There is no way this war is fought for the benefit of Russia as a whole, not even in the form of a neo soviet union. Russia isn't threatened directly by the west, nuclear weapons are a sufficient deterrent and Europe is a loyal customer of coal, gas and oil.
If nuclear weapons grant super power status amongst nations, then Russia is doing everything in its power to reduce its ability to maintain its current nuclear capability. The Russian-Ukrainian war is a bigger threat to a neo soviet union than any border dispute (think annexation of the Russian populated crimea) with a nato nation or a neighbour of a nato nation. Russia has excellent military logistics within their country thanks to their military rail network but they have none of that outside Russia. Putin is sending the precious weapons that Russia needs to defend itself against NATO into a war zone where they are left behind, towed away by tractors and then destroyed by the cheapest weapon that can do the job.
If one were a believer in the neo soviet union nonsense, then this entire war is getting Russia further and further away from that goal. The west can't fight on Russian territory, it can only fight proxy wars in buffer nations by supporting those nations with weapons and training. The only way to explain this is that Putin has ambitions that will only benefit himself and a handful of people close to him. Either that or he is so incompetent he could never win any wars whatsoever.
I sure hope Putin is an evil genius because if he isn't I can only say "Say goodbye to your super power status, Russia, and enjoy your hard fought international insignificance!"
My armchair thoughts are perhaps this is happening now because Putin knows it's a last chance to do something "big" due to his age, declining demographics in Russia, and/or aging of their nuclear and military arsenal.
Or perhaps he's making a bet on abandoning the West to instead be Chinese dependent, and there's something in it for him and his cronies. Seems China would benefit from all this.
>I sure hope Putin is an evil genius because if he isn't I can only say "Say goodbye to your super power status, Russia, and enjoy your hard fought international insignificance!"
I never understood what Putin's end game was here with this war, what can he earn extra of what he doesn't already have? He's already one of the world's richest men and he's already quite old. Couldn't he just like take his insane wealth and retire to some Caribbean island and live out the rest of his life in absolute luxury? Why did he need to start WW3 for? What does he stand to gain now? Seems like a stupid idea to become the world's most hated person when you were already set for a luxurious life.
Might sound stupid but perhaps it's the same restlessness everyone has?
What do I now after building my home? Doing the garden. Okay what now?
Also a little bit like CK: he was musturbating in front of a few woman in the office and did not get spoken out.
He took the Crimea without real troubles perhaps this combined with him being allowed to poison people around the world and hacking the west gave him the feeling that he can just take Ukraine.
On his level he probably can't even just walk around in a crowd of people. That has to feel to him very unnatural.
If you have everything legacy might become your driving motivation. Unfortunately he doesn't think legacy could mean making as many life's good but territorial restoration.
I might very well be mistaken, but this war and Russia's belligerence during the last 10 years never seemed to me a matter of ambition and territorial expansion, but rather desperation. Putin is 70, and his death will certainly plunge Russia into a period of turmoil. It doesn't matter if a successor is anointed by big P himself. The democratic opposition will see it as an opportunity for reform. The political and military elites will be fighting each other to advance