Tens of Thousands of Russian Gig Workers Left Behind as Tech Platforms Pull Out (washingtonpost.com) 218
U.S. tech companies are scrambling to react to sanctions and public pressure after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. From a report: When Arina, a 22-year-old illustrator in Russia, first started using the freelance work platform Upwork last year, it changed her life. But this weekend, Upwork abruptly pulled out of Russia. For more than a decade, American and European tech companies have made a business of facilitating online labor -- from gig work to content creation and online marketplaces to payment processors. Now, tens of thousands of Russian video game streamers on Twitch, gig workers on Upwork, adult-content creators on OnlyFans and computer programmers working on contract have all lost their livelihoods, at least temporarily. The gig work companies acted in response to demands from lawmakers and public sentiment against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Some cited the restrictions that sanctions had placed on processing payments and depositing funds in Russian banks. Twitch told streamers in Russia that it was no longer able to pay them because of sanctions placed on payment services. Many of the platforms that allow fans to pay creators and influencers for their content use payment systems such as Mastercard and Visa, which began blocking Russian accounts in the days after Russia invaded. So did the London-based cross-border payments company Wise and the New York City-based financial services provider Payoneer. On Saturday, PayPal suspended services in Russia, citing both sanctions and solidarity with Ukraine.
They'll be back (Score:2)
I suspect the West will funnel weapons into Ukrainian resistance fighters for years to come on the sly but there's no way we're going to keep up with all these sanctions. Business and profit always win out and we're going to need gas prices to go d
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When Zelenskyy gets assassinated it will be a couple of articles about it but that's about it.
FTFY.
Speaking of killing, I'm not sure there's ever been a name that has been more butchered in spelling, that his.
No no, it's not you. Hell, I was today years old when I think I finally saw it spelled correctly. I'm going to assume it was accurate since it was broadcast from a major news outlet.
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I'm fairly sure there's only one 'y' in it.
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I'm fairly sure there's only one 'y' in it.
His name in Ukranian script has a (sort of) double "E" sound at the end. This is sometimes badly transliterated to "YY" in English, and sometimes just to a single a "Y". Given that this is /. and we don't do UTF here I can't even type the correct spelling of his name and have it show up. All I can do is point you to Zelensky [wikipedia.org] on wikipedia
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His name in Ukranian script has a (sort of) double "E" sound at the end.
Personally I'd go with i or ii rather than yy at the end, but all of them are valid romanization. The yy translation is awkward but not strictly wrong. All the forms including the yy form shows up on official government sites and the news.
Re:They'll be back (Score:4, Informative)
I'm Ukrainian with the same two letters at the end. Which I can't write here because unicode is still scary apparently.
It was romanized as "yy" in my documents fairly recently, though I believe the official rules changed at some point. It's pretty arbitrary anyway so I think the best is to go by what he's using in his communication.
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I'm Ukrainian with the same two letters at the end.
Mobbyy?
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I'm fairly sure there's only one 'y' in it.
Well, I guess it's hard to say when even his own official website, has conflicting spellings.
:title" content="Volodymyr Zelensky’s biography — Official web site of the President of Ukraine"
https://www.president.gov.ua/e... [president.gov.ua]
Re: They'll be back (Score:2)
The process of converting from one alphabet to another is called "transliteration".
We can easily keep the sanctions... (Score:2)
Russian economy is not that big.
And the West needs to move away from fossil fuels anyway - this is one of the reasons Putin has rushed - every year the West consumes less coal, gas and oil.
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this is one of the reasons Putin has rushed - every year the West consumes less coal, gas and oil.
One of several yes.
The country is old and the military population is slowly shrinking.
The military equipment they have is aging, and they don't have the money to continue funding it, so the military continues declining.
While everything about the Russian side is on decline, everything outside of Russia is growing. Ukraine's military was growing, Ukraine's economy was growing, western support and connections for Ukraine were growing, etc.
Putin is trying to cement his legacy as restoring the glory days of
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Exactly. The Russian economy is about the size of my state's economy, and we are maybe 5th in the US.
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I don't see that happening. The free world has reacted with surprising unity and intensity. I don't think we're seeing a half hearted response for the cameras.
