631–640 of 933 posts
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> Russia has already broken the cease-fire meant to evacuate civilians. Russians are claiming the contrary. https://tass.com/society/1417395
Of course they are. It's the Ukrainian Nazi-Jews killing civilians, not the people who invaded their country and are currently levelling it...
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> a lot of people seem ok with punishing Russian individuals for the actions of the government. Its easy to say that but you have to look at the bigger picture. It's easy to say "just punish the government / the oligarchs", but as most Westerners know, these people have become extraordinarily adept at hiding their money and distributing their assets. So it is very difficult indeed to target them per-se, hence you nee…
I feel like you are conveniently skipping the part where millions of ordinary Russians are being economically devastated by broad brush sanctions that punish the poor and middle class Russians who are innocent of war crimes, simply because they were unfortunate to be born in the wrong country and they may justifiably be afraid for their lives if they protest. For those who say beat the war drums, punish them all, jus…
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Banning cats? Banning vodka? Firing Putin supporters? This is bloodthirst? This is disregard for innocent children? I must have the wrong dictionary. [edit:as far as being simply “anti-Russian”, perhaps this qualifies. I can see how it might be concerning and even foreboding. And we should keep an eye on it. But i think it’s a stretch to call it anti-Russian. At this point, it’s really just anti-war and equivalent to…
I think it will be very interesting to see what happens when the war ends. If there are significant reparations to be paid and if the sanctions remain, I think this easily opens it up for a repeat of WWII. Similar to post WWI Germany, Russia will be fucked. Putin will eventually die (natural causes/bullet to the head) and the next guy will be a bigger nutjob that rallies the people behind him by blaming the West/Jews…
Fortunately we aren’t quite at WW1 equivalence yet. And, my history isn’t even close to perfect, but i believe the Germans pre-ww1 were, per capita, much wealthier and much more aggressively nationalistic than your average Russian. They were also much more industrious and threatening (disregarding Russians current world-destroying arsenal and unpredictable leadership).
But you’re right, it’ll be an interesting, precarious situation regardless.
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> a lot of people seem ok with punishing Russian individuals for the actions of the government. Its easy to say that but you have to look at the bigger picture. It's easy to say "just punish the government / the oligarchs", but as most Westerners know, these people have become extraordinarily adept at hiding their money and distributing their assets. So it is very difficult indeed to target them per-se, hence you nee…
> Nobody wants World War 3. ... the alternative, full-blown war across Europe and the potential for nuclear bombs being used is unfathomably worse for everyone both inside Russia and outside. We may get it by mistake. A wider war in Europe is all too likely. The NATO countries and the EU are shipping large amounts of military supplies into Ukraine. One story mentions 17 US widebody cargo aircraft per day going into P…
> "But thank God it has not come to that," he added.
The bit he added at the end is important.
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> Why would I take responsibility for something I have zero influence over? Well, nothing will ever change in Russia even post-Putin with that mindset. And Russia's neighbors will pay the price of this passive attitude. Other European nations are definitely showing more responsibility. This is just disappointing.
Easy for us in the West to show responsibility when it's not our and our families' lives that are on the line. Our non-willingness (if political decisions can be considered collective, as so many here imply for Russia) to die is made obvious by the fact no one nation dares put a boot on the ground while Ukraine gets leveled.
But you're probably right, the selfish cowards things makes sense. I guess that's why we haven't gone to war since 1945... Oh wait
I managed to escape the country yesterday, had to flight to Egypt of all places, because ALL (even business) tickets were sold out. The recent news is that starting March 6 all international flights are suspended, the trap has closed. The disheartening thing is that even if you never supported Putin, other countries treat you as enemy. I am at Georgia now and banks refuse to open bank accounts to Russians, and I need…
Best of luck to you mate. I know it can't be easy right now :/
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The problem is how to separate Russians fleeing Putin from Russians who just look for financial comfort and still support Putin. One of stark examples is Turks in Germany still voting for Erdogan.
You’re for annihilating the economy of a nuclear power with thousands of warheads? How do you imagine that a nuclear failed state looks and acts like? I swear, reading comments like these on social media makes me realize that a disturbingly large number of people are irrational about war.
I remember how Russia looked like 2 decades ago when it was piss poor. It was relatively peaceful and handful of its neighbors made it into NATO without any issues.
Wonder how that NATO expansion would have looked like if Russia was in a good shape? My bet is similar to what we see in Ukraine.
My rationale is very simple. If Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, next is my country and my city. I wish it was stopped in Georgia in 2008. But maybe it’s about time to end appeasement policy that clearly doesn’t work.
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Seems like now could be a smart time to get back to Venezuela. Where are these 10M barrels going to come from for the west? And now you have Saudis not entirely taking USA's side in this conflict.
You'd have to capture Venezuela and install American or Saudi oil companies to make it work. The Venezuelan petro infrastructure is in complete disarray. Active rigs in that country hit zero and production was near zero at the end of 2020. Anyway, pumping out Venezuela is the worst idea imaginable. That carbon needs to stay in the ground. If you want to stick it to the Russians, deploy a national workforce installing…
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This black & white view of good and evil is starting to get really tiresome. Is it the effect of modern movies/tv shows that causes this belief? In movies there's usually a clear/perfect/innocent "good" guy and a bad guy, but real life is rarely so cut and dry. It is perfectly possible for there to be two different parties, each of which (to different degrees of course) make bad decisions that hurt innocent people. B…
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Yeah we (IT crowd of Russia) had time to leave and wanted to leave and planned to leave. But even as programmer it's can be just hard to immigrate without losing 3-5 years of your life in the middle. Also losing all you friends and social circle isn't fun. I already lived abroad for 3-months / 6-months / 3-years and I know what how it feels to move countries. I personally had amazing personal projects going on and fi…
What do you mean losing years ? It might be a bit tough depending on visa issues and so on but none of my friends that emigrated describe it as losing years. They are all working in their field, some are progressing insanely in their careers (especially compared to how they were doing back home). I mean I know it's anecdotal, and I've read some horror stories about employer visa abuse but assuming that's the default…
Also lets be honest here - not all of us are top-notch programmers and finding job and passing interviews is completely different skill that need to be trained. I for instance simply don't have any official degree and while this make no difference for freelancer it's handicap me greatly when it's come to getting work visa.
Also even if I am programmer my girlfriend is not automatically become one too. Finding a good job for her as English teacher (who is not a native speaker) would be much harder in EU / US. So this will put extra strain on my an her life.
Rebuilding social circle and finding new friends also takes a long time. Especially if you dont want to stick to communities of other immigrants.
PS: now this all doesn't matter because we turned into refugees. Yeah we're in much better situation compared to my friends in Ukraine who wake up to bomb shells, but our past life is still destroyed by Mr Putin and his regime.