Google to close engineering office in Russia | Hacker News Reader

Google to close engineering office in Russia

reuters.com

283 pointsazov290 comments

Acronis, one of best known Russian tech companies, is slowly moving to Estonia: http://www.investinestonia.com/en/about-estonia/news/article...

There are also quite a few who are moving from Russia to Ukraine.

Also remembered this: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-28/luxoft-to-move-500-...

I can't imagine doing business with a Russian owned company at this point. An autocratic regime has never been good for internet or software freedoms.

I'm very glad I chose Sophos over Kaspersky for our shop.

Kaspersky is interesting. I like their security labs but I am always aware their founder was FSB (KGB-trained) and has good relations with senior personnel (nomenklatura) there, so, while I don't think it's automatic that Kaspersky would do the Russ gov 'favors' it's not out of the question either however Wired has reported as such.

Kaspersky proposed to government to implement a kind of internet-passport, and to allow internet usage only for people verified by government.

I wouldn't trust such a person with anything.

What is wrong with that? Internet shouldn't be a basic human right, it should be a privilege, like driving.

It's less like driving, but more like access to public libraries.

When was the last time someone died due to drunk surfing, or excessive internet speeds?

I'm being facetious but the point stands.

The founder of Huawei was in the PLA, and this is often used to bash the company.

Why is it ok to serve country A, B, C and then go into business... but if you serve country X,Y,Z you're suddenly untrustworthy?

What next? Make business decisions based upon the sexual preferences of the CEO?

McDonald’s CEO, James Skinner, is interesting. I like their chicken mcNuggets, but I am always aware that their CEO is US-Navy trained, and maintains a good relation with armed forces.

Seriously though, everybody was China is PLA - it doesn't mean anything. Back in the day, PLA is one of the few ways to get an education and not be a farmer.

> McDonald’s CEO, James Skinner, is interesting. I like their chicken mcNuggets, but I am always aware that their CEO is US-Navy trained, and maintains a good relation with armed forces.

I think that's a different discussion. I can't imagine any way that McD's would spy on/hurt us thru McNuggets (except maybe food poisoning), whereas they can thru software/Internet companies.

On a semi-serious note, McDonald's is positioned at major intersections in nearly every city and town in the United States.

If you wanted to go full-militarized police state, locking down all the major intersections seems like something you'd want to do.

A friend of mine once heard a talk by one of the CxOs of McDonald's (was a while ago, and I can't remember which). He asked the question, "What business am I in?"

Obviously, he rejected the naive answer of "selling food". Smarter answers were "licensing franchises" or "marketing/branding", but he rejected those answers as well.

What business was he in? Land

Thanks for the heads-up about McDonald's. We're using their McIDS product right now, so I'll definitely have to do more research into whether we can trust them.

It is just propaganda. And the negligence to admit that all citizens are subject to it, not only the non-democratic countries. I believe that such fear of "the others" (the communists in this case) is the root of any national identity.

> while I don't think it's automatic that Kaspersky would do the Russ gov 'favors'

What's with this amazing inability of us Westerners to learn from past mistakes and endless optimism about benevolent intention of others? You'd think we would have corrected this by now, eg. after http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/russiago.... Personally FYI, I understand the optimism, but less so the inability to learn.

TL;DR Sorry, it's automatic. No such thing as ex-KGB. [/End of rant].

There are favors and then there is the bidding of a powerful hand.

Well, in this case, there is no difference --unless you want to end up like regime critiquing reporters often end up.

Then you might also want to check where the device you are typing from (or your monitor, router, smartphone...) has been manufactured.

Why discriminate against a Russian company over something that may or may not happen?

Russia has elections and they have laws which affect businesses based there - pretty much like every other country out there.

As the article states, Google is moving its engineers but the sales team is staying, so this reorganization is less to do with politics and more to do with Google centralizing its engineers in Zurich - just like MountainView.

Russia has neither free speech nor free elections.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25299116 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/nov/30/russia.politics

China has none of the above and is now the world's largest economy. Doesn't seem to be an impediment to doing business, does it?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-official-america-is-now...

The US is the world's largest economy, roughly 70% larger than China in fact.

That's a bogus article, that is more link-bait than substance - which is why nobody has taken it seriously. The author is patting their self on the back for forecasting an event they then self-proclaim to have taken place.

"So a Starbucks venti Frappucino served in Beijing counts the same as a venti Frappucino served in Minneapolis, regardless of what happens to be going on among foreign-exchange traders."

If a person in China making 10% of my income can buy as many Starbucks coffees as I can, that does not mean we have the same economic power or scale. I can buy a BMW, and they cannot, and that tells you the real story.

Not really. The real story is that the GDP per capita of the more deregulated Chinese provinces doubled or tripled from 2000 to 2010.

My Chinese friends tell me that there are tons of BMWs driving around. Looking at the numbers, it seems that BMW's volume of sales in now greater in China than in the U.S.

The US is the world's largest economy, roughly 70% larger than China in fact.

I saw an article recently that would contradict your assertion:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/china-overtakes-us-as-worlds-l...

>China has none of the above and is now the world's largest economy. Doesn't seem to be an impediment to doing business, does it?

sounds like you've never did business in countries like China or Russia, or did business at all.

Western companies have no problen doing business with China or Russia.

If you have a problem then that's on you. The politics in China has not stopped entrepeneurs from heading east.

For that matter, I doubt any country has free speech or free elections. Some countries only are better in making citizens believe in opposite than others.

> Russia has elections and they have laws which affect businesses based there - pretty much like every other country out there

In the U.S. I can sign a contract with a private party–or even with the government–and reasonably expect (a) that the terms will be complied with or (b) if they are not, to have reasonable options for compelling performance or collecting damages. In Somalia, on the other hand, a contract is merely a discussion aid. Forcing performance or collecting damages requires deploying force.

Russia is in between. The courts are venal and capricious. This means that a contract saying one thing can be interpreted differently because of the counterparty's political connections. (Not saying that doesn't happen everywhere, but its degree and brazenness is greater in states without a firm rule of law, like Russia.) It also means that any disagreement could escalate unpredictably to one's property being sacked and self being jailed.

None of this makes Russia an impossible place to do business. But it does make it more costly, in the form of ambiguous risks and the unique and uncertain costs of mitigating them.

Don't they say the same thing about China and it's rule of law, or lack of? Yet Western businesses flock there.

If I were an investor and an entrepreneur gave me all these reasons for not entering the Russian or Chinese market, as well as refusing to do business with companies from these countries, I would quickly show them the door.

China has improved governance fairly rapidly. Sadly, I think it's clear Russia have regressed badly.

A good example of the Chinese situation is AMSC: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-19/china-supreme-court...

Now, the situation shouldn't have arisen, but as the CEO has observed people thought merely trying to get the Chinese court system to go along with them was nuts. In Russia this would be game over already.

China's economy is big, growing, and rapidly diversifying across industries and into consumption. Russia's is treading water, concentrated, and shrinking away from consumption.

China also has more pro-business and -investment infrastructure than Russia, e.g. well-defended special economic zones, empowered pro-development governance, etc. Bejing has been more stable and predictable in respect of these priorities than Moscow.

Google left china way before they left Russia. Plenty of western companies have trouble working in China, especially since the market has closed up a bit since the Olympics.

After Google left China, their stock went up over time, still much larger than Baidu whose protected market is limited to the mainland.

And why choose Zurich over Moscow as the place to center its engineers? Maybe because the business climate is not as conducive and that's very much because of the political situation in Russia.

It's also easier to recruit people to work in Zurich than in Moscow.

Zurich = Central location in Europe, natives speak multiple languages, science and R&D already there (pharmaceutical).

Also, Switzerland being in the Schengen area means they can recruit from any other Schengen country -- more-or-less the EU minus Britain and Ireland, plus Iceland, Switzerland and Norway -- without needing to get work visas or any other right-to-work documentation.

Schengen is about border controls for transportation, it doesn't mean a permit to work in itself automatically. Rather, it's because Switzerland is a member of EFTA. The UK isn't one of the Schengen countries, for example, but they can still work in Switzerland.

I guess I'm mistaken then. I thought freedom of movement, including for work, was covered under the Schengen agreement's visa policies.

Word is that most employees are being offered full relocation (generally to Zurich) which I have to think will be well received.

This goes for both Moscow and St Petersburg.

I guess it's not a coincidence then that Google announced the opening of new offices in Zurich today.

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...

Couldn't find an English source

http://www.europaallee.ch/content/dam/PDF/Ueber_Europaallee/... for an english source.

Zürich is going to be difficult with the new ruling from Parliament to reduce the permits for people outside of the EU. (1)

Yet Google announced opening another office today.

(1)http://mobile2.tagesanzeiger.ch/articles/29666497

Though 1) everyone in switzerland is still wondering how they are going to implement it without breaking bilateral relations with EU and 2) it doesn't mean reducing permit, it means having a limit (vs. free flow with Schengen), and before Schengen Google did not seem to have much issue getting permits for its workforce

> which I have to think will be well received.

sorry I can't read the english here, do you expect it to be well received (why? seems like it would be a though choice for many people even with a relocation package) or are you expressing hope it will be?

Sorry for the colloquial English. I meant that employees will likely take advantage of this as a good alternative to leaving Google. It is financially beneficial to earn in CHF versus RUB if you don't mind Zurich.

At least in term of compensation, Zurich is hard to beat.

You can also throw in:

- One of the best health care systems in the world

- Incredible educational system

- Technology and innovation

- Compact, well run government

- Some of the lowest crime rates in the world

- Ski much? Some of the best ski resorts in the world are in the Swiss Alps. If you don't, then you still have some breath taking scenery to look at.

Not sure you could find a better place to live than Switzerland. For the Google employees in Russia, this must be a dream come true.

Switzerland by all accounts, is the exact opposite of Russia.

