This is the biggest Russian IT resource that contributes to the Russian economy and thus to the war effort.
By comparison, I unpublished everything there and asked to delete my account in Feb, 2022, just after the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine started.
Otherwise half of threads will be about Nazis by Godwin's law [0]
Like this one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Russia is highly centralized, so whoever operates in Russia has to not only abide by its laws, but actively collaborate with the regime.
There is still a fair amount of dissent and chaos in US business circles.
But business leaders are shamefully silent in US indeed. I'd hope bg and pg and zuck and besos to take clear positions on tariffs, for instance.
You are saying this based on what? Do you have any relationship to Russia, have you visited it after the war started or you just read the newspapers?
Yes, there are some businesses receiving the direct calls from the government and I'm aware of several examples where they just tell "f. off" to a very senior official. Among the rest the level of cooperation or resistance varies from unstoppable patriotic propaganda and fundraising to CEO tipping employees about military recruiters during the mobilization campaign and relocating staff abroad. Russia is certainly not as centralized as you might think.
Not sure why there are so many salty comments. Russian invasion of Ukraine represents a regression to colonialism.
As OP points out you can boycott Hacker News too if you want to take a principled stance on any group tangenially linked to colonialism.
Reads to me like the people have no problem with the idea of boycotting countries or products one doesn't align with as much as OP's apparent hypocrisy and selective application of his reasons.
But I say "apparent" because he doesn't flat out condemn invasions. He says he had no problem with the smaller scale invasion going back to 2014, or the many other invasions around the world, they were fine. Only the "full-fledged invasion of Ukraine" in 2022 crossed the boycott threshold for him.
This could leave a bad taste at best for some fellow HNers.
> This is the biggest Russian IT resource that contributes to the Russian economy and thus to the war effort.
> I unpublished everything there and asked to delete my account in Feb, 2022, just after the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine started
Habr contributes money to Russia and their war effort. OP (@sam_lowry_) was fine with this and implicitly Russia's lower scale invasion until 2022 when the full-fledged invasion of Ukraine started.
US economy contributes to endless wars in Middle East, crippling economies in South American countries. Commenting in HackerNews is bad taste at best.
Similar things could be said about the US, excluding 90% of websites.
Habr Blockchain Publishing Ltd. Diagorou 4 Kermia Building, 6th floor flat/office 601 1097 Nicosia Cyprus
You as a Western customer currently have no way to pay to a Russian legal entity, meaning that VAT and corporate income taxes from your payments are paid in EU and probably supporting Ukraine. I highly doubt that owners repatriate the profits to Russia or they cover operational costs in Russia from foreign income. It is also possible that part of that income goes into salaries of the staff which emigrated after 24.02.2022 and works for Habr remotely, as it happened with many Russian IT companies.
So question is, do you have any specific evidence that your money would fund the war or it is just application of collective responsibility?
Source: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2023/11/14/d...
Is there any specific evidence that Habr supports the war? This is not a rhetoric question, I expect the answer and I'm fine if the answer is yes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment
Just like with BDS in case of Israel, this principle is incompatible with Western values. If you apply collective punishment to Russia, how are you different from them?
Here, the point that's raised is: isn't there any collective responsibility for a group of people that support and re-elect a political leader with 87% of votes, who was, and promised to continue engaging in a war of genocide?
Notice that I'm being cynical here, referencing the 87% vote count. While it might be a theatrical display, the regime likes to preach about the legitimacy of Democracy (especially how Ukraine is conducting its democracy), and Russians accepted these results - so even if it's not actually 87%, it's still high.
Also, let's not forget that a lot of the invading force is composed of individuals with entrepreneurial ambitions; they're contractors, not conscripts, meaning people who sign up to get well paid to go to Ukraine and kill as many Ukrainians as possible, just because they're Ukrainians. The latest estimates of +950.000 Russian casualties point that it's not just a few people willing to do this, but a lot.
So the question that I want to ask you is, at what point does collective responsibility apply?
Two points to clarify:
- This is an honest question, because I don't know the answer to it, but I just don't think that "there should never be collective responsibility" is a good answer.
- Collective responsibility =/= perpetual collective responsibility =/= collective punishment;
There’s no such point. This is the main reason why Russia is still not under full trade embargo and Russian citizens can still get visas. Justice is a fundamental human right, so sanctions always target individuals after some due process and may be repealed in court.
Well, I disagree; the people of a nation contributing to and supporting genocide are responsible in part.
> This is the main reason why Russia is still not under full trade embargo and Russian citizens can still get visas.