I agree. There's too much at risk: Finland, Georgia, Moldova, Taiwan. The same old Hitler-excuse of "x-speaking locals with historical links" can be applied to them as well as it could to Ukraine, and none of them are in NATO.
Ukraine is too much of a test-case to be ignored.
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Not all of what's happening is due to sanctions-- some of it is companies reacting to what their customers want. This is basically cancel culture applied to a country. For most of these companies, Russia represents 3-5% of their business, so the hit (for the companies and for Russia) is fairly small. If the idea that Russia is a villain tak
Needs a certification seal (Score:2)
This is basically cancel culture applied to a country. For most of these companies, Russia represents 3-5% of their business, so the hit (for the companies and for Russia) is fairly small. If the idea that Russia is a villain takes hold in the public consciousness, it will be hard for many of these companies to go back.
Until Ukraine is free from Russian interference and reparations are made, I will do the best I can to not do business with any companies that do business in Russia. I'm absolutely not going to get tired of it and forget.
Being "Russia free" is soon going to be akin to LEED, MSC, Fair Trade, Leaping Bunny, etc. Someone should come up with a certification and a seal of approval - "Made by a company that has no business ties to Russia".
Soviets 2.0 (Score:2)
> there's no way we're going to keep... all these sanctions
The USA fully sanctioned the Soviet Union for several decades. If Ukraine falls, then Russia will probably be treated similar to the Soviet Union, where they become their own isolated economy (shared with China and other despots).
It looks like the cold war is back, where the world and its economies are delineated into democracies vs. despots.
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Business and profit always win out and we're going to need gas prices to go down or voters will just put somebody in charge who will do whatever it takes to make gas prices go down.
And how long have we had sanctions on Cuba?
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In a week or two it's likely that Russia will take the rest of Ukraine
As long as Ukraine doesn't run out of javelin missiles, Russia can't win on the ground.
Useful period between jobs (Score:2)
It is the time to learn new skills, brush up on old skills.
Maybe do a few experiments you were always eager to try but never had the time for.
Perhaps even spend much needed time with loved ones.
Those phases of a career are just as useful as the ones containing work.
And just like that... (Score:2, Interesting)
...socially-conscious Americans suddenly became fans of the power of giant corporations and their influence in politics.
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...socially-conscious Americans suddenly became fans of the power of giant corporations and their influence in politics.
Any port in a storm, my friend. You use the tools you have at hand.
Have they lost their lives? (Score:4, Insightful)
They have not lost their lives, only their livelihood. They have a future less bleak that the people of Ukraine.
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Yeah I feel mildly sorry for some of the Russians who might not support the war but not as sorry as for Ukrainians who are getting murdered because Putin is a fucking moron.
Unfortunately speaking to some (former) friends and relatives who are either russian or live there, many seem to be completely on board. So fuck them.
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Just another Freedumb convoy
Gig workers in Ukraine (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a feeling that gig workers in Ukraine might be having a harder time, even without sanctions on their country.
Freedom Titties! (Score:2)
Buy your online sessions with those who support freedom and democracy! Don't buy those commie tittes! #BuyAmerican
They sound like the Jan 6 capitol rioters (Score:2)
The videos of captured Russians sounds just like the ones who got arrested after the Jan 6 event. Claim they were told Ukraine has to be "liberated" coz the "nazis" are in control.
https://nypost.com/2022/03/07/... [nypost.com]
This is great news (Score:2)
Consequences.
Oh well.
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Yes, you're missing that the population won't speak.
No one has ever been found (again) to speak against the Leader.
Russia is at fault (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you're missing that the population won't speak.
No one has ever been found (again) to speak against the Leader.
Russia has arrested over 5,000 protestors across Russia on Sunday, over 13,000 arrests since the start of the war. (Easily found online - Google is your friend.)
This is a remarkable level of protest, since Russian jails are not known for humane treatment, and several analysts have stated that these people will be "disappeared", and this fact is well known to the Russian people.
The idea that the Russian people are not at fault is fallacious thinking. The Russian people gave us Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and now Putin, and in each case the people of Russia never stood up and said NO! The humanitarian disasters orchestrated by each amoral leader were not achieved in a vacuum, they were supported by a cadre of immoral low-level bureaucrats and military soldiers who never bothered to oppose, or even question, what they were doing. Those people were drawn from the Russian population.
To a first approximation, a moral sense doesn't exist in the Russian culture.
Consider the current situation: Russia could easily be a global superpower - one of three - if they would only stop being confrontational and simply work on playing nice with others. Trade among the Western countries puts our productivity per person at between 4 (Germany, UK) and 6 (US) *times* the Russian productivity. It's really hard to be confrontational with other nations when they are creating wealth at 4x to 6x the rate you are.
Despite this, Russia has consistently been throwing sand in the political works of everything else in the Western world for the last 30 years. They vote against UN resolutions aimed at reducing conflict, they give aid to terrorists and imperialists, they turn a blind eye and give hackers and other criminals a pass when they break laws of other countries. In a word, they consistently support evil.
The Russian people have only recently been introduced to the high quality and availability of Western goods, and now that we've snatched that away maybe they'll wake up and realize that being a bad ass in the world forum isn't such a good idea.
It's no different from kids refusing to play with the playground bully.
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The idea that the Russian people are not at fault is fallacious thinking. The Russian people gave us Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and now Putin, and in each case the people of Russia never stood up and said NO!
This is collective guilt, and to be consistent you would have to apply it to Chinese people that lived during Mao regime, Cambodian people that lived during Pol Pot regime, German people that lived during Hitler regime, Spanish people that lived during Pinochet and so on. Yes, Russia had a fair share of dictators, but so did a lot of other places.
Agreed (Score:4, Insightful)
This is collective guilt, and to be consistent you would have to apply it to Chinese people that lived during Mao regime, Cambodian people that lived during Pol Pot regime, German people that lived during Hitler regime, Spanish people that lived during Pinochet and so on. Yes, Russia had a fair share of dictators, but so did a lot of other places.
Agreed.
I have no problem being consistent.
And we can add England under Churchill, America under Lincoln and FDR, and India under Ghandi.
Douglas MacArthur famously met with the Japanese emperor after the war:
On his drive to Yokohama from Atsugi, tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers greeted him with their bayonets out in one final act of symbolic defiance. Seventy percent of Americans thought Emperor Hirohito should be persecuted; there were protests outside MacArthur’s headquarters by American servicemen and calls in Australian and Russian press to that effect.
And yet, famously, the US did not grind Japan under our heel, or even prosecute the Japanese emperor. We helped Japan rebuild, and now they are a close ally and a world leader in their own right.
One could make the claim that the Japanese people of that time were similar to the Russian people today, in that they believed in their own manifest destiny, they had invaded Manchuria, they attacked the US, and were responsible for numerous war crimes. They had a warlike culture with little regard for human rights: of other people, and of their own.
Suppose Russia completely defeats Ukraine. As a thought problem, imagine the differences between what MacArthur did with Japan, and what Putin will do with Ukraine.
I have no problem being consistent.
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The Russian occupiers in some parts of Ukraine, actually Russian speaking parts of Ukraine, have tried to eliminate protests. Including by beatings and shootings. In one case they started to beat one protester and drag him away until the other protesters charged back and rescued him. The soldiers seem to have been given the "no protests!" message.
I agree with you here: Russia could be a super power again, one that plays nice with other countries, and one that is respected. No one really wants to make Rus
Unprovoked? (Score:2)
From what I remember Saddam first invaded Kuwait - or is it not enough 'provocation' for you?
Case for Afghanistan is weaker but how the f.. would you get Osama? Or 9-11 was also not enough 'provocation' ?
You don't seem to understand "time" (Score:2)
But you knew all that, and that's the problem. I'm feeding a troll. This is just another gish gallop. A disposible lie. Lots of claims easy to disprove, but it takes time and effort to disprove them.
Learn to spot Gish Gallops kids. Go watch Rebecca Watson's la
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The case for Afghanistan holds up in my view. They were harboring the aggressors, this was the really the only military action authorized in spirit by the original congressional resolution, and we quickly made good headway without a lot of blowback. Until we left it half done to go after Iraq instead. And that second war in Iraq had no purpose; there were no WMDs, the leadership that wanted war only heard what they wanted to hear. And yet none of it really got rid of terrorism, and instead acted like a bi
No voter suppression (Score:2, Informative)
[...] And we've got 500+ voter suppression laws working their way through state legislatures, so many it won't even matter if we stop Gerrymandering. Stalin was wrong, you don't need to count the votes, you just need to make it so hard to vote only your supporters can.
These are not voter suppression laws, that's only what you've been told by the leftist media.
The laws only prevent entering fake ballots during the election. Nothing more.
Essentially, the laws force each ballot to be associated with a person. A person can be identified by SSN or driver's license or other state-issued ID, and only one ballot is allowed per person. That's it.
There are so many holes in our elections right now that they are essentially unverifiable. Hundreds of thousands of votes have been iden
Another day, another Gish Gallop (Score:3)
So I could list statistics on wait times to vote in minority neighborhoods, find and link the stories where Right Wing and Republican operatives openly admitted they're doing voter suppression, point out how all the media is owned by the right wing after 4 decades of consolidation and Republicans changing laws to allow that consolidation, maybe link to that video of all those right wingers saying the same script at once to prove my po
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Nah, these points are trivial to respond to. Calling this a Gish Gallop is being much too generous. And since the OP felt free to post bald assertions without citing actual evidence, I feel free to do the same.
The proponents say there's nothing more, and of course you don't put the devious stuff into words in the text of the bill. It's all for fairness and democracy in the text, but there's much more to it than that. Who is affe
Your post is good (Score:2)
Finally, the troll can just start saying "where's your sources" and keep the Gish Gallop going. Joe Rogan does this, as described in that Rebecca Watson video I mentioned elsewhere. I'm singling him out because he's the most famous example of the practice (and that thing where
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Essentially, the laws force each ballot to be associated with a person. A person can be identified by SSN or driver's license or other state-issued ID, and only one ballot is allowed per person. That's it.
Those laws already exist. We know, because people who try to fraudulently vote, by voting in two counties, or trying to vote for dead relatives, get caught regularly by the system.
There are so many holes in our elections right now that they are essentially unverifiable. Hundreds of thousands of votes have been identified with critical defects: missing ballots, missing signatures, no such person, and so on.
Completely false. Provide some EVIDENCE or STFU. Again, we regularly catch fraudsters, and more often than not they are idiotic Trumpsters who believe that vote fraud is commonplace and easy to pull off. They get a quick education about how effective the system actually is when they get caught easily and arrested.
Your completely u
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And yet there is little evidence of fake ballots. The cases where there were confirmed cases of voter fraud actually occured, most fraud was for the Republicans than the Democrats. There is so much myth out there about ballot stuffing, busloads of illegals pulling up to vote, just utter nonsense with no actual evidence. And stuff with evidence is flimsy crap, "but the came in at midnight, it is suspicious, and I don't care if you have 1000 investigations that found nothing, I demand 1001 investigations!"
Th
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The goal is to reduce number of voters. If everyone eligible got registered then there'd be too many voters, especially too many NEW voters. That is, first time voters who are young, people who moved because they're poor and the jobs moved location, people who they suspect are likely to be more liberal than the old fogeys.
These legislatures treat voting like a special privilege, instead of treating it like a fundamental right. And even here on slashdot you get people claiming that voting should be a privi
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Newsflash: Multiple states, a giant portion of politicians and nearly everyone working overseas within the gov or not, uses mail-in ballots. The trend is growing. Just like sending out Social Security cards, Drivers Licenses, Payment Cards, etc. Essentially, physical "cards" are just tokens that are backed-up with growing MFA security at time-of-use.
This is a Good Thing - and ultimately, the MFA tech will remove the need for "cards" just like we've done for airlines, event tickets, payments, etc. You
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but isn't this the point of sanctions? Its not like Putin himself gets hurt by them, but when your citizens do that's when they start speaking up.
or am I missing something?
It is, but the problem is the very people who are being impacted by the sanctions are the ones who will get imprisoned for complaining. The inner circle often has ways around the sanctions, even if they aren't honourable, by most self-respecting citizens.
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Vast majority of Russians are impacted.
He cannot imprison everyone. See Solidarity in Poland in 1981.
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The very people being arrested are, for the most part, the same people who are working (or were working). Once you start imprisoning vast numbers of those people, the work doesn't get done. And trying to get a replacement won't be easy, either. Who wants to work at a job knowing their currency is essentially worthless?
This will only hasten Russia's collapse as what little business was still running grinds to a halt.
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And trying to get a replacement won't be easy, either.
Ever heard of gulags?
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Re: sucks (Score:2)
Yes. Well, in an ultimate troll move the business and trade would have continued, but the profits from Russia would have been channeled to support Ukraine.
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Also weakens Russian economy making waging future wars harder...
If these sanctions were introduced 8 years ago - current war would not happen or will it be easier for Ukraine to defend.
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Not gona happen (Score:2)
If it were against NATO or Germany or Poland - maybe.
But not when 'defending' is killing Ukraine civilians and bombing Kiev.
Russian army morale is bottom-low as they always considered Ukrainians brothers and suddenly they are killing and bombing them.
This is completely different to defending your country from foreign invaders...
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Russian army morale is bottom-low as they always considered Ukrainians brothers and suddenly they are killing and bombing them.
Russia has been painting Ukraine as the younger sibling they're trying to help, for decades that has been the messaging. That was the messaging going into the war, too, that people had infiltrated and their younger brother needs help.
Sometimes it is literally true, independence happened about 30 years ago. The breakup means people have literal brothers and sisters, cousins, parents and grandparents, children and grandchildren, and assorted other family on both sides of the national boundaries.
I think this
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It is not true. It is not 30 years.
Ukraine was separate from Russia for most of the history - first as independent kingdoms, then part of Lithuania, then part of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Then it was split between Austria and Russia and then independent for short time.
And we are not sending troops to Ukraine because the losses would be too high and no one wants war with Russia. Better let poor Ukrainians die - cruel political reality - similar to pull back from Afghanistan...
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One of the reasons is to get people asking "why?" because they won't get that from their propaganda delivery services... I mean "news".
If all of a sudden they can't use Apple Pay / Google Pay, and Uber / Doordash / Lyft / Airbnb / etc. no longer work, and Facebook / Instagram / Twitter disappear, any purchasing of imported goods become impossible or massively expensive, and international brands start disappearing from store shelves they're going to ask why. And someone with a VPN to get around the half-ass
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Long term is worse (Score:2)
It does nothing to deter Putin in the short term, but perhaps serves as a wake up call for Russians long term.
What I have been reading so far is that the sanctions that have hurt the people directly, have made many Russians formerly favorable to the West, grow to hate the west and get further behind Putin.
Perhaps there is more pressure to democratize going forward.
Watch the interview I posted. Not possible. Even if Putin is deposed, it will not be democracy taking over.
The Soviet Union had as little care
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What I have been reading so far is that the sanctions that have hurt the people directly, have made many Russians formerly favorable to the West, grow to hate the west and get further behind Putin.
You should stop reading right-wing propaganda. Here in reality, things look very different.
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>>What I have been reading so far is that the sanctions that have hurt the people directly, have made many Russians formerly favorable to the West, grow to hate the west and get further behind Putin.
Let the hand wringing commence
fyi, I have never met a Russian in America who did not love being here, even when they still grieved for their homeland
Putin fears getting the Mussolini treatment and we are getting as close to it as Putin has ever seen
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Sure, sure Putin the strong man know no fear
you do realize that is just a front... right?
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Here, I see your interview and raise with an article (What Does Vladimir Putin Fear: His Own People [time.com]) by experienced Russia watcher Marvin Kalb, senior adviser to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Murrow Professor Emeritus at Harvard
Also the author of the memoir The Year I Was Peter the Great—1956: Khrushchev, Stalin’s Ghost and a Young American in Russia.
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All we are doing is crushing the Russian people with zero advance towards ending the war.
which is actually consistent with letting ukrainian people get crushed with zero advance towards planting nato right on russia's doorstep. who would have thought, after russians having been seriously warning against that for nearly a decade, eh?
and all because they shit themselves with the sole idea of china taking over, which is going to happen anyway and which this tragedy is probably just going to accelerate and make worse ...
Stop trolling (Score:2)
Oh... so Ukraine "wanting" to join NATO (though NATO not accepting it) means killing thousands of civilians and bombing cities is not Russia fault?
f.. you troll - Ukraine is independent country and should do whatever they like. And trolls like you are dirty scumbags...
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first, i didn't say that,
second, here's a good opportunity for you to educate yourself (which i'm afraid you're going to miss, but anyway): https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
third, insulting only ridicules yourself and doesn't help your point (well, you didn't make any, so nothing lost here)
have a nice day
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The Great Putini said he intended to blow up the post Soviet Union world run by the West. Now he's complaining the West has decided the West's economic system (as part of the post Soviet Union world run by the West) should restrict access to Russia.
And the Russian people are not blameless. They support that regime. Even if they do not know what precisely is going on in Ukraine, they know they attacked a fellow Slavic nation. No amount of Russian propaganda can whitewash that. Although a fair amount of white
Re:sucks (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think "making being there worse" is really the purpose of the sanctions, so much as "stop using our resources to make being there better."
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says the purpose is "to protect national security interests, or to protect international law, and defend against threats to international peace and security"
Maybe that is just political doublespeak for "stop giving your enemies the perks that you give your allies," but still I think the real honest effort is much more along the lines of "ok, if you are taking these aggressive actions and being all threatening and warlike, we are going to stop being economically integrated with you."
"You're on your own, now" seems much more like the intent of sanctions than "I am actively trying to ruin you."
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A response to Russia's invasion is necessary. I prefer boots on the ground, but hand-wringing about the economic impacts is a bit ridiculous.
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A response to Russia's invasion is necessary. I prefer boots on the ground, but hand-wringing about the economic impacts is a bit ridiculous.
You signing up?
Ukraine is accepting foreign volunteers.
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One can believe firemen should exist without deciding to become one. Grow up.
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but, one who advocates for war without being willing to risk their own neck is a self-demonstrated hypocrite and a coward.
Nobody is "advocating for war". They are looking for the best ways to limit it. Appeasement like you propose and minor sanctions that get revoked after a few months when they prove inconvenient have failed repeatedly. Putin wants to be the new Czar and will happily take the whole of Europe before he starts attacking the Americas. Many more people's necks will be risked if everybody isn't willing to stand up soon. Professionalism in the army means that, at least at the start, the people who go in have to be
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Nobody is in the "spectator field". We can all die from a misjudgement on this one, no matter where we are sitting. Russia's nukes may be unreliable and largely useless but some will likely work and can hit anywhere. The US retaliation when that happens can easily be be more or less total. The only people who have advocated volunteer soldiering were yourself and Cpt_Kirks. Improv advocated "boots on the ground" but he might completely reasonably believe that sending a peace keeping force to Western Ukrain
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NATO does have much better logistics than Russia, and experience at being mobile. Logistics in Russia seem so bad it's ridiculous, they really have not invaded any further than the end of their own train lines at the borders. And Russia does have great train lines and a military force dedicated to repairing the tracks, but it's meant for defense and not offense. Once they're reyling on trucks they flail. Solders are looting stores for food. Estimates are that they don't have enough supply trucks for the a
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Don't get me wrong, the invasion does seem to be a disaster for Russia, but I wouldn't mind some proper sources to look at.
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They're pretty far into the country. Cities have fallen.
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6000 nukes, last I heard it was 4500... oh that's right you are gonna count the ones that are being dismantled
FWIW, after seeing the Russian army driving around on rotting tires, I am wondering how much money to be spent keeping nukes active has been going into some general's off shore account and how much has actually been spent on the nukes
I would be surprised if 10% of the remaining 4500 are actually viable (probably being generous) and the patriot systems surrounding Russia might even make a large launc
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Unfortunately, it would only take a few getting through to devastate the US
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>>Unfortunately, it would only take a few getting through to really piss off the US
You dramatically overestimate the power a a few nukes, there is even a chance that the US would respond with a hundred times as many as that is the goal of MAD
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And it would only take one ballistic missile submarine sitting off Russia's coast to put them back into the 15th century. And there is more than one out there. Russia knows they're there, but has no idea where.
And Russia knows that our shit actually works, and is well maintained. We can't say that about their shit. In fact, we've seen lots of evidence to the contrary in the last two weeks.
The only reason Russia would launch, is if they thought that Russia was less than an hour from not existing anymore.
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Yes, but he only needs one that works to start an exchange.
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As opposed to what, appeasement of violent authoritarian petrostate kleptocrat dictator cunt war criminals that invade neighbors and bomb children because they had the audacity to fuck his hand-picked puppet government off and choose their own direction?
Do you really want to see a return to a full blown iron curtain with dozens of countries being brutally repressed because nobody did anything about it earlier?
Do you really think that if he's successful in Ukraine, he won't try to meddle in the elections of
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>>We are not the mother of the planet. We don't even have our shit together here.
St Petersburg still has connectivity?
lol, of course you do not have your shit together just watch the Russian army shit show of being wiped out by civilian irregulars
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No, we are Peacekeepers. As much as we might like to abdicate that role, there's nobody but US that can do it. Bad enough we're going to need the help of all our allies (who, amazingly, are still our allies despite our electing Agent Orange to the Presidency).
Here, let me draw from the experience of my childhood to explain it: We need to oppose the Red Menace wherever it attempts to spread its Communist poison. All it takes is a few good men!
I once read an expressi
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France has been our oldest fiend and staunch ally. Just becuase they did not want to go to war in the mideast with us did not stop them from being our allies. And history has indeed shown that the mideast adventure was a catastrophe and that France was right after all.
Orange Man was an appeaser, he loved Putin, he admired Putin, he wanted to be like Putin; because Putin could do whatever he wants without congress saying no, or judges saying no, or pesky laws. Orange Man loved Kim Jong-un Orange Man love
I apologize. (Score:2)
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And by "ignore" you actually mean "act as one" because that's what is happening.
That's called "diplomacy" and Biden has put together unprecedented unity of actions from "the West." He's even restored trust in American intelligence services with those allies after it was shit all over by G. W. Bush and his "WMD" horseshit. Basically every single thing they said Russia was going to do, Russia did. Even China hasn't been getting in the way, but also not going out of their way to help (which is about the bes
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No, Bush 43 was far worse, though I'd put most of the blame on Cheney.
Bush 41 was pretty bad, too, as he pushed the breakup of Russian/Soviet states even after the cold war "ended", which helped make Putin so paranoid and the Russian people looking to re-establish their glory days, which fueled the election of Putin and gave him the desire to push back and take Georgia, Ukraine, etc.
The one good thing about Trump was that he
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The shit in the US is being held together very well thank you. Ignore the idiots claiming that the biggest problems are domestic, the world has a lot of shitty stuff happening outside of the US. We are not being shelled and shot at, yet some people freak out about having to wear a mask or get vaccinated or that someone they don't like is president, while ignoring how great life really is if you're in the US and sheltered from the terrible stuff that happens elsewhere.
Everything Trump touched turned to shi
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So you would rather that we adopt the foreign policy of Neville Chamberlain and declare "peace in our time" by not doing shit as authoritarian petrostate dictator cunts roll tanks into countries that don't bend the knee?
Because that worked out really good in the 1930s, didn't it?
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Either that, or people start asking why all this is happening, and someone with a VPN account finds out and shares.
Which is more likely - products disappear overnight and everyone blindly accepts the bullshit the government is spewing out, when everyone knows that the government always spews bullshit and has for about 100 years, or they use simple and available tools to get the real story?
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Why do they not hate Puin instead? Are they blind to his history of military adventures? They obviously have to know about what he did in Grozny and Aleppo, right? There is no alternative to sanctions though, we can't even put up a no fly zone because that could start WWIII. Do we sit back and let Putin repeat his crimes over and over with impunity, because we are worried about gig workers?
Even the native Russian speakers in southeast Ukraine are opposing the occupying Russian forces and holding rallies
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Putin maybe got elected legitimately once. But since then he's been rigging things. He squelches the free press so that alternative views are diminished, he arrests his opponents and tries to have them poisoned. It's no longer even remotely a democracy. And probably some people are missing Yeltsin.
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