Better check how long/difficult is the settlement/citizenship process. Is it even achievable? There are fairer places to go, it should be a strategic decision not an opportunistic one.

I've done some checking and if you're going to settle there on a perm basis, I think it would be worth it.

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/becoming-a-citizen/29288376

Foreigners with no direct blood ties to Switzerland through either birth or marriage must live in the country for at least 10 years (reduced from 12 years by a new law passed in June 2014) before they can apply for citizenship. (Years spent in the country between age ten and 20 count double). The person must be well integrated, familiar with customs and traditions, law abiding, and pose no threat to internal or external security. The Federal Migration Office will then “green light” an applicant’s request to begin the naturalisation process but that does not mean citizenship is certain. Rather, cantons and municipalities have their own requirements that must be met. One canton, for example, might require applicants to live for two years in the region while another might require a decade. For more on the process, please visit the Federal Migration Office.

The other interesting thing is being born in the country doesn't mean you're granted citizenship.

> The other interesting thing is being born in the country doesn't mean you're granted citizenship.

That is quite common everywhere except the americas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli

The value of the rouble has collapsed over the past year, I think he means tech workers would only be too happy to leave.

I think he means that most tech workers there wouldn't be just fired. They would be offered relocation packages. It is better than being just fired, thus it would be well received.

(Don't forget that although you think that Moscow is in the middle of Siberia and the city is a one big communist radioactive dump that you saw in the movies, actually, the reality is far from it. People there are surprisingly happy, good looking and the city is quite beautiful, especially in the summer. Europe is just 3 hours on an airplane from there. And to be a tech worker there at Google, with middle-class salary is quite nice. On the other hand, the long-term outlook is a bit gloomy, so...)

>Europe is just 3 hours on an airplane from there.

I thought everything west of the Ural mountains/river (including Moscow) was considered Europe? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Definition

I might be wrong, but I think in the context of discussing Russia it is pretty standard to use the word Europe, assuming 'Europe, excluding Russia/USSR'. Specifically I was talking about a typical flight to a EU country for business/tourism.

It's interesting to note that that the Eurovision song contest includes Russia, Israel and central Asian states, including even Azerbaijan. Perhaps this is an example of soft power projection from the EU "project" of a political union and the creation of a supra-national state...

Azerbaijan is not in Central Asia, it's on Caucasus.

You may be right. It's often described as being at the cross roads of east and west. It's north of both Iraq and Iran which for most people would not be Europe.

> do you expect it to be well received (why? seems like it would be a though choice for many people even with a relocation package)

I think he was saying it would be preferable to move than to be fired.

Disregarding the job/compensation aspects, I'm sure many Russian Googlers would love a chance to live in a real functioning country, even if temporarily.

They'll soon find out that Zürich has become a quite boring overpopulated (in comparision to the finit 'nice hidden corners') place...

Compared to Moscow/SPb they won't possibly note that.

They did the same thing when they first closed the engineering office in São Paulo (Brazil) years ago. If I remember correctly.

Putin is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to his power, whatever the consequences to the Russian economy, and this of course scares foreign companies who work there - even if, with the recent fall of the ruble, Russian talent is even more affordable now.

I'm afraid (I have friends in Russia) that we're going to see more of this.

That's a very myopic view and here's why -- virtually all governments in the world are becoming increasingly authoritarian because of the global economic crisis and the civilian unrest that it provokes. For example, replace Putin in your sentence and you'll get "United States is increasingly cracking down on any possibility of dissent and threat to it power". You can support that statement with facts about police in Ferguson, US conflicts with China in Asia Pacific, and of course US crackdown on dissidents like Assange and Snowden. You can also try that exercise by replacing Putin with "Greek government".

Demonizing Putin is what your government wants you to do to avoid seeing the bigger picture. The real question is WHY is Putin cracking down on threat to his power?

I'm a Romanian, a country that's pretty close to Russia and I am one that suffers for what the Ukrainians are going through with Russia, because I can see how the same thing could happen in Basarabia (Moldova) and there are already signs of that. Russia historically has been occupying territories, getting rid of any political dissent by effectively killing or deporting people, while crushing their national identity. I hate Russia for what they did after the secret pact from Yalta, for the soviet induced hunger that happened after that and for the years of communism we endured.

It's been only 24 years since we escaped their control and apparently we've been lucky, but now Putin is destroying any chance of having a peaceful neighborhood. War is effectively at our borders and Putin is to be blamed.

So spare me rhetoric about every government or country being the same. No, they are not equal. And I hope the Putin administration will receive what it deserves.

>So spare me rhetoric about every government or country being the same. No, they are not equal. And I hope the Putin administration will receive what it deserves.

Maybe not equal to you. US has propped up almost countless corrupt regimes and cartels for its own interest. You just don't care when it's happening in Saudi Arabia or Mexico.

The politics and history there is much more complicated!

I strongly believe that any country put in a position of power will expand the control by any means necessary. Your own history is far from flawless: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1941_Odessa_massacre.

That said, I strongly doubt Russia has any interest in Moldova or Romania. Putin lost a figurehead in Yanukovich and grabbed what he could out of the ensuing mess. Putin did not start what happened in Ukraine, but rather was extremely opportunistic once it happened.

There are evidences that Crimea annexation had been prepared for few years before any unrests. There are photos of paramilitary people with Donetsk "People Republic" flags at Russian summer camp Seliger in 2009. Relentless Russian propaganda has been translated all over Eastern Ukraine and Crimea for ten years.

Don't get me started on "Putin did not start what happened in Ukraine".

Eh... Propaganda has been so strong on both sides that I doubt we will ever know the truth.

Personally, I'm very conflicted on the question of Crimea and don't think I can comment or discuss unbiasedly.

>>So spare me rhetoric about every government or country being the same.

Don't twist my words. I said governments are becoming more authoritarian. I stand by this statement.

Judging by your other comments, your intent is pretty clear but I'll bite.

I strongly disagree that governments are becoming more authoritarian, it's quite the opposite, governments are becoming more liberal and democratic, with the situation improving even in countries such as Libya, Egypt and Morocco. The only reason for why the situation seems bleak to some people is because access to information has become unhindered due to the Internet.

>>> with the situation improving even in countries such as Libya, Egypt and Morocco

I don't know enough about Morocco to call you out on that one, but dude... Libya and Egypt? If the current goings-on in those countries forms the basis of your opinion then I think you might need to rethink your position

I'm not saying that Libya and Egypt are democracies, all I said is that the situation has been improving even there.

Democracy seems to be struggling in some African countries: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-return-of-africas-strongmen-...

This is mostly accurate.

Europe pre-WW2 was overrun with all variations of fascism and authoritarianism. Prior to that, it was still ruled by Kings, Queens, and Imperial rule ala Napoleon.

You falsely equated the actions of a few berserk local cops in the US with the Putin regime. You need people to twist your words so that you don't look like an idiot or worse.

It is just ignorant to be unaware of the scale of police brutality in the United States. Educate yourself.

Police brutality in the US is a problem. It doesn't compare to the slaughter of millions under the former USSR, or the complete shut-down of all freedom of speech and freedom of the press under Putin.

If the US were anything like Russia, we couldn't be having this conversation on a heavily trafficked web site like HN located within the US. The US still has the greatest level of freedom of speech of any nation on earth, and the strongest speech protections, even after some of the recent erosion.

It is just ignorant to compare US police brutality to, say, Holodomor, and not see connections between Putin and Stalin.

And what makes you think US would have treated Romania better? Please read more about history. Your ignorance is common. For every bad thing Russia did there is an equally bad thing US did. Same goes for any other 2 countries. It's everyone for himself.

When did the US annex 1/3 of Latin America?

There's no sane comparison to be made between the US and its neighbors, and what the Soviet Union did to Europe.

The US - Canadian border for a century was the largest, basically unguarded border in world history.

Wake me up when the US invades Canada and starts annexing territory.

You must be joking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_annexation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re... "A decades long civil war ensued in which some 200,000 people were killed, mostly by the US backed military" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27%C3%A9t... "The coup subjected Brazil to a military regime politically aligned to the interests of the United States government" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

Too many to dig up.

"Under the Reagan Doctrine, the United States provided overt and covert aid to anti-communist guerrillas and resistance movements in an effort to "roll back" Soviet-backed communist governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America"

Are you awake yet?

Your country was of enormous help to Hitler while attacking the USSR, and the retribution you had to "endure", given everything you did, was astonishingly mild. So spare me your complaints.

The only reason for why Romania joined the Axis, is because of the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact [1] between Hitler and Stalin from 1939, which amongst other things, for us it meant yielding control of Basarabia and Bucovina to the soviet union. This provided the perfect opportunity for the Romanian parliament to be dissolved and for a military dictatorship to seize power in Romania, which is the one responsible for joining the Axis.

But yeah, thanks for bringing that up - goes to show that what goes around comes around ;-)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...

> given everything you did

Man, it's 2014, the people that did anything in WW2 on both sides are long dead.

And in the context of that time, "the Allies" included Stalin's Russia (read some history, this tyrant killed more of his own people than there were victims of Hitler's holocaust!), so choosing to support Hitler's Germany against an alliance that included Russia was not necessarily a bad idea at that that time, even morally and ethically speaking.

And concerning post-war "retribution" as a way to handle international relationships after a war: basically the only reason Hitler himself came to power in Germany was because this country had to endure an extremely harsh "retribution" post WW1 so maybe the people that made this harsh post WW1 deal really deserved the killings and destruction of WW2! Post WW2 western European countries all benefited from something called the Marshall Plan from the US and of decades of productive cooperation in the EU, regardless of who did what in WW2, whereas the "Eastern Block" countries all got to endure "retribution" and being part of the unhealthy forced economy of the USSR.