I don't think those are the main reasons:
- Embargo would have a global economic impact and would have to be militarily enforced; Also, it wouldn't be enforced everywhere as Russia has borders with countries that aren't sanctioning them.
- As far as I know, Russian citizens can't get Visas everywhere; several European countries have banned all sorts of visas for Russian citizens.
In fact, there's a case to be made that Russians are being collectively held accountable, for example:
- Sanctions;
- Seizing of Russian State assets (they don't belong to Putin or the regime, these assets actually belong to Russians);
- Visa bans;
Why exactly do you think human right for justice doesn’t apply here? Do you include in this group everyone, even those who were not able to or actively tried to stop it? What is their responsibility exactly? If not, how do you make the distinction?
Then what country are you talking about? Russia is not committing genocide in Ukraine, so it must be Israel and Gaza? But even in that case, with dramatically higher number of civilian casualties and people having more agency in state matters how exactly do you want to hold every Israeli citizen responsible?
>In fact, there's a case to be made that Russians are being collectively held accountable, for example: - Sanctions;
I don’t understand this part. “To make a case” means to present arguments. You don’t present arguments for sanctions with saying “sanctions”.
Unfortunately, there's no way to separate accomplices from those who don't support it, but what do you expect to be done? Pretend that nothing is happening and that there's no support at all for the war and only one man, Putin, is to blame?
> Then what country are you talking about? Russia is not committing genocide in Ukraine
Well by the definition of genocide and the actions Russia is taking, it is genocide:
- Denial of Ukraine's existence as a sovereign country and as a people (a very clear admission of genocide by Putin in his speech denying the existence of Ukraine - he just happened to fail to achieve it in full).
- The destruction and stealing of cultural artifacts;
- Forcibly transferring and filtering children of Ukraine to Russia;
- Destruction of maternity hospitals, medical facilities, power grid, all with the goal to bring suffering and inflict on Ukrainians conditions of life;
These are elements of the crime of genocide[0]. You might not like that reality, but that's what's happening. It's not about the number of civilian casualties - the Nazi Germany was committing genocide before the Final Solution. I'm not even addressing war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Just speaking of Genocide.
What baffles me is that it's like you don't grasp the scale of what Russia is doing in Ukraine, where 700.000+ children were kidnapped by Russians, there are more than 10.000.000 refugees, and God only knows how many were filtered in Russia.
> I don’t understand this part. “To make a case” means to present arguments. You don’t present arguments for sanctions with saying “sanctions”.
The point I was making is that Sanctions are already an example of collective responsibility. I wasn't making a case for Sanctions, that's self evident by many laws, such as International Law, UN Charter, etc.
First of all, there is a way. See EU sanctions. They are targeted because there was an effort put in identifying the accomplices and finding the appropriate way to sanction them precisely. Second, by even contemplating the idea of punishing the innocent by applying the principle of collective responsibility you put yourself on the same level as Russian supporters of war. They do exactly the same to justify the war.
> Denial of Ukraine's existence as a sovereign country and as a people.
This is factually not correct. Russia recognizes Ukrainian ethnicity and Ukrainian language (see e.g. the annexation paperwork) and currently accepts existence of Ukraine as a sovereign non-aligned state. That’s literally their proposal for peace.
> The destruction and stealing of cultural artifacts;
Probably war crime, but not genocide. Ukraine wasn’t particularly careful about cultural artifacts in Russia too.
> Forcibly transferring and filtering children of Ukraine to Russia;
That’s complicated. They did move Ukrainian children from the war zone into Russia. It doesn’t constitute genocide obviously (they received proper care), but may constitute crime in some cases.
> Destruction of maternity hospitals, medical facilities, power grid
War crime. Not genocide.
>These are elements of the crime of genocide[0].
You missed the most important part. The definition actually starts with intent: following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such
Russia does not have an intent to destroy Ukrainians as a nation or ethnicity. Without intent every war would be a genocide. E.g. Americans did bomb a hospital in Afghanistan and did kill civilians.
I am aware of the scale of what’s going on there. More than you think.
>700.000+ children were kidnapped by Russians
This number is off by orders of magnitude.
>The point I was making is that Sanctions are already an example of collective responsibility.
Not exactly. They target state and certain actors. Yes, that may make life of ordinary people less comfortable, but this is not the same as when they are applied to a specific person or entity without due process.
I'm not talking about sanctioning individuals, I'm talking about sanctioning Russia - visa bans, economic sanctions, seizing assets of the Russian state. That affects people, not a select group of individuals. There were additional sanctions for particular individuals, as you stated.
> This is factually not correct. Russia recognizes Ukrainian ethnicity and Ukrainian language
I can't believe I'm still arguing this in 2025, but here we are, from the dictator himself:
> Vladimir Putin reportedly claimed that “Ukraine is not even a state! What is Ukraine? A part of its territory is [in] Eastern Europe, but a[nother] part, a considerable one, was a gift from us!” In his March 18, 2014 speech marking the annexation of Crimea, Putin declared that Russians and Ukrainians “are one people. Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus’ is our common source and we cannot live without each other.”[0]
> That’s complicated. They did move Ukrainian children from the war zone into Russia.
It's not complicated at all, they kidnapped children from Ukraine, their state. They could have allowed for humanitarian corridors, they could have requested the UN, or other organizations to take the children back to their parents and guardian, they could have ALREADY RETURNED THE CHILDREN - SINCE 2022.
I'm sorry, but it's absurd that you're trying to wash one of the most despicable crimes of genocide.
> War crime. Not genocide.
According to the definition: > Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;[1]
Russia didn't destroy and brag about destroying Ukraine's power grid in the winter to bring them good health. You don't destroy medical facilities, including children's hospitals and maternity wards to help them thrive.
> You missed the most important part. The definition actually starts with intent: following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such
No, it's YOU WHO MISSED THE IMPORTANT part by disregarding Putin's speech with the intent to wipe out Ukraine:
" In a televised address to the nation, Putin explicitly denied that Ukraine had ever had “real statehood,” and said the country was an integral part of Russia’s “own history, culture, spiritual space.”"[2]
There's the intent, Putin own admission of genocide is more than enough, the problem is that it was when he thought Russia could take Kyiv in a few days.
[0] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2020/07/01/there-is-no-ukraine...
[1] https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition
[2] https://time.com/6150046/ukraine-statehood-russia-history-pu...
Politicians often say a lot of provocative things in interviews. What matters is what they actually do and whether they do it consistently. You pick one quote from an the interview and think it is more important than all the legislative framework and all the peace proposals that were written on paper. I disagree and will not continue, since you are apparently arguing based on beliefs not based on knowledge of the facts.
>It's not complicated at all, they kidnapped children from Ukraine, their state.
As I said, your number of 700k children is wrong by order of magnitude. That number comes from a Russian source, Ukraine has a database of 20k confirmed cases (could be higher by now). Russia annexed Ukrainian territories and offered citizenship to inhabitants. Russia also hosted a number of pro-Russian Ukrainian refugees, some of them children who left the war zone with their parents and preferred to stay in Russia (yes, those people do exist and there's a lot of them). I do not deny abductions, I just say that that number includes very different cases and taking them into account will paint very different picture from "genocide".
>There's the intent, Putin own admission of genocide is more than enough
You are making up things. He did not admit genocide. I did watch that televised address, you just make conclusions from news reports.
Well, it was in the national address when the second invasion kicked off in 2022. So we have the denial of the Ukrainian state and people, while launching an invasion, trying to capture the capital to topple and kill the government - how aren't these actions following the words?
What is more important are the actions - 3 years of bringing death and misery to Ukrainians, all while preaching they're either Russians or they're nothing. There was no peace proposal from Russia that was ever taken seriously by Russia itself.
These are facts.
> As I said, your number of 700k children is wrong by order of magnitude.
The number is between 25.000 and 700.000 - but what's absurd is that you're arguing about thousands of Children. Doesn't matter if it's 100, 1000 or 10.000, it's the genocidal intent behind it to transfer and filter Children from one country to another.
Russia threatened Ukrainians to accept passports or to be ejected from their homes, it's yet another instance of genocide/crimes against humanity[0]
Why were these people, children, women, and the elderly displaced across Russia and not given a safe passage back to their homeland? It's just like when Russia allied with the Nazis to help with the genocide of Poland, by removing people from their land and displacing them far away.
> Russia also hosted a number of pro-Russian Ukrainian refugees
Who are you to say if refugees that have no way to go but to the land of the aggressor are pro-Russian Ukrainians?! What kind of fcked up mentality is that?
You keep trying to wash genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by arguing about numbers, and hypothetical political, and by trying to change the definitions of the UN - of which Russia is part of. In reality, what defines these horrific crimes is their actions and intent.
> He did not admit genocide. I did watch that televised address,
Well, you need to watch it again.
We're done here.
I, as an individual, can refuse to do business with any company I please, on the basis of my beliefs and moral convictions (and on the basis of the likelihood of them being complicit in something I oppose to).
If you prefer one brand of ice cream over the other, is this a collective punishment of the other company (looking at you, Ben & Jerry)?