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Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

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Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#681
post #653
post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is unfortunate that ordinary Russian citizens are being harmed by the sanctions. But that is unavoidable and an acceptable side effect of weakening Putin’s war machine. We need to eliminate his ability to wage an inhuman war of aggression and asphyxiating the Russian economy that power’s his war machine is our best available option. War, including economic war, commonly involves massive harm to civilians. Tha…

I disagree. The suffering of Russian people is very avoidable. For example if the US and Germany had the political and economic will to stop buying oil from Russia and thereby directly funding Putin’s war. Instead they chose broad indiscriminate sanctions that, while politically convenient are absolutely devastating to everyday Russian plebs. The Ruble has collapsed leading to hyperinflation on everyday goods the peo…

I don’t see how stopping buying oil would be preferable from the perspective of a Russian citizen. Both will be economically ruinous to the Russian states, eventually. One hits innocent European citizens too, so it seems obvious which to choose.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's abundantly clear what the conditions are: Stop the attack against their neighbour and the sanctions are lifted. Anything less let's Putin get away once again. And right now every country in Europe, and their citizens, are sick of Putin getting away every single time. I do have a personal stake in this. We're the only western neighbour of Russia that is not in NATO and has not been attacked by them after the fall…

>We're the only western neighbour of Russia that is not in NATO and has not been attacked by them after the fall of Soviet Union. We're basically next Moldova?

Moldova has a separatist area maintained by Russian troops. Transnistria. So in a way Russia has already attacked them, though not yet tried to conquer, yet. Also Moldova shares no land border with Russia, yet (and very much hopefully not).

Finland is the only land border sharing non nato country left.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be of this opinion until I asked myself whether I'm really that fluidly intelligent and able to approach things with better critical thinking, and am not a sitting duck for being easily manipulated by technology. Turns out, I was wrong and I am human after all and there are ways to manipulate me, especially by using the technology I love so much.

Other comments here seem to be indicating this is a binary "young people unaffected, older people affected" dichotomy. No. It's about the generality. Bell curve clearly exists for many dimensions.

Agreed. And, look, you wrote:

> The younger generations, with their higher level of fluid intelligence, are able to approach things with better critical thinking

Personally I try to write "are more often able to", or "tend to ...", so it sounds more bell-curvish

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#684

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…

AFAIK Air Serbia is still flying to Russia, and even doubled number of flights few days ago because of demand. I don’t know what’s the situation with visas, how long you can stay, how it is to open bank account, etc but historically Serbia is friendly towards Russia. Government does condemn Russia for this war, but I don’t think we’ll be implementing any kind of sanctions. Elections are in a month, and noone wants to…

And they're vaccinated against BUK.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although it supports the Ukrainians and that’s important, I don’t see how sanctions reduce the likelihood of wider war? It is, in its way, an escalation, though a safer one than directly entering the conflict. It seems Putin sprung this on the rest of Russia as a surprise decision. (Of course the signs were there.) Did he bother to get the support of the oligarchs or anyone else first? It’s not at all clear he has an…

Let’s be clear. The Russians being punished outside of Russia have blood on their hands. They should never have been allowed to buy property and football clubs in the uk, because they weee gangster crooks who had stolen from their own country. That the uk govt was complicit in this at the time doesn’t make it wrong to act against them now. I have a lot more sympathy for the people hurt in Russsia now. Russians, wheth…

This might be true, but they aren't being tried for their own crimes. It's just revenge.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#686
post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Around 2012 mass protests in Russia was supressed and a lot of people landed in prison. Some opposition leaders were killed. "Maximum penalties were fines of several thousand rubles or imposed labor of up to 200 hours" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932013_Russian_prot... That's how it works, but can he incarcerate millions of people? We have good examples of non-violent protests that won against such reg…

Could they incarcerate millions of people? Nope, but even in Belarus it was possible to incarcerate tens of thousands of people. Half a million people on street couldn't win against 20,000 of people with guns. Main problem that in Russia people who live in Moscow are too well-fed and their standards of living are too high to go and protest with a risk to lose everything. And protests outside of capital mean very litt…

> Is fleeing make me a bad person now? Nope, I don't think so.

For sure not. You do what you have to do. But it is important for us to reflect about it. Who is able to do more damage to Putin without any risk of a new nuclear war? The russian people.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rumours are not propaganda. No you haven't discovered a vast EU-wide conspiracy or someone 'saying the quiet part out loud'. Nobody knows what is going on and naturally there is lots of speculation to fill the void.

Rumors is how politics gets done in my backwards country. You start a rumor about the opposition, they start rumors about you. You start rumors about great projects, the opposition starts rumors about how bad it is. The opposition shits on your project, you start rumors about their vested interests in stopping it. Before elections you start rumors about anything and everything and then back again. Someone in your way…

I didn’t use the word never. I said they are not, i.e. the two words are not equivalent.

Yes there are rumours, are they propaganda? I don’t think so in this case - young male Russians are being questioned at the border, flights are being stopped, and the idea has been floated of forced conscription of anti-war protesters. Even mentioning the word war is a crime. Russia is very close to martial law already and I’m not surprised there is speculation about it.

Also, quite frankly no one in the west cares much if Putin imposes martial law, it’s already a pariah state and a dictatorship. As propaganda this rumour would be pretty useless.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a wasted opportunity just from a competitive standpoint. Brain draining the shit out of Russia is a totally valid strategy that boosts the host nation while hindering Russia.

Some of these Russians would go on to make millions, and then the foreign governments would threaten them with sanctions and seizures just the same? Such a ridiculous double standard.

This is absurd. The Russians being sanctioned in Europe are gangster crooks who robbed from their own.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#689
post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Russian President Vladimir Putin has described sanctions imposed by Western nations over his invasion of Ukraine as "akin to a declaration of war". > "But thank God it has not come to that," he added. The bit he added at the end is important.

I don't think you'll hear in real time how close we probably already came, but maybe after all the dust has settled there might be some stories along those lines.

For now, we are on a knife edge, and the number of refugees is mounting steadily. I expect we'll be in the millions by the end of next week.

Re: Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

#690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Air Serbia is still flying to Russia, and even doubled number of flights few days ago because of demand. I don’t know what’s the situation with visas, how long you can stay, how it is to open bank account, etc but historically Serbia is friendly towards Russia. Government does condemn Russia for this war, but I don’t think we’ll be implementing any kind of sanctions. Elections are in a month, and noone wants to…

With the EU having banned Russia from its airspace, I wonder what route these flights take.

Serbia does not have any flight restrictions - neither in EU and neither in Russia and Belarus. So they can fly between Moscow and Belgrade...
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