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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

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wrong question. If Russians have a choice, why not Ukrainians? Ask the Russians who are bombing them and preventing them from leaving. Russia has already broken the cease-fire meant to evacuate civilians. Or ask the Russians who started the war. Ask the Russians carrying out their leadership's orders. Russians are the ones taking away Ukrainians' choices.

> 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...

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

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putin was shaken up by Euromaidan and been preparing so it doesn't happen to him ever since. Ukraine 2014 != Russia 2022. Back then Ukraine even had free speech.

I apologize in advance for some emotion that'll come out in the rest of this comment, but I feel the need to say it. I wish Russian people would then stop telling me all about how most Russians are against Putin and hate him, and then act completely helpless at the thought of doing anything about it. They are just empty words, then, because they're followed by plenty of excuses for inaction. My grandfather is spendin…

I am with you. If anything I want to turn up the sanctions even more, as I see Putin ramping up the war crimes he’s committing in Ukraine out of frustration at the resistance there.

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

#313
post #11

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…

a lot of people seem ok with punishing Russian individuals for the actions of the government. maybe these people have grown in better functioning democracies (unlike Russia or my own country) so they act as if the people were well represented by their governments; unlike reality for most countries with a serious corruption problem.

This is just how international relations work... Russian citizens who are being affected by sanctions also benefit from trade agreements and treaties that their government has signed.

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

#314
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a lot of people seem ok with punishing Russian individuals for the actions of the government. maybe these people have grown in better functioning democracies (unlike Russia or my own country) so they act as if the people were well represented by their governments; unlike reality for most countries with a serious corruption problem.

> maybe these people have grown in better functioning democracies (unlike Russia or my own country) so they act as if the people were well represented by their governments; I think they're mostly grown in countries doing the imposing of sanctions. If they had to suffer the consequences of sanctions imposed on them, for what their own countries did, they'd have a much different understanding.

These people also have no idea, except abstract one, how it is to live in authoritarian country, when access to non-government news is hard or impossible, and even saying your opinion can be dangerous.

As someone who was on the receiving end of sanctions in ex-yu, despite being antiwar and going to protests, I can’t ever support wide sanctions which affect all people. Years we were under sanctions were the worst years of my life. The worst thing is they harm oposition and make regime stronger. Government can tell “the world hates us, and those who want to colaborate with west are traitors and you should not vote for them”, and that’s easy sell to population directly suffering from sanctions.

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

#315
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everywhere I've seen anyone motivate restrictions on Russian citizens it's been about pushing them to revolt against their government, not about punishing. I don't know whether it makes sense, but it does seem like one of few avenues to try to get rid of putin that has low chance of resulting in atomic war.

Didn't see any revolting Americans when the Iraq War was initiated.

Americans revolting no, but I'm sure the Iraqis would have something to say about revolting Americans. ;-)

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

#316

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 few days, but will anyone say it's comparable to what's going on in Ukraine?).

And from these 5% who go out now many (including myself) were not protesting in 2014.

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

[Edit] 95% is a VERY conservative estimation.

[Edit2] And of course people from other countries are also responsible for crimes which their governments are or were doing (many of these crimes resulted in many more deaths than this conflict yet - hopefully it will remain so). So don't feel good about yourself guys.

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

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize in advance for some emotion that'll come out in the rest of this comment, but I feel the need to say it. I wish Russian people would then stop telling me all about how most Russians are against Putin and hate him, and then act completely helpless at the thought of doing anything about it. They are just empty words, then, because they're followed by plenty of excuses for inaction. My grandfather is spendin…

And that's the problem right there: most Russians don't hate him. They've been subjected to a decades long barrage of obligatory Putin worship and even today his support is higher than that of the American president. They don't speak any other language than Russian and don't have access to other news sources. This is a real problem, because (1) it all but ensures that this war will last much longer than it should (it…

I’d love to know what you think the West can do, except that we are scared? I think the West is doing absolutely the right thing. This is a disaster for Putin but you know what could turn it around for him? If we give him an excuse to escalate the war and unite the Russian people against the West.

EDIT: those are some good ideas. I definitely think we need to turn up the sanctions, so far Putin seems on the backfoot but he has increased the shelling of civilians, even agreed-upon evacuation points which is just straight up evil.

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

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered being paid in, for example, USDC? You could then get a visa card that you could top up with it for spending.

I've been a big crypto sceptic for a long time, but with the current situation I had to deposit a lot of money to Binance, because Russian banks/government has stopped allowing people to withdraw USD from ATMs, forbidden transfers to other countries (only $5k/m to relatives), forbidden to cross borders with more than $10k (not they are possible to cross at all now).

I would not put all eggs in one basket, keep safe part of your assets to a safe private digital asset as XMR (Monero).

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

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Nazis were stopped from outside Yes, after killing 30 million+ people. It would have been much easier if Germans didn't enable them or someone took out Hitler in 1938. And we punished Germany for generations because of it. The US still has military bases there to this day.

Germany has been fully sovereign since 1991; they can ask the US troops to leave whenever they want to. The existence of US basis there now can hardly be considered “punishment”.

I looked it up and the ratio of German soldiers to US soldiers is about 2:1 in Germany. Pretty remarkable when you think about. They are kind of outsourcing their military to the US. And that's a choice the Germans made, and are starting to reverse.

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

#320
post #243

No one thinks that a regular Ivan from some russian city (on his own) is responsible for the war and should suffer. And I see how you could (and probably should, at some level) feel sorry for russians fleeing the country. But this is the only way to tell them that they -- collective Ivans, Russian society as a whole -- should stand up and act: they should articulate their content, they should protest against putin's…

I see both sides to this. Yes, Russians should protest against the horrible actions of their government. On the other hand, if you’re an average Russian with few/no international ties, would you really risk protesting against a government with a demonstrated track record of murdering dissidents and imprisoning protestors? NATO/the West is choosing to worsen the lives of 144 million Russian citizens due to the actions…

> NATO/the West is choosing to worsen the lives of 144 million Russian citizens due to the actions of ~several hundred people.

That's the single biggest falsehood of this whole thing propaganda wise: that the Russian people aren't responsible for what's going on.

The Russian people are responsbile for their culture, which keeps producing and promoting authoritarianism, decade after decade, generation after generation, century after century.

Oh those poor Russian people, applauding Putin when times were good, cheering the increase in Russian might, cheering the annexation of Crimea, rah rah rah. Oh no, Putin has gone into Ukraine, who could have seen it coming!?! It's all bullshit, they cheered him on. Putin's popularity went way up with the annexation of Crimea, so he's doing it again on a greater level, he's repeating what worked last time with the Russian people - they love conquest and the return of glory for the Russian empire. These are important beliefs of the Russian culture and Putin is very aware of that. Putin fed them endless images of strength, all those ridiculous photos of him pretending to be strong doing a thing, it was all propaganda for his people (now ask yourself why it worked, why that propaganda; because Putin understands very well the Russian culture and what to feed it).

They are responsible.

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