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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

#721
post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that there were no sanctions, and there won't be the next time the US decides to invade another country. So punishing Russia this time gives the US an unfair advantage, and that's not good for anyone outside the US.

It's more than that. There are other impact: * There are a lot of Indians openly support Putin. I guess there is an excuse to justify the invasion because Russia is not the first one doing that. * Inside China there are a lot of debate. Russians invasion obviously breaks the international law. But if US did the same thing in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria ...(Let's not debate if US conducted good invasion to avoid to…

India has a similarly authoritarian nationalist govt and looks a lot like Russia 20 years ago. I am very nervous about the direction India is heading.

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

#722
post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So only some countries have the right to decide their international affairs? Should Russia schedule a delivery of nuclear weapons to Cuba for this week or next? >Ya know The Us feels very threatened by Belarus. They should have to withdraw from their alliance from Russia and decouple Is that because of its close proximity to Maine? I guess it's closer than Iraq...

> Should Russia schedule a delivery of nuclear weapons to Cuba for this week or next? Frankly, I couldn’t care less. But if you think a country choosing to ally with a country is the same as positioning nuclear weapons, well, that’s your problem. Recall that Russia exited nuclear arms treaties and controls, which were the result of an insane arms buildup and included activities like putting missiles in Cuba. Even the…

> Recall that Russia exited nuclear arms treaties and controls

The US repudiated the ABM treaty before Russia did any of that (Russian withdrawal from START II was a direct response to that), and also exited the Open Skies Treaty first. There are many, many things to blame Russia for, but collapsing the arms control and verification regime that developed during the Cold War was entirely the US (and specifically an active partisan project of the GOP.)

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

#723
post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should Russia schedule a delivery of nuclear weapons to Cuba for this week or next? Frankly, I couldn’t care less. But if you think a country choosing to ally with a country is the same as positioning nuclear weapons, well, that’s your problem. Recall that Russia exited nuclear arms treaties and controls, which were the result of an insane arms buildup and included activities like putting missiles in Cuba. Even the…

>Recall that Russia exited nuclear arms treaties and controls From game theory stand point that is the only course of action to maintain MAD. If you're falling behind in drones and high precision weapons, it would be very disadvantageous if everyone went nukeless.

Which only holds true if you want to be an adversary. NATO countries don’t care about Russia as a military adversary except to the degree that they want to be one. The Cold War is over. Russia could just grow into a prosperous economy and ally with the west. They choose not to.

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

#724

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…

go back home and fight for freedom. You are the only one that can stop Putin.

I can pretty much guarantee most of the people commenting things like this wouldn't risk their lives to do the same.

It's very easy to type it out and pretend in your imagination, but reality is quite a different matter.

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

#725
post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The net effect is the same. It's not though. The west doesn't come to Russia and shove their grubby hands into the bank accounts of ordinary Russians to steal their money, resources and taxes, and starve them to death. Russia does that to their citizens and bares the sole responsibility of these actions, not the west. Like come on, Russia can choose to stop the wear at any time and the sanctions would be lifted but…

> So we should just let Russia invade whatever country it wants and kill their way through Europe because otherwise ordinary Russian citizens might suffer? No, absolutely not but that is a false dichotomy and I think you also know that. This isn’t a simple binary choice between doing nothing and imposing broad-stroke sanctions on every single citizen of Russia. One simple first step could be for the US and Germany an…

>This isn’t a simple binary choice between doing nothing and imposing broad-stroke sanctions on every single citizen of Russia.

Again, the west is not attacking Russian citizens, but the Russian government. We can't change the fact that ordinary Russians are subject to the Russian government and therefore will also suffer to a degree no matter how you try to slice the sanctions. Especially when Russia would rather destroy European food rather than give it to its starving people.[1] So if Russia is actively harming its own people how can we expect to protected them if their own government won't?

You can't just keep repeating the trope that the west is actively harming the Russians citizens when its their own government doing it. Yeah, living in a corrupt country with shitty leaders is bad for the people living there but it's not the west's responsibility to improve it for them. Ultimately, it's up to the Russian people to revolt against their government and fight for a better future, same how other countries did it. The price of freedom is always high.

[1] https://youtu.be/nrLwLuWv7rA?t=380

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

#726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in touch with my family in and around Moscow. Older generation is militantly pro-Putin, as a direct result of listening to the what the TV spews. My generation is ignoring it all and is keeping their heads down because it is too dangerous to express anything. My uncle who had a green card and had an opportunity to settle here in USA couple of decades ago but chose not to is being very philosophical, and say…

That polarising effect on older generations versus younger ones is something that has affected a large part of the world and I’d be curios to know whether it originated by one source or it simply emerged as a trend. First time I heard about troll farms was something brewed in Russia but it certainly spread around by then

The divide is clearly between people who watch Tv and people who don’t. It happens that younger people watch less TV, and this is the only reason.

You may be surprised how strong propaganda is. I spoke with quite a few people recently and it is mind boggling. Propaganda victims cannot answer some basic questions such as - “If Ukrainians are nazis why we don’t see millions of refugees?” The problem is they are not ready to get the answer. Instead they became emotional and stressed and start yelling at you for no good reason. I guess this is uncontrolled reaction to prevent their imaginary world from collapsing.

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

#727

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…

I am empathetic to your situation, but if you lived in Russia and paid taxes in Russia, you did support Putin. You also supported him just by living there, which was a statement that Russia is a place worth living in. Also if you didn't protest, you did support him passively. The same can be said, probably to a lesser extent, about most of us living outside of Russia - if we bought things coming from Russia or didn't…

> I am empathetic to your situation, but if you lived in Russia and paid taxes in Russia, you did support Putin. You also supported him just by living there, which was a statement that Russia is a place worth living in. Also if you didn't protest, you did support him passively.

If you're an American you don't get to criticize Russian citizens for this. It would be the very definition of glass houses and throwing stones.

How many of your government's injustices and war crimes have you protested? And don't try to brush off my comment as "whataboutism", you're talking tough so back it up.

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

#728

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…

[Disclaimer: Russian] According to my estimations, probably at least 95% of people who are "against the war" do not go out to participate in protests. My estimations are based on talking to my colleagues (large IT company). Yes, starting from now, protesting becomes more risky (you may go to jail for years if you get caught second time). But just a week ago, it was mostly harmless (yes, some people get arrested for f…

> So to be honest I cannot see how we are not responsible.

I cannot se how you are responsible

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

#729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does persecuting Russians who flee Putin's regime help end the war sooner?

Putin is persecuting them. I just said we shouldn't embrace. There's a lot of middle ground. Ask someone like Alexei Navalny or Mikhail Khodorkovsky why they stayed to fight and be jailed instead of fleeing. Fleeing doesn't help. Russia hasn't been conquered since the most recent Russian Empire was formed. But regimes have fallen from within...

Stayed?

Khodorkovsky hasn't stayed after he got out.

And Navalny overplayed his hand. It appears he really thought it was about him, not the movement he had created, otherwise he'd have had his wife run for office, which is what wives of those arrested in Belarus did.

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

#730
post #449
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My own country still exists because in the past 500 years it never surrendered when a big army showed up making outrageous demands. I see no reason to change that now.

Nuclear weapons are not a problem if we all hold to the MAD doctrine.

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