International politics is something that should be taken separately from concepts such as "fairness" and "correctitude" and "punishing someone for one's bad deeds". You don't punish a whole people for the consequences of what a leader decided, even if they followed that leader. You try to rebuild countries and economies, regardless of what seems "fair" or not, and you try to accelerate economical growth, even if this even means letting 1 in 10 war criminals get away. You optimize social and economical systems for performance so that they can provide the best average "quality of live", even if this means swallowing some shady politics once in a while and occasionally "forgetting" some historical truths when remembering them is not "productive".

Thankfully the US, UK and modern Germany get these basic principles right, and I really hope they will have as much of an influence as possible on international politics, in the detriment of Russia and China who, despite the immense economic growth of the last, haven't really gotten to the level where they really understand what "healthy modern democracy" is all about and know how to play "the game" and also make the people happy.

"You try to rebuild countries and economies, regardless of what seems "fair" or not"

The problem here: after the cold war, which Russia lost, nobody cared to rebuild its economy; instead everything was done to siphon people and resources away and to destroy industry. Obviously US really did not want to see Russia on the map anymore and so they did that.

Guess what - 20 years pass, Russia is angry like a non-mortally wounded wild animal.

I'm not a fan of mr. Putin but he's very cautious still. With someone less cautious it WILL look like pre-WW2.

And of course it will be a disaster for everyone involved.

First of all, the cold war wasn't a real war, but a competition between the US and Russia. Russia's loss was that they overspent resources they couldn't afford to spend. Russia is also really big and has all the resources it needs to recover from anything. In such a scenario I don't understand why would anybody assume that, if it had been given international help, they would be any different than what they are today.

Second of all, if they lost the cold war, I don't get why they'd want another one. Putin is only cautious because he knows that in such a scenario he will lose. And Putin's nationalistic behavior only happened because Russia was on the brink of another economic recession.

"Russia is also really big and has all the resources it needs to recover from anything"

Sure, but industries will be destroyed and people die, starve and be forcibly relocated. That's what happened to ex-USSR a lot because the rest of world did not see any reason to rebuild a country that in fact yielded to them.

You are free to "don't understand", but the damage I mentioned was done. Don't then be surprised when people you considered harmless want to nuke you for all the good. All the good that, strictly speaking, you did not have to do.

"Second of all, if they lost the cold war, I don't get why they'd want another one"

If Germans lost one world war, why would they want another one?

You don't have to be a centenarian to have fought in WWII. Plenty of them around. Stalin killing fascists was a good thing. You are retelling a good story but the West, always working on its narrative, does not tell the truth. And Japan and Italy? Axis powers were trying to join the imperialist game of u.s. and britain of land grabbing colonies. Hence WWII was an inter-imperialist war. After WWII you get many Third World countries trying to break away from Western puppet governments, colonialism, by flying the red flag.

A lot of the fascist collaborator countries, including Baltic states and Ukraine, are still proud of their support of fascism. The West turns a blind eye to this as its promotion of democracy is a political tool, which is a farce considering the dictatorships it creates and supports like Saudi Arabia.

To me such lines sound like the soviet propaganda we were listening to until the nineties. The communists basically needed enemies, like all good oppressors do and so they were blaming fascism and imperialism for everything.

False equivalence watch: what Snowden did was so outside the bounds of established law that he'd face prosecution in virtually any administration in American history. His arguments mitigating the offense might be important at a trial, but we can't know, because he fled the country rather than face that trial. The attention paid to Snowden is not in itself evidence of increased authoritarianism in the US.

When I think of Putin, I don't so much think of things my government says (in fact, Americans don't generally pay that much attention to what the government says; our legislature is skirting single-digit approval ratings).

I think more about news stories about how 4chan-style prank videos of kids having gay porn posters put up on their wall are reported as factual news by Russian state-owned television:

http://www.advocate.com/world/2014/12/06/watch-russian-docum...

What's your point?

I won't disagree that demonizing Putin is what the government wants us to do. I remember how the U.S. funded Saddam to use chemical weapons on Iran and then overthrew him "for the sake of the people."

However, it should also be kept in mind that we're still far away from the Russian regime where speaking against the government (releasing classified documents doesn't count) or being a homosexual will land you in jail.

So yeah, no one's perfect, but I'll stick to North America for the time being, thanks.

> Speaking in favor of gay rights is considered propaganda and was made illegal last year.

That's false.

EDIT: Again, the statement above is false. It is legal to speak in favor of gay rights. It is illegal for adults to speak in favor of gay rights TO MINORS. Much like it is legal to have sex. And illegal for adults to have sex with minors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Russia#Propagand...

No, it isnt. key point from the text:

Under the statute it is effectively illegal to hold any gay pride events, speak in favor of gay rights, or say that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships in presence of minors.[5][57][60][64][65]

You are not parsing the text correctly.

It is legal to "hold any gay pride events, speak in favor of gay rights, or say that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships"

It is illegal "illegal to hold any gay pride events, speak in favor of gay rights, or say that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships _in presence of minors_."

I am not parsing anything incorrectly.

> _in presence of minors_

so, anywhere in public? where would one find space to hold a public event where children are guaranteed to not be present?

Also the whole line of reasoning is that mentioning homosexuality to children makes them gay which is... bad? thats a value judgment on homosexuality that was put in place by the government, yet you are trying to constantly say that this law holds no prejudice? what a shill.

Oh, before you try to come back with 'thats not a value judgement!' hold your breath. the law literally states that you cant say that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships to children, that leaves only two possible positions: either homosexual relationships are better or they are worse

I don't know if you have kids but I do.

I don't want my kids to be exposed to any form of expression supporting any sexual lifestyle. In fact, I don't event want my kids to see a blurred photo of Kim Kardashian's naked butt on TV.

There is zero prejudice in this value statement. And most parents agree with my position.

When my kids are adults they can decide about sexual relationships for themselves. Until then I decide for them and I want a legal system that supports my decisions.

Does the law block speaking to kids about ALL sexual orientations, or just 'non traditional'?

you're point is completely irrelevant to the discussion. this is about discrimination against homosexuality.

But I'll address it anyways:

>I don't want my kids to be exposed to any form of expression supporting any sexual lifestyle.

Good for you, luckily as a parent you have the ability to make those decisions for your kids.

This does not extend to you forcing your views on others.

>And most parents agree with my position.

and the rights of the majority are the only rights that matter, correct?

>Until then I decide for them and I want a legal system that supports my decisions.

This is not how it works. Say you were an anti-vaccine advocate, you would want the legal system to outlaw vaccines, but many other parents would disagree. see how this conflicts with the rights of others?

Choose your words carefully, the law blocks _propaganda_ not speaking; of _"sexual relations"_ not sexual orientations. Translated from Russian to English, "sexual relations" refers to non traditional parental units, i.e. those that do not consist of a male + female. You may see here a discrimination against homosexuality but I see a legal framework for protection of a traditional family. LGBT individuals still have rights in this framework.

With respect to your anti-vaccine example. There is always a conflict between something that a minority may consider a right and the rule of the majority. There are minorities that want pedophilia to be made legal. Do you have a novel solution for the minority rights conflict? Traditionally rights for minorities have been won through struggle, societal change, and war among many other ways. Are you proposing a novel solution for LGBT rights in Russia?

>or say that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships in presence of minors.

Is it me, or is that the word 'say'?

>You may see here a discrimination against homosexuality but I see a legal framework for protection of a traditional family.

This is a direct contradiction. You cannot use law to legally protect one class of people without necessarily discriminating against those not in that class.

> There are minorities that want pedophilia to be made legal.

Weak example. Pedophilia has a direct victim (a child is unable to give consent)

>Do you have a novel solution for the minority rights conflict?

No, but it wouldnt be to ignore it as you would. This is so far from what the discussion is about I wonder why you are trying to sidetrack this

>Traditionally rights for minorities have been won through struggle, societal change, and war among many other ways. Are you proposing a novel solution for LGBT rights in Russia?

? this is pretty much nonsense? yeah, rights are won through societal change as you say - Many societies are changing to accept homosexuality, not sure what you're trying to get at here? Why would i be proposing a novel solution to gay rights?

Thanks for the discussion

In free countries, minorities have right without struggle. We all are owed due process, free assembly and so on. This so-called conflict is made-up, where the majority imagines they are harmed by the private arrangements of the minority.

I assume you would have no problem showing your children a Disney movie where the prince marries a princess (kids' movies obviously have no explicit sex scenes).

Would you have a problem with a Disney movie where a princess marries another princess?

I.e. is your problem really just with exposing children to sex, or do you actually have a problem with gay characters?

Interesting. So how does this play out as a means of controlling moral values in Russia? Can I effectively break up any pro gay rights events just by bringing along enough children? Or does incidental inclusion of minors not count enough to stop an already planned event?

To be honest, gay rights events in Russia are usually broken up by far-Right mobs physically attacking anyone participating. It's fair to say the police aren't renowned for making concerted efforts to ensure things go peacefully, but they're generally not the ones dishing out the beatings either.

The law in question is pandering to the extreme levels of homophobia prevalent in modern Russian culture, and its justification and theme is loosely based on an actually much more explicitly anti-gay law that existed on the UK statute book not so long ago; our current PM opposed its repeal in 2003 and yet ended up backing gay marriage a decade later. Legislators sometime reflect popular sentiment more as they shape it.

Which doesn't mean it isn't a terrible law, and much more likely to be used to persecute people in Russia than the UK (or indeed Singapore where homosexuality is technically illegal). But some perspective is useful here. From the waves of condemnation emitted from certain sources earlier this year you'd never guess that last Olympic venue where homosexual activity was actually illegal was Atlanta in 1996.

I'd appreciate the campaign to support Russian gay rights much more if I believed much of the media behind it wasn't - for better or worse - really far more interested in Russia's foreign policy. Or that it wouldn't backfire...

