Putin's years. Since USSR fell, Ukrainian people had elected 6 presidents, and Russia had something like two and a half, all hereditary preemniks to each other (and - again - that's not a particular reason why things are the way they are, just another indicator of how different two post-Soviet countries are).
I guess, I should've been more concise and just said that in an atomized society, uprising is considered to be an unlikely event - without trying to delve into reasons why Russian society is atomized.
Not a worry, I appreciate the nuance and I actually agree for the most part with your argument. Historical conditioning is 100% a burden and I agree that system has broken trust across the board in russian society but at some point a combination of living in a low trust/no trust society combined with a horrifying mutation of that system mixed with unrestricted capitalism has to have taken a toll even before being pariah'd and sanctioned to hell and back.
I also know there are Russians that are against this and have put their lives on the line (and lost them) trying to expose putin for what he is and does, I just wish more would follow in their spirit and maybe we can, at least in one section of the world, have a little peace and quiet.
Let's just take the responsibility of yourself and transfer it to some magic place called 'someone else's problem' and you get the shit we have today.
If you want to convert rubles to crypto, you just do P2P on the Binance or on any other exchange. Basically, exchange provides a list of verified merchants to whom you can deposit rubles directly via any kind of means (card-to-card, FPS, cash, you name it), and these merchants top up your crypto wallet. It takes like two minutes to buy USDT. And it also works in other direction.
As for deposits, there was no reasonable way to deposit rubles on Binance anyway since VISA and Mastercard blocked international payments. Now it's just cleaning up the leftovers so Binance can legally say "we don't work with Russia anymore".
1. Majority of Russian population supports the fascist regime and the invasion — about 70% IMO. These Russians are usually less educated, less wealthy, hold conservative values and have never been out of the country. They depend on the government for their livelihoods, by either working at state-owned companies or receiving money from the state in other forms.
2. There is a sizeable minority (30% IMO) of Russians who don't. During 2022, 30 thousand Russians have been imprisoned at anti-war protests, and up to a million left the country. These Russians are usually more educated, more middle-class, usually hold western socially progressive values and have been out of the country. They are usually employed in private business. These are exactly the people who have migrated out of Russia in 2022.
3. Sanctions against Russian government and military complex are morally good. They are effective at stopping the current war and deterring future invasions by Russia and other bad actors. They take power away from Putin and his fascist regime.
4. Sanctions against regular Russian citizens are morally bad. They stop Russians who flee and protest the war from moving to other countries and give more power to Putin and his fascist regime, and make it easier for it to wage war in Ukraine.
5. It is very hard to make effective sanctions that work like 3 but not like 4. But it's still worth trying.
Any statement about "Russia" or "Russians" as a whole as if it was a singular subject is false by definition.
You mean reward Russia for invading Ukraine and killing its people, by allowing it to steal Ukrainian land and making it official?
Neville Chamberlain would be so proud of you.
For me, the dead demand justice. And Russia cannot be forgiven for what it has done.
Its not in the past, the offensive is still ongoing, and it hasn't failed.
> Ukraine's allies are running out of war materiel to give
Ukraine's supporters are mostly scaling up production quite well, and sone of the most advanced weapons have only just hit the field.
> while Russia successfully scaled their manufacturing up
They’ve scaled up their budget in rubles, actual production seems less clear; they've certainly cut back committed exports to India and elsewhere.
> It's time to negotiate with Russia for peace before they decide to seize more of Ukraine's territory,
They can decide whatever they want, but since they are currently losing territory (as well as losing much effective use of the territory they still hold for the moment), those decisions don't seen to have any relation to reality.
Russia has rerouted it's exports and replaced it's imports. Their budget is healthy and making record profits due to high energy prices caused in part by sanctions.
I also disagree Russian civilians are somehow innocent. Their tax base supports the government. Russia is still a democracy and they elect their government so are liable for their actions.
>Russia is still a democracy and they elect their government
I'll be honest, I have a hard time taking posters like this seriously.
Or you think collective responsibility is something that should applied to others only.
Rules for thee and not for me.
You are so drastically misinformed about this matter that the mere fact that you hold an opinion should serve as a signal that its likely wrong.
It's not only bad morally but also increases their support for the war.
Good.