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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

#361

Post by therusskiy »

jacquesm wrote: post #275
therusskiy wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it may be selfish, but I don't want to sit in prison and be beaten by police. If you are against Putin, why haven't you supported Russians in 2019 when they took to streets against him? Came to our country with Molotovs? Or was it too far away from you? Everybody was just "concerned" by it and now you and me are paying the pric, because since then it's even harder for us to organize and do anything about this crazy s…

Compared to dying because of a high explosive bomb landing in the middle of your apartment building I think you got the better deal. Keep in mind that just having choices is a luxury. Oh, and your dictator, your primary responsibility. Or do you blame the West for Putin?

It's definitely a better deal than those 300+ civilians and many more military whose lifes were lost, I am not gonna bloody argue about that.

And yet I don't like when people discount broken lifes of Russians who had to flee their country leaving everything behind. Both Ukranians and Russians are refugees in this case. One difference they may not experience is being afraid of passing strangers in a country they fled to.

So much suffering... Everything because of one crazy guy. As far as I've heard even most of Putin's generals were shocked by his decision to invade. I hope one of them can muster courage and get close enough...

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

#362

Post by rectang »

Tistron wrote: post #47
bsedlm wrote: 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.

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.

The purpose of sanctions is to persuade Russia to stop the war, not to get rid of Putin.

Even if some might want it to go further, it won't, because the coalition will not hold. If Putin stops the war and pulls back to pre-invasion boundaries, the group of countries imposing sanctions will not continue to hold out for Putin's ouster in addition.

An outright revolution by the Russian people is not necessary, though we might hope for unrest which degrades Russia's ability to wage war. The suffering of Russia's common citizens isn't desirable. But it can be justified, since Ukrainian citizens have it far worse.

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

#363

Post by belter »

therusskiy wrote: post #6

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…

Are the Russians of the older generation, that get their news from most of the official news, buying into the government story? Or do you think everybody already realized what is really happening in Ukraine?

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

#364

Post by sharpneli »

lowkey wrote: post #336
traceroute66 wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The tax income produced by those people is being used to fund the war. It is unfortunate but it's better to have a person become poor than another person being bombed.

Ín a world without nukes they would be bombed too right now, because wars have a tendency of doing that regardless of who fights.

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

#365

Post by Etherlord87 »

therusskiy wrote: post #6

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 criticize Russia, we supported Putin in a similar way. Though it could be argued we, non-russian citizens don't have the responsibility for russian government's actions...

I'm wondering if resigning from a russian citizenship can help with the sanctions against russians. Surely openly criticizing the war and/or Putin with some kind of stickers or t-shirts or maybe Ukrainian colors can alleviate contact with actual people.

I think no one pretends sanctions are fair. But what's a better alternative?

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

#366

Post by jacquesm »

therusskiy wrote: post #361
jacquesm wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to dying because of a high explosive bomb landing in the middle of your apartment building I think you got the better deal. Keep in mind that just having choices is a luxury. Oh, and your dictator, your primary responsibility. Or do you blame the West for Putin?

It's definitely a better deal than those 300+ civilians and many more military whose lifes were lost, I am not gonna bloody argue about that. And yet I don't like when people discount broken lifes of Russians who had to flee their country leaving everything behind. Both Ukranians and Russians are refugees in this case. One difference they may not experience is being afraid of passing strangers in a country they fled…

The only people that can do something about it right this moment are all in Russia and as long as they don't the carnage will continue (in your name, no less).

Putin's generals have over the years been carefully winnowed down to a bunch of spineless bastards, it's clear that near a dictator of such power you will not find any credible competition, those are either in jail or six feet under. Interesting side effect, that also means that the really competent people have left or have been pensioned off.

And yet, those that are left are the only people with a credible shot at this. And the world - and their country - would likely love them for it, assuming they would live. Let's see which Russian fat cat grows a pair first. I think the touchstone will be when Putin gives the orders to deploy a nuke.

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

#367

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

hatsubishi wrote: post #225
mkl95 wrote: post #90

There's nothing surprising about it. There is at least one recent, well documented case of mass emigration due to the economic collapse of an authoritarian regime. Millions of people have left Venezuela since the late 2000s [1]. Considering Russia is barely richer than Spain whilst having 3x the population and the fact it's about to get much worse, I would expect millions of Russians to leave in the next few years. […

Spain is a very rich country though, 10th in the world by total wealth. What you're comparing is the current GDP, which is a different thing than being rich, it's production. In Spain production may be lower but still people enjoy a great quality of life because they are living of the wealth generated before, i.e. everything is extremely cheap including real estate.

>wealth generated before

Yeah, "generated".

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

#368

Post by nuccy »

therusskiy wrote: post #209
nuccy wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[disclaimer: Ukrainian here] > Older generation (who are pro-Russian) suggested being careful around young people as they may be hostile to Russians, even those who are running away from Putin Of course, instead of even attempting to change your country, where there is no war on its territory, you flee. Why should they be kind to you? > The disheartening thing is that even if you never supported Putin, other countrie…

it doesn't sound like you enjoy fighting Russian military, why should I? As for silence, I've been helping Russian opposition financially for years (even when it became illegal, through different channels), talking to relatives and friends to make sure they know what's going on. At some point risks become too great. Imagine Maidan, but if Yanukovich won and had 8 years to surround himself with 100 times more military…

Sure, nothing personal, one leaves, a thousand of others will do the same with the same reasoning, then a million, ten millions... Who will stay? No idea, but Putin definitely will, putting in danger the whole world.

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

#369

Post by scoot »

rjsw wrote: post #231
samstave wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great if Oligarchs around the world were uncomfortable. This should be and opportunity to catalogue just exactly who the oligarchs are and what are their assets and how are they affected.

Might also be helpful to declare that anything confiscated from an oligarch will be given back to the Russian people/state after everything has calmed down.

That's what's happening in part to frozen assets of the Afghan Central Bank [1], so it's not entirely beyond the realms of possibility – but how that would work in practice in Putin controlled Russia I have no idea.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/11/politics/executive-order-...

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

#370

Post by ignoramous »

SeanLuke wrote: post #328
th-2022-03 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm being totally serious about this: as a first generation American, 9/11 caused me to rethink what this country was doing abroad. Obviously the loss of life was terrible. People in my town died in the Twin Towers. But I grew up mostly with American propoganda. I didn't know that the US had a long history of overthrowing governments in the Middle East and South America, and generally meddling in their affairs. Not t…

> But I grew up mostly with American propoganda. I didn't know that the US had a long history of overthrowing governments in the Middle East and South America, and generally meddling in their affairs. I'm sorry, but this is whataboutism in its full glory. The US has a free press, and its unfortunate history of overthrowing or supporting governments was and is well documented by the press and by historians in the Unit…

Look at my shit, even if as smelly, it is better documented than yours.

> I'm sorry, but this is whataboutism in its full glory.

Dismissing every argument with whataboutism seems to be flavour of the day, even when it is not whataboutism.

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