There's nothing wrong with telling Children that it's fine to be gay

It is illegal "illegal to hold any gay pride events, speak in favor of gay rights, or say that gay relationships are equal to heterosexual relationships _in presence of minors_."

For example, in a public square.

Not quite false. Here's the law in question I believe: http://asozd2.duma.gov.ru/main.nsf/%28Spravka%29?OpenAgent&R...

The situation about gays in Russia, i.e. "being a homosexual will land you in jail" is a meme that Western Corporate Media wants you to believe. Read the facts: http://gallery.mailchimp.com/d0e55f3197099944345708652/files...

Speaking in favor of gay rights is considered propaganda and was made illegal last year.

I know that propaganda of sex to children had been forbidden last year (which makes one wonder, has it really been legal before 2013?), did not know this one. Any links would be appreciated. I can read and write Russian so the law's name would be good enough for me.

It's the same law; their logic is that promoting LGBT rights means promoting deviant sexual behaviour, and doing so publicly will inevitably reach children.

"Their" is referring whom exactly? I don't think Russia is a Common Law country, judges there cannot derive something from a law so whomever you think is interpreting the law. Were not media saying that gay athletes in Sochi are going to be incarcerated using the same logic?

"Their" referring to the Putin government.

You can't really use Sochi as an example. The Olympics are a very important international event and Russia wanted the good publicity. You'll also notice that Putin ordered the release of many political prisoners just in time for that event.

I see. So Putin has made media to lie. What an asshole!

It is legal to speak in favor of gay rights. It is illegal for adults to speak in favor of gay rights TO MINORS. Much like it is legal to have sex. And illegal for adults to have sex with minors.

The law is explained in detail here: http://gallery.mailchimp.com/d0e55f3197099944345708652/files...

Did you just compare a minor being told that homosexuality is okay to having sex with an adult?

And as I've said earlier, that basically prevents any public promotion.

The logical structure of the two arguments is the same.

I don't want my kids to be exposed to public promotion of any sexual lifestyle. In fact I don't even want them to see a blurred photo of Kim Kardashian's naked butt on TV.

LGBT community can rent out a conference center and hold the rally there, advertising it publicly and denying minors access to the premises. This is perfectly legal under today's LGBT laws in Russia.

It doesn't matter what you want your kids exposed to... because there are activists who are working with politicians in most Western countries to totally change sex educations classes.

For example, in the UK, teachers are to tell kids as young as 13, which is below the age of consent:

"normal behaviour includes taking an interest in pornography, having sexually explicit conversations, using the internet to chat online and consenting to oral or penetrative sex with the same or opposite gender."

Or kids as young as 9:

" So-called “green behaviours” are defined as those that “reflect safe and healthy sexual development”. For children aged nine to 13, green behaviours include “solitary masturbation” and “use of sexual language”."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11209109/...

LGBT community can rent out a conference center and hold the rally there, advertising it publicly and denying minors access to the premises. This is perfectly legal under today's LGBT laws in Russia.

But can they kiss in public? Or hold hands, even?

> The real question is WHY is Putin cracking down on threat to his power?

Sounds like a rhetorical question but I don't guess the answer. Do you mean Putin is doing it because of the civilian unrest?

> Demonizing Putin is what your government wants you to do to avoid seeing the bigger picture.

No-one is demonizing Putin, they're telling facts. The bigger picture is, censorship is bad, and if US defends the freedom of opinion in Russia, it's good because we can turn those arguments back to the US gov.

>>No-one is demonizing Putin, they're telling facts.

Really? Much in the same way that the media of 10 years ago convinced the populace that Hussein was involved with 9/11, the media today is propagating the following memes:

- Putin hates gays

- Putin kills journalists

- Putin was responsible for downing of MH17

How many of these memes are supported by facts? When accusing a leader of a nuclear power of these things, shouldn't the accusations be ironclad?

While I think it's very appropriate to question media portrayals, I think you crossed a line in suggesting that russian treatment of gays is "a meme." (If I'm interpreting you too strongly, I apologize, but please just skim http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Russia a bit, especially the section on "national law"; for me at least this leaves very little of the governments stance to question)

Similarly, when given such data as ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_R... ) it's very hard to suspect there isn't something amiss; this theory guided as well with russia's likely history of using assassinations as a tool prior. (I hate to bring up the Alexander Litvinenko case as that it's probably been beaten to death, but I think it's fair to say it doesn't lend me to trust the Russian govt.)

It's all fine and good to call for fact checking, but to neglect to take in the same facts you so loudly call for, you do yourself a great disservice.

Ok, I skimmed LGBT article. Would you be willing to skim the following white paper on the subject? http://gallery.mailchimp.com/d0e55f3197099944345708652/files...

interesting, an article written by an author who has never written anything else and comes up with not a single social media profile, or really anything other than this article and articles referencing it.

perfect shill bait.

Are you serious? This is Brian. I've met him: https://www.youtube.com/user/DiversitySpectrum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTS4ZASCo_0&list=UUsd-fzq2Mj...

Brian is gay btw.

hmm

a couple 5 year old youtube videos, not very convincing lets dig deeper

joined twitter in 2009 but his first tweet was this january, 2 tweets ever - oh and the tweet was this article, apparently the only this thing "journalist" has ever written(and its not even journalism? its a whitepaper)

diversity spectrum eh? lets check them out

nothing but their own website comes up on a web search (diversityspectrum.org), bunch of meaningless bullshit you'd expect from a 'thinktank' website

I'll check the domain registration - looks like its registered to Perfect Privacy LLC

weird why would they want to obfuscate the domain?

What about this owner, Lynn Gardner Heffron?

searching her turns up similar results to your buddy Brian, bunch of astro turfed bullshit.

Sorry shill, I dont even care if brian m heiss is a real person in the world, these are clearly shill accounts designed specifically to push this one single whitepaper document. Let me know when Brian M Heiss (the Media Professional/Public Relations Pro/Journalist - his words) writes something else, maybe i'll check it out, because for such an incredible media talent he has a surprising lack of footprint on the internet

>an incredible media talent

your assessment, not his. where is your footprint on the internet?

Brian is gay btw.

That's interesting, but it doesn't help to support what he's saying one way or another. In the West, plenty of LGBTs either openly supported, or attempted to minimize the harmful impact of their government's (or their church's) anti-gay policies -- right up until the very end, when public opinion (and if you will, history) eventually turned against them.

So Brian's defense of the status quo in the RF is not much different.

From the Executive Summary ("10 Things You Didn’t Know About Russia’s Anti-Gay Law & LGBT Rights"):

1. The law never mentions or uses the word gay, lesbian, homosexual or any other LGBT identifier. [Chapter 2 & Appendix]

2. The law focuses on children, it’s title is “On Protections of Minors from Propaganda of Non-Traditional Sexual Relations”. The messaging and strategy to bring the ban on propaganda from the law of several regions to national laws is part of a larger family values push and is based on the successful anti-same sex marriage push in the United States. [Chapter 2]

So it's based on the same semantic BS as the anti-LGBT propoganda coming from the America's religious right. Except that, onerous as they are, they've been largely unsuccessful at having their agenda codified into federal law (not that they wouldn't dearly love to).

The fact that the author states points 1+2 so matter-of-factly (despite the semantic subterfuge) makes is clear where his biases are, and difficult to take any of the other points seriously.

But nonetheless:

3. Russia is actually expanding protections of members of the LGBT community: On September 20, 2013 the official delegation of the Russia Federation announced their willingness to take all required measures to prevent homophobic hate crimes and discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation at the 24th UN Human Rights Council. [Chapter 2]

OK, so there are rays of hope at least.

4. There have been regional (much harsher) versions of the propaganda ban in effect for 7 years and there were only 2 convictions for violations of the regional laws and both were overturned. [Chapter 3]

5. In 6 months of the Federal Law there have been 3 convictions: 2 were acts of civil disobedience to challenge the legality of the law, the other is a story which you must read. [Chapter 3]

My understanding from people either in Russia recently (or from the FSU) is that it's widely understood that these laws are at best barely enforceable (and perhaps not even intended to really enforced). But that's also precisely the point: they're meant to have symbolic effect -- and the symbolic effect is generally taken to be quite chilling (like a shot across the bow, as it were).

6. Statistically you are far more likely to be the victim of an anti-LGBT Hate Crime in the United States than in Russia. [Chapter 4]

Seems dubious, given what my friends tell me. Most likely these crimes simply aren't reported, or the stats are suppressed (given the way crime stats are routinely manipulated in many countries, including the U.S.).

7. In Russia you cannot be fired from your job for being an LGBT individual, in the United States you can. [Chapter 4]

Possibly a valid point; I wouldn't know.

8. Since 1993 gay sex was made legal in Russia, in 12 US States gay sex is a crime. [Chapter 4]

Technically correct (in that those laws are still on the books in some states). But the more important fact is that the Supreme Court famously ruled these laws unconstitutional in 2010. Which is a rather important omission for the author to make actually; it suggests he's not really all that on top of things, as far as the basic status of gay rights in the U.S. are concerned. (Or perhaps he does -- and is, again, playing semantic head games).

9. While President Obama says “I have no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them.” his policies demonstrate he has nothing but patience. [Chapter 5]

This, sadly, is basically true. But it's also an attemp to change the subject.

10. The group impacted most if found to be in violation of the law: Multinational corporations. [Chapter 6]

No. It's millions of LGBTs in the Russian Federation, young and old, unable to live their lives openly, and constitutionally protected from prosecution for simply being what they are.

Deleted comment

> The argument for the war in Iraq was not that Hussein was involved in 9/11.

Direct links of the Hussein regime to al-Qaeda was prominent as justification for the war.

> The argument was that Hussein had WMD (reasonable assumption given that the US had given him a bunch of chemical weapons and he had used them against his own people), and that intelligence said he was going to attack next. It was a "preemptive" war.

This is false. While claims about WMD (many of which were false, and known to the US to be false at the time they were made -- as pointed out in the same UN session where Powell made his famous presentation, several of the specific claims in that presentation had been researched and debunked by UN weapons inspectors prior to that time) were made, there was no claim of specific intelligence of a planned attack, but just the specter that if Hussein acquired WMDs as the Administration claimed he was actively seeking to do and near doing, then he might either use them directly against the US or its allies or transfer them to terrorists who might do so. It was not a preemptive war as that term is generally used, it was an example of a broadening of that concept beyond the traditional notion of imminent threat to a speculative and future threat, which might best be described as "preventive war" (if one felt the need to distinguish it from any other instance of simple aggressive war, which it unmistakably was.)

> However, hand waving that everyone in America was so stupid as to believe Hussein was behind 9/11 really undermines your other points.

The majority of Americans did believe that [0], and that belief persisted at significant, though reduced, levels several years later [1][2]. I'm not sure how accurately relating facts undermines the grandparent comment's other points.

[0] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06-po...

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/06/iraq.poll/index.html

[2] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/polls-truth-sometimes-at-odds/

Honestly I'm just going to delete the comment (even though it was upvoted a bunch). Not worth rehashing something this far off topic on HN. My bad.

Putin has started Russia-Ukraine war in February and Russian troops has downed MH17 using Russian AA complex. So he is responsible obviously.

Putin regime has killed several journalists.

The gay thing is not so clear, he may be gay himself.

Wow, you must know something the rest of the world doesn't.

If you have evidence that Russian troops shot down flight MH-17 then you should present it to the Dutch parliament and the United Nations.

Otherwise, like the rest of us, you should wait for investigators to finish their work.

Well I recommend you read the Bellingcat articles https://www.bellingcat.com/tag/mh17/

If you have evidence that Russian troops...

It was the (trigger-happy) proxy forces, more likely.

Putin hates gays

That's not what people generally say about him. A fairer summation of his attitudes towards LGBTs is that he considers them to be morally defective, and their lives and freedoms to be more or less expendable.

Putin was responsible for downing of MH17

To the extent that he invaded a neighboring country via a poorly trained proxy force, and gave them big, expensive toys without sufficient training (or tactical intel) to use them properly, along with high pressure to achieve results; and to which he hasn't showing anything resembling genuine remorse over the incident -- I think you know very well where the responsibility lies.

Look, I've been to Russia, I know people there, and there is NO WAY you can compare the level of democracy and rule of law we have in western Europe or the US to what there is in Russia now. Lots of Russians were ready to exchange some of their freedom, and to accept a very high level of corruption, as long as their global living standards improved. But now Putin is violating that pact. We'll see what happens.

Stalin was loved by most of the Russians. There were more tears cried over his death than over Kim Jong-il's, and to this day many Russians keep Stalin's pictures in their homes.

I believe that the West underestimates the strength of the Russian people, and their unsatisfied dreams of becoming the world superpower. Sadly, I think that this "violation of the pact" you are writing about is not serious enough to cause a change of power. And even if it was - who should continue ruling Russia? There are no direct candidates, but also I see no long-term perspectives. New democracies that formed after USSR collapse were built upon pre-war traditions. Russia has never seen any democracy.

I know that there are many Russians that disagree with their government. I know there are many in jail because of their opinions. But this is a minority. For the average Russian Putin is still the guy.

> virtually all governments in the world are becoming increasingly authoritarian because of the global economic crisis and the civilian unrest that it provokes

I agree with the former very much. Not sure the latter is the reason why, but it's a decent enough theory. The fact that authoritarianism is the general trend globally is very disturbing - and there is little to no civilian opposition to this.

Putin and most of the Russian government are criminals, so it is not hard to see why they are doing it.

You can support that statement with facts about police in Ferguson

Not really. Ferguson represents a lot of things, but I don't think there's any evidence that it's part of some national crackdown on dissent. How would that even work?

I'd say, we are not demonizing Putin hard enough

Russia is only a threat to its own citizens and border countries who are not members of NATO. The West was bringing Russia closer, now that trust is gone and will take a long time to repair.

What's actually going on here is people are committing the classic mistake of assuming if one side of a quarrel is in the wrong, the other must be in the right.

As far as I'm concerned, while we could bicker about whether Russia or the West has been more insanely stupid in its part in the escalating spiral of provocation in recent years, it would be quibbling over details.

The point that matters is that all of the governments in question are behaving like fools, and need to be brought under control or replaced with saner minds before the same pattern of stupidity that we saw a hundred years ago leads to the same results - and this time around, both sides have nuclear weapons.

>>toothless

Don't know who you are but I'll happy if citizens of the West will be under an impression that nuclear weapons will never be used. For many reasons.

>>The West was bringing Russia closer

As part of bringing Russia closer, the West decided to shred Russia of its defense interests inherited from the Soviet Union. There was a systematic attack by the West on Russia's interests in Central Asia, Georgia, Syria, and now Ukraine. You can only bait the bear for so long until it bites you back.

You can only bait the bear for so long until it bites you back.

But he isn't "biting back" at the West. He's biting on the bones of thousands of civilians (of all nationalities) killed in Ukraine. And hundreds of his own soldiers, sent illegally (by Russia's own laws) to fight in a war beyond its borders.

The bear is rabid but toothless and can be largely ignored except for their actions Ukraine, in which they laughably pretend they are not involved.

Not just toothless, but soon to be insolvent. It should only take another 12 to 18 months with oil below $60 or $70, to thoroughly crash the Russian economy and deplete their reserves (the share of their reserves they can actually use). At that point they'll either effectively capitulate, or they'll instigate a greater war.

You sound like one of the many Russian comment spam bots from Reddit news threads about anything Russian.

You are someone with an account created 69 days ago. A noob. Back in the day both reddit and this place used to have rational discussions. Until noobs like you showed up.

Actually I've been coming on here for years now. This is just one of my other accounts created while I'm at work. But yeah, seems like you are on your way to being hellbanned.

Do you think Putin can keep this up with the falling currency and economy crashing? Or does he have a stronghold on everyone with guns that nobody could take him down?

I wonder if Russia could change to a more democratic and liberal tone after Putin. I mean, it seems like Putin wants to go back straight to Soviet era.

> I mean, it seems like Putin wants to go back straight to Soviet era.

There were many different soviet eras, each with their own problems and strengths. Putin's doing his own thing. Just because he's becoming more authoritarian doesn't mean he's becoming Soviet.

He controls all law enforcement and mass media, restricts freedom of speech, prosecutes political competition, enables corruption and connections-with-benefits, and has everyone eat this crap because patriotism.

I struggle to recall a soviet era without these traits.

Why not rattle off every fascist and authoritarian regime, then? Why not say he's acting the corrupt autocrat, i.e. every bad guy in every civilization since pre-history.

And he's an chekist

I see him as more of a puppet to be honest, though I'm more than likely wrong, still it seems like he is just a puppet.

The current price of oil is well below the price Russia needs to sustain its economy. Depending on the source, Russia needs $100/barrel to maintain its economy. Putin was making comments that $80 is very bad. The bakkens (fracking in ND) can probably go as low as $40/barrel in some areas and still be ok.

I don't have a crystal ball, but a lot of people in Russia are worried that if Putin falls, the next one will be even worse than him. I don't even know what to hope now.

> the next one will be even worse than him

It seems to me as a distant observer that much of Putin's strength derives from a "cult of personality".[1] He's out there topless, catching fish. He's out there topless, swimming in a Siberian lake. He's out there on a tiger hunt. He's out there flying with cranes. He's out there dressed as an ice hockey player. He's out there doing judo moves. He's tough on terrorists. He's tough on breakaway republics. He stands up to "the Great Satan" (sorry, actually that's a line used by Iranian wackos). Etc.

This cult of personality takes many years, even decades to develop. Also these types of leaders hate up-and-coming competition. So there's no JV Putin out there, building up his own cult of personality. Medvedev probably doesn't have the charisma to take Putin's place. Plus, Putin was in what was probably a once-in-a-lifetime position to take over from Boris Yeltsin.

I don't think that any new leader could "be worse than" Putin without spending many years building up his own cult of personality.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality#Russia

Just to clarify: by "worse than him" they meant more extremist, nationalistic and illiberal.

My Russian friends on Facebook love Putin. Why would they overthrow him? He's given them everything they wanted: revenge on West for the cold war, bullying neighbors, a toughguy image, punishing homosexuals, and up until recently a higher oil price (coincidental of course). Sorry I just don't believe that the Russian people are interested in peace or human rights. Putin reflects the will of majority. I think Russia's culture is just broken.

I don't think a lot of Americans understand how corrupt and messed up that culture is. Ever do business there? I have. Its madness compared to the west. They're not Europeans. They're Russians. They have their own ideas of what passes for justice and international law. I'm getting a little sick of hearing how Putin doesn't reflect the average Russian's political will. Sadly, Putin does.

Isolation and sanctions are the only rational move at this point. We've gone down this road before several times and recently with Iran. Do you guys really think the average Iranian wants Ali Khamenei overthrown? Come on.

Isolation and sanctions would be acts of insane stupidity at this point. Take a dodgy regime and cut them off from the international community, mess up their economy, give everyone in the country a reason to believe the world really is out to get them, and it should be no surprise when the inevitable happens: popular opinion in the country becomes increasingly paranoid, support for the dodgy regime is solidified, and the regime itself becomes more extremist and totalitarian over time. It's the perfect way to make a bad situation worse.

This might be excusable if the situation were unprecedented, but the worst part is, the pattern is not news to us at all. Cuba, North Korea, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Iran: how many times does history have to repeat the lesson before we become willing to learn it?

But what's the alternative when Russia is tramping over the sovereignty of another country in the EU's backyard? If not isolation and sanctions, what's left? Full scale war? I don't think there will be any winners in a WWIII.

Obviously going to war would be even more insanely stupid. The alternative is to realize that just because Russia is behaving badly is not a reason the US and EU should also start behaving badly.

Maybe you didn't consider that those who have success in business in Russia are largely those who live well in a corrupt system and have a strong relationship with Putin's power. That doesn't represent the average Russian.

What revenge have they given for the Cold War? I have not noticed anything.

So basically normal humane civilization is something not part of Russian culture or at least for majority anyway.

"Google Inc has plans to shut down its engineering office in Russia amid a crackdown on internet freedoms and a law regarding data-handling practices"

Should they close their offices in USA then ? (yes I'm being sarcastic here)

People are so used to their freedom, that they (rightly) get upset over even small losses of it.

But it makes them forget what real loss of freedom is, and think that what they lost is somehow comparable. They just don't realize how bad it can really get.

Might be a coincidence, but they also just announced plans to rent 50'000 square meters of office space in Zurich http://www.handelszeitung.ch/unternehmen/google-investiert-d...

Google has been extremely active in Zürich and Switzerland for 10+ years: http://www.lunchoverip.com/2007/09/inside-google-z.html

Google Panoramio is also based there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panoramio

I wonder why is Zurich a big part of Google's strategy as opposed to other places in Europe

Because it's been on position 1 of best standard of living in the world pretty consistently, and Switzerland is geographically central, well interconnected, business-friendly, and not part of the EU?

Just a guess :)

EDIT: It seems Vienna is on top since 2010, my bad. But position 2 is not so bad, and the other points still stand :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercer_Quality_of_Living_Surve...

It's also extremely expensive ;)

But yeah, I know the city, and I agree with most of it.

Also, yeah, not part of the EU (but in practice it's more of a "pick what you want" thing with the EU

Sure it's expensive, but if you live there your salary is indexed to that cost (especially if you work for google), so it's not like it's a problem in practice.

Of course, if you're just visiting... ouch :)

Of if, like Google, you are the one paying those salaries indexed to cost of living. Then your employees become rather expensive...

Well, it seems like Google salaries are very capable of sustaining a familly in Zurich: http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Salaries-E9079.htm

And that's US salaries (the website only offers a free preview.. yada yada).

I think Google generally thinks the cost of a talented enigineer is justified, and switching locations will of course represent a cost, but probably not such a big one in the great scheme of things.

It's quite possible there will be a relative loss of status. You might go from being -- say -- in the top decile or oven top few percentiles of income/wealth in Russia, to being in a middle decile in Zurich, even if you are quite comfortable or your absolute income or disposable income ends up being larger.

The #1 best standard of living metrics are highly flawed. Vienna ranks quite high, but ask people where they want to live and it's not Vienna or Zurich, it's larger cities like Paris/London/New York/Boston/Los Angeles/San Francisco/Tokyo/Hong Kong or it's smaller rural towns. The factors they focus on don't really reflect well on quality of life.

Those surveys are incredibly subjective and will vary person to person. There's not such thing as a "best" city for standard of living.

When comparing cities I think it's best to use hard data and then compare them based on what's important to you personally. I usually use http://www.numbeo.com as a starting point for this.

Oh look! The site you linked to agrees with the study I linked to! Amazing!

http://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/city_result.jsp?countr...

(see that gauge? It's all the way to green!)

EDIT: and here is their ranking. It's only number 4... http://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings.jsp

I don't think you got the "important to you personally" part of my post. Thanks for your condesending tone as well.

The NOT part of the EU is not to be considered lightly. It is possibly a great factor.

What's the advantage to being outside the EU?

Being free of a lot of oversized taxes, unnecessary legislation and the feeling of porwerlessness against a social chaste called "those at Brussels."

These rankings are really odd. They feel like they are only aimed at international business people who work around the world and take their families with them.

Your intuition is spot on - Mercer is one of the biggest HR/benefits consulting firms, and primary use cases of their surveys are to inform execs and provide a reference to HR when calculating cost of living comp adjustments when execs are relocating

Simpler tax laws and more employer friendly labor laws would be a guess. Perhaps it's also easier for Google to get residency permits for its workers in Switzerland.

Getting (especially non-EU) foreigners to work here is actually a huge problem, increasing in future with upcoming changes to immigration law.

A good thing of Google betting on Switzerland might be some increased lobbying around that topic as it's all a bit of a mess currently.

As one of the world's most neutral countries, Switzerland has historically been a pretty good place to establish an autonomous, neutral, predictably-regulated business when governments are going crazy (which, frankly, they have been lately). If the rest of the world goes nuts, they'll be able to pull out and move base to Zurich, which is not likely to be subject to a war or other major political upsets.

Switzerland is historically infamous for having these qualities, it's why even the Nazis used them to deposit money. They also don't have things like DMCA laws. War aside, let's say the corporate lobby gets them to push the screws on DMCA to make it worse. Hello new Youtube HQ.

TLDR: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8740289

London is too. They are planning to build a huge office in Kings Cross to replace the current offices, although it has been delayed apparently to make it bigger[1]. This is much larger than Zurich and almost the size of Mountain View it seems.

[1] http://www.building.co.uk/google%E2%80%99s-review-of-%C2%A36...

I would guess ETH Zurich and, to a lesser degree, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne has something to do with it. That's basically Europe's leading engineering and software universities right there.

It's because of the laws. Privacy laws, secrecy laws, tax laws, etc.

This, exactly.

Tax.

it is worrying what is happening in Russia but much less so than what is going in the USA.

Google, Facbook etc tightly integrated with the nations intelligence agencies, mining the data found there to make secret lists that could result in assassinations, indefinite detention and torture.

Russias actions are for the most part overt, and rightly criticized, what the US does, it does so covertly.

If anyone speaks about the actions that the Us takes in secret they are hunted to the end of the world, and must seek refuge in Russia.

We hear a lot about Russian dissidents leaving Russia because they have their freedom limited. Snowden and Julian Assange have had their freedom limited to much more so than any of the Putin dissidents. (With the exception of the possibility that a couple of them have been assassinated)

Remember that the air plane carrying the President of Bolivia was forced to land and be searched by American allies under the suspicion that Snowden might be on-board. Can you imagine AirForce One being forced to land, and be searched by Russia or China? Becaus they suspected it might be carrying a dissident? I dont think so.

Sorry, but I really don't buy the argument that USA is worse than Russia in this respect. Snowden, while I totally applaud what he did and would love to see him pardoned, or protected under whistleblower laws, leaked a ton of highly classified information. Again, I think he did the right thing, but him being prosecuted is not the same as "if anyone speaks about the actions the U.S. takes in secret they are hunted to the end of the world." Plenty of people have overtly criticized the U.S. government without any fear of retribution.

Well, he is somewhat right. Snooping tech that three-letter-agencies have here is likely to be well beyond anything Russia can possibly have. I've seen some of it in Russia about 15 years back (to my shame, as a student, participated in the development) and even though my code was kinda ok-ish, this was literally child's play ;) You could monitor small percentage of phone calls, but it is a far cry from bulk wiretapping, voice recognition and search/analytics/social-network-analysis that is probably in place here.

Yeah, if Snowden had of betrayed the ~~KGB~~ FSS/FIS he would have fallen down some stairs onto some bullets a long time ago.

if he was lucky where lucky one agent for the CIA ended up getting tortured and allegedly burned alive in the basement of the KGB and I suspect the poor sods that Kim Philby burned all got a quick clean death

If Snowden blew the whistle (to the minimum extent possible to inform the public about what was happening) and stayed in the U.S. to face the music, I could buy the argument that he was a hero and deserves a pardon. What he did instead is that he fled to our biggest foe and revealed publicly a lot of tactical information that only serves to hurt U.S. intelligence operations abroad. Further, we will never know what he sold to Russia to earn his welcome. Now he's a part of a propaganda machine of a tyrannical regime. Sorry, but that makes him a Russian agent, traitor and a dirtbag.

What he did instead is that he fled to our biggest foe ..

No, what happened was that he attempted to fly to a relatively neutral country in South America, and the U.S. government (rather stupidly) revoked his visa while in transit.

Really curious how you feel about Litvinenko's work with MI6. Western agent and traitor to Russia should be non-controversial and not bad from Western point of view, but how about the dirtbag?

I suppose I don't place data surveillance and stuff like journalist executions, apartment bombings, staging theater/school hostage situations in the same weight class of morally wrong.

Did you have "data surveillance" in mind when you wrote "Further, we will never know what he sold to Russia to earn his welcome"?

Espionage (what the US programs were for) is very different than the widespread victimisation of those who are seen as undesirable.

The Russian government is actively conspiring to silence hundreds of thousands of people. Whether it's because they were unfortunate enough to have been born gay, or because they want to talk about Russia's annexation of eastern Ukraine, or whether they just don't think Putin should be in power forever.

Call me crazy, but I think that's worse than passive collection of reams of data.

The US government is also actively conspiring to silence hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, and they have been doing so since before Martin Luther King's days. They're just far more subversive about it because they're sitting on reams of money.

Could you be more explicit and provide some examples.

"Freedom zones," trying to get MLK to commit suicide, the Red Scare, subversion of activist groups during the Nixon years, Kent State, manipulation of social networks and Wikipedia, controlling the media to the point that it might as well be called the state media unless you're watching BBC or Comedy Central.

I could go on and on. The Russians are not worse than the US, they're just not as good at hiding it.

The US government does not "control" the media, and allows private news organisations (Fox News, The Wall St Journal) that effectively act as a mouthpiece for the opposition party to flourish. Not so in Russia, where independent news organisations are under constant attack.

You're absolutely right that the US has done some deplorable things in its past (including, as we now know, the recent state-sanctioned torture of probably innocent foreigners). That doesn't make what Russia's doing today, in fairly plain sight, any less repugnant.

Your problem is comparing Russia's censorship to the US's spying. Russia has its own intelligence gathering programs that we know little about, but we know a lot about the US's censorship (and how they manipulate the media) and it would make more sense to compare those two.

For the same reason that it makes no sense to compare the US GDP to the size of Poland's navy, there's no value in comparing Russian censorship to US intelligence.

There's really no need for the comparisons. Both versions are terrible, who cares which is worse. How we go about fixing it should be the topic of discussion.

No, one is clearly much worse than the other. Many journalists have been killed in Russia, for example.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in...

I imagine if a Russian version of Snowden ever occurred, he wouldn't remain alive to continue leaking documents.

So the West and Russia are equally bad? Who cares which is worse? The people who live there.

Are you still repeating that "putin hates gays" meme?! Read the facts: http://gallery.mailchimp.com/d0e55f3197099944345708652/files...

Yes. The recent policy is similar to Section 28, a British policy enacted in 1988 and only finally repealed in 2003. Though the text of the law talks of "protecting children", its effect has been to stifle the freedoms of gay people to talk openly about their sexuality.

Further, the Russian government has presided over an incredibly well-documented increase in violence towards gay people. The notion in the above report that Russian gay people enjoy greater freedoms than those in the US is utterly specious.

That the author takes John C. Dvorak seriously should tell you everything you need to know.

> With the exception of the possibility that a couple of them have been assassinated

That's pretty much the point though, isn't it? Of course the US is going to prosecute someone who reveals their state secrets on such a massive scale. Every country would. However, what they don't do is routinely assassinate and imprison political opponents.

In the same way, I agree with you that the cooperation between internet companies and the NSA/CIA is very concerning. However, I believe this still pales in comparison to the amount of oppression and state-control over the media that you see in Russia.

What the US is doing is definitely not right. But I don't believe we should let our disappointment about that trivialize the totalitarian state that is Putin's Russia.

Pretty clear fallacy of tu quoque:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Based on your spacing and carriage returns, it's pretty obvious you aren't American and have an anti-American bias. Not saying the US is a shining example of civil rights - they certainly are not - but your comment adds nothing to the discussion.

That's plain wrong. The OP is arguing that US violations of civil rights are far more significant and consequential than the ones in Russia. OP is right because US claims the mantle of world leadership, has the world's largest military force, and a dominant economy. US should be held to a higher standard.

I suppose what you are saying is that prosecuting someone for a trial by a jury of their peers (with access to the best defense you can imagine) is much worse than poisoning people with radioactive materials??

At the end of the day, Snowden was a member of the U.S. Intelligence community and entrusted with classified information and, for better or worse, he willfully broke the law. What do you expect, that he would not be prosecuted? Do you think if that happened in Russia, Putin would have any reservation from assassinating him before he managed to flee to his biggest foe and reveal who-knows-what to earn his welcome?

The biggest thing about the difference between Russia and the United States is the end goal of their actions. Putin is ensuring his power base, while the US is trying to stop terrorism. I don't like what they are doing but this is what the NSA thinks what works to stop terrorism. If you look at both President Obama and President Bush they did close to the same things regarding national security. It may be a faulty assumption, but this leads me to believe that there are things that these programs protect the western world from. The people who work for the CIA and NSA aren't idiots and they definitely have committed some horrible actions, but they wouldn't being continuing these missions if they were futile.

I would like to live in a world without religious extremism, but it has and will always exist. They utilize the poverty and illiteracy of certain places in the middle east to make teenagers believe suicide bombing is the way to get to heaven. Humanity is facing many existential crises and this is the way we are currently handling one. It is definitely not an optimal solution, but it doesn't matter if we can't solve our ever increasing CO2 emissions and the many other problems resulting from greenhouse gases.

You have drunk the cool aid.

Everything the US does is to maintain their global position of power. The end goal is obedience to the US and control over as many natural resource and territories as possible. Either directly through military force, or preferably through subversion, coercion and integration.

This is not unique to the US, it is what empires do, and the US is now the biggest empire ever created. We have and continue to cooperate with, fund, and protect some of the most brutal regimes the world has ever seen.

Ours is not a noble mission with just wars to free the slaves of the world and introduce democracy. The only way democracy is acceptable is if the American candidate is electable. If the natives happen to make the wrong choice, coups happen, sanctions happen, directly military action happens.

These are not conspiracies, extreme leftist propaganda or the ramblings of Americas enemies, they are historic facts.

Are there other bad regimes in the world? Of course. Have their been regimes worse than the US? That depends. If you only want to talk about life in main land US, of course much much worse than that. If you include what regimes supported by the US has done it is hard to say yes or no.

Assange has a TV show on Russian state television, and Snowden is a guy who fled to Russia with literally thousands of stolen NSA documents and now does TV propaganda with Vladimir Putin. Those are not dissidents. Those are Russian agents, whether they realize it or not.

You are using the exact "reasoning"/propaganda that communist regimes used in Eastern Europe in the past. EVERY dissident who fled to a Western country was automatically labeled a spy.

If you were an Eastern European person who made it into West Berlin with thousands of secret Soviet intelligence documents in the 1960s, then you probably were a spy.

Some were, some were not (I grew up there). Also, while some spies are money-motivated, most spies from Eastern Europe were simply fed-up with the system.

We will never know for sure, but did you watch "Citizen4"? A closer look at Snowden - IMO, it's highly unlikely that he was a spy. It is clear (to me, at least) that he is highly principled, not money-driven. He'd have to be an extremely good actor.

Snowden's principles are exactly what make him such a great Russian agent. They don't have to sell him on the ideology since he already has it. It's like Aikido. All they have to do is take the momentum of his enormous ego and sense of self righteousness, and just sort of redirect it a little bit. Now all of a sudden Snowden finds himself sitting in Moscow being debriefed by Russian intelligence. It's brilliant on the part of the Russians and terrible for NATO.

They are western dissidents, whether or not they are also Russian agents.

Its not uncommon for dissidents forced to resort to exile to be leveraged for propaganda purposes by regimes opposed to the ones with regard to which they are dissidents, but that doesn't make them any less dissidents.

Why do people want to make things exclusive that are not?

Does that mean that North Korean dissidents who speak about against the regime when they escape are CIA agents?

If a North Korean signals intelligence officer managed to smuggle thousands of strategic DPRK intelligence documents and himself out of North Korea, I would assume it was with the help of a foreign government.

It is easy to criticize the US but the entire West is working together. Is Assange or Snowden safe in Germany or Norway? The longer Europeans pretend that the problem is only the US the easier it is to have business as usual.

Yeah they would never do that in Russia or China.

How many Americans would move to Russia vs Russians moving to America?

Apples and oranges my friend. Using the same academic tone, one could make even North Korea sound like a great civilized place to be, but then when you get there it isn't anything.

… and just 2 months ago Microsoft closed Qik/Skype development office in Moscow, relocating willing developers to Czech Republic.

Oh my, goodbye sanitizers? There's still work on the kernel sanitizer and a few other things to be done. Disturbing.

I don't believe anyone is getting fired, though it's true that a mandatory relocation will mean a lot of people choose to leave the company.

I assumed that they will not fire their best engineers. But will their families relocate to Europe, having to speak weird languages and spend a lot of money? Zurich is super expensive.

Right, I expect many will choose a severance package instead.

Is Brian Bershad still involved in this? I assume they are talking about the St. Petersburg office.

Knowing the government's of Russia ways of controlling the media and opposition, I understand and agree with those scared for personal freedoms. On the other hand, I would feel way better if similar law would be imposed in EU, so my data would stay within its borders and be protected by EU laws.

Actually, the NSA has a greater power to spy on data on foreign soil than on domestic soil. Ironically, although the 'legal' channels for subpoenaing data with warrants exposes data in the US to government demands, there's at least in theory, some kind of oversight by the courts (although we know they rubber stamp everything).

I think the idea that data held within your home country is 'safer' may be a false sense of security.

Except they have cross sharing agreements with MI6, we can't spy on our own citizens thoroughly, so you do it for us, you can't spy on your own citizens thoroughly so we'll do it for you.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement

* If you are an citizen of the United States.

> I think the idea that data held within your home country is 'safer' may be a false sense of security.

Widely deployed encryption is the only solution. The 'safe' EU data is monitored by the BND in Germany they send the data to the NSA. It's likely similar everywhere else.

There's that small difference of actually being able to influence our own governments and changing what they give to US.

Which is still a huge difference than being exposed to mercy of an overseas government which gives us about the same consideration as it does to cattle and approves of torture.

It's not even so much being able to influence our government versus one to which we are foreign non-residents, it's that at least the people over at the NSA, however much they may abuse their power, have some small consideration for me as a fellow citizen versus "just some German/Chinese/South African guy".

TLDR: it's unrealistic to require a company to follow every country's laws just because some of that country's citizens use a service based outside of that country.

The concept of data being "stored" like it's a card in a library card catalog is an anachronism. The physical location is irrelevant. It's the policies and laws under which the companies must deal that's more important. Of course enforcing certain laws in certain countries is impossible if the company doesn't have a presence in that country. In that case, it's up to the user to decide if they agree to whatever terms of service are offered within the country I which those terms are enforceable through the contract law process. Ultimately if a Google user doesn't like the US law or terms of service offered, it's up to the customer to go to another service. It's unrealistic, not to mention crazy to force an Internet company to follow 170+ different country's laws when those laws are often contradictory. Instead, it might be good for an Internet company to have a statement that outlines what jurisdiction under which they reside in terms of enforcing terms of service agreements. Most have this contract language already, but to make it clear to the user would allow them to make informed choices about the services they use.

The alternative if to wall off the internet by physical geography. So Google.com wouldn't work in France, only Google.fr. That regionalization of the Internet is a horrible idea. You end up with Google.cn if you do that. If you use an American service, it's expected that it follows American law. You, the user, are entering their place of business (virtual or not,) therefore their jurisdiction is the jurisdiction of record. If I travel to the U.S. and buy something at a store, EU consumer protections don't apply, nor should they. If I make a telephone order from a U.S. shop, they don't have to comply with European law; I came to them. That extrapolates to the virtual world as well. However, if a company does have a physical presence in a country, then obviously they are compelled to comply with local law. However that could be argued when it comes to online services -- just because WalMart has distribution centers in China doesn't mean that the WalMart in Nebraska has to follow Chinese law.

Really I would argue for full and transparent disclosures AND I would support an Internet Privacy Treaty that provides reciprocity or equal protection between two countries. So a French Google user has the protections they expect but an American DailyMotion user has the protections they expect and claims could be mediated in either country. I am not a lawyer, nor a huge expert, but I do have some experience with my iCouch company (online therapy.) We have customers from the Middle East who see therapists based in the US, and it's explicit that the customer's interaction will be governed by the locale in which the therapist is located/licensed. It would be a virtual impossibility to have to conform with every country's laws.. We can't realistically stop visitors from certain places; should we be liable? Of course not. The visitor is the one that makes the choice to visit us or not. I am not as articulate about this as I would like, however one can see the maze that this starts to reveal. It's not a simple question of "where is the data stored."

> If I travel to the U.S. and buy something at a store, EU consumer protections don't apply, nor should they. If I make a telephone order from a U.S. shop, they don't have to comply with European law; I came to them.

The traditional law on this isn't quite that clear in the 2nd case. If you take telephone or mail orders and ship to other countries, you do run a significant risk of exposing yourself to the laws of the destination country. If you have no presence in the destination it may be harder to enforce any ruling against you, though, so countries traditionally did much of the enforcement via screening shipments at customs. If you were selling mail-order goods without complying with destination law (e.g. selling appliances legal in the source country but not meeting safety-testing standards of the destination country), the law would be enforced by simply confiscating your shipments. Once it's in, it's harder to enforce laws, but in principle you can still be hauled into court in the destination country for e.g. a product-liability lawsuit.

In theory, the EU data protection directive was supposed to protect us from companies with an EU presence (like Google) moving our data outside the EU - specifically, when we interact with a company with an EU presence, they're not supposed to move data to any country with lesser data protection laws. That seems reasonable - they set up shop in the EU, after all, they chose to follow our law.

Instead, we ended up with the US-EU Safe Harbour, which allows companies with an EU presence to move our data to the US, where despite a set of rules and certifications the company would have to follow, those rules still do not protect our data to the extent that it would be protected in the EU - when they're even followed.

>> "Ultimately if a Google user doesn't like the US law or terms of service offered, it's up to the customer to go to another service."

True. But if Google doesn't want to lose users they will change to accommodate them. Google's business is based on knowing as much about as many people as possible. They need as many users as possible and I'm sure they will and do bow to certain countries laws when it feasible.

It’s time to recognize the Internet as a basic human right. That means guaranteeing affordable access for all, ensuring Internet packets are delivered without commercial or political discrimination, and protecting the privacy and freedom of Web users regardless of where they live.

http://time.com/3631377/internet-cia-putin-berners-lee/

Perhaps their executives do not want to have an 'accident' landing Sheremetievo?

They are smart to get out now, probably should have been done earlier

How does engineering office relate to censorship?

Engineering offices usually require access to code repos and back-end production servers. This is the path you need to follow if you want to put pressure on a company or flip an employee to act as a spy within the company on your behalf. A sales office or a lot of user ops can be treated like remote contractors and only given access to a limited subset of the company that is needed to do their job. You can also burn a sales office and walk away from it in a heartbeat, but engineering offices usually have people who have valuable company info and state in their heads...

If they have local presence they can be pressured in any way in a Russian jurisdiction.

But if "the internet search engine company might retain some employees to assist in sales, business partnerships, user support, marketing and communications", won't they still have a local presence?

It careful says "might" and "assist". In the best case this means minimal presence in Russia that can be unplugged immediately. We don't know if this will happen using the Google company or transferring employees to a another entity and formally outsourcing it.

The presence could be purely vendors or a Russian company acting as a representing. More like a consulate, like they still have in China.

I really hope Jetbrains, a Russian company, do not secretly work with the government to plant backdoors in all its IDE offerings :). It's fascinating but uneasy feeling how some of the best tools for software development come from Russia

What else "Sharikovs and Shvonders" would expect?

Stupid propaganda...

What exactly do you consider propaganda? You don't believe that Google is shutting down their Russian office?

Reasoning. Internet became regulated in Russia, and what? How does this relate to hacking on V8 engine, for example? (They have such teem in Saint Petersburg)

This article appeared just to support sentiment and noise around how bad/evil Russia is doing. No matter of truth or plausibility, all kind of noise just works.

But it is indeed is bad and going worse. Free people of the world, including Russians, must do everything for this to stop, and Russian/commuinist/orthodox 'world' to be destroyed as quickly and cleanly as possible. History shows this is possible: collapse of USSR already did most of this job, what remains is easier and there is a good chance Russian threat will be over forever in a generation if we (i mean Russians, with the help of the west) try really hard. Don't let propaganda fool yourself: Russian threat is first, and foremost, a threat to Russians themselves.

The russion threat is a threat to the world, because starting a war is a popular option with those failing dictators.

Not much, there isn't much Putin could do in the military sense without completely crippling the economy. All he can in foreign affairs is bullying small neighbors. Soviet Union was up to 7-8% of the world GDP and had Soviet Bloc - allies that (not counting China - it was never a Soviet ally really) combined had almost as much. Currently Russia has no allies - not even Belarus - nobody recognized Crimea annexation for example. A few weak post-soviet states could make pro-Russian statements once a while in exchange for another shipment of cheap natural gas, but that's about it. And it is currently less than 3% of the world's GDP.

It should be too obvious even for Putin that an attempt of a new Cold War will be laughable. So he won't start another war or seriously threaten West. Victims of his policies will be, in their overwhelming majority, Russian people.

It's not "Russia" that is evil. It's Putin's regime that is increasingly evil.

>It's not "Russia" that is evil. It's Putin's regime that is increasingly evil.

with 82% (after significant drop recently!) approval rating :)

Yes but what does that 82% actually know? When there is no freedom of the press, when the government controls practically all news outlets, it's difficult to judge what people think.

This even without considering that those Russians who think Putin is evil will think twice before telling so to a random pollster.

>Yes but what does that 82% actually know? When there is no freedom of the press, when the government controls practically all news outlets, it's difficult to judge what people think.

they know what they want to know. Your argument was valid in Iron Curtain times. As of today most of the Russians have been to foreign countries and have the Internet access (my family back there (not a in central city) has fiber with connection qualities orders of magnitude better than my DSL in Silicon Valley) There is no "Grate Wall" like in China. There is though Great Wall in their minds. Because it is convenient, and otherwise they would need to accept the true reality of their existence and who they really are.

>This even without considering that those Russians who think Putin is evil will think twice before telling so to a random pollster.

such a lame excuse. It isn't about pollsters. It is about Russian people overwhelmingly supporting the policies of Putin, just look at that hysteria of "Crimea is ours".

I think you underestimate the sheer power of propaganda, when it's well organized and all-penetrating. Moreover, how many Russians can read anything but Russian?

>I think you underestimate the sheer power of propaganda, when it's well organized and all-penetrating.

you're telling this to a person who was born and raised in USSR :) Yes, man, i was accepting what i was told and didn't ask questions, didn't seek the truth. This not asking, not seeking, is a matter of personal failure, it can't be blamed on propaganda. And such failure is what the Russians are guilty off because this is what enables the propaganda in the first place.

>Moreover, how many Russians can read anything but Russian?

You can find all the sides of any issue presented in Russian language today. The major news like BBC have Russian version. Ukraine, with all its anti-Russian fervor, is still talks and writes a lot in Russian so Russians can easy read the Ukrainian side - that of course if they were interested in it. Again, this is their personal choice.

> This not asking, not seeking, is a matter of personal failure, it can't be blamed on propaganda

I think you're too harsh on yourself - and on most ordinary Russians. Exiting the Matrix is really hard, not just because of propaganda, but also because Putin's intimidation technique and systematic use of corruption are very effective.

As long as you have any kind of presence in Russia you have to follow its rules. If google has no presence to worry about, they don't have to worry about Russian laws either. They really didn't have a choice.

This.

This is clearly a pragmatic move that protects them (and their customers), but it feels telling to me that Putin's violent anti-LGBT crackdown - literally threatening the lives of many Google employees, not to mention Google's customers - wasn't sufficient cause to close or relocate their offices.

Will they close their offices in Europe as well when Europe implements the same laws? They're put in a bad light now because Russia does it, but the EU is contemplating the exact same laws.

These laws are not because Russia wants the data for themselves, they are because the US currently has them and they've been shown to be absolutely incapable of dealing with that responsibility in an acceptable fashion.

One difference is that Google already has multiple datacenters in Europe, while they have none in Russia. It wouldn't surprise me if the data of EU citizens was already for the most part in European territory.

No! The EU doesnt require its citizens to show ID when logging onto public WiFi!

Some EU countries do. Some want to. Why don't you get informed before talking?

Italy is one: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Italy

The law is meant against terrorism. I am sure Russia has a good excuse too.

Russia or US - two chicks of the the same ass. I understand US and Russia and their imperialistic desires, nothing new under the sun, but what I feel most sorry about is that EU, which now has a higher population then US and Russia and has enough power to beat each of them, is acting as a brown-noser to the US and is getting tricked into this Cold War 2.0. Without EU support, US cannot effective wage this war on Russia, and US is far and is clear that EU will suffer most, when this will help bloom US economy. Stupid EU! 500 million slaves to the US - unbelievable, with all the traditions in politics, economics, and science, with all the brain power, it's pulled by the nose! I'm ashamed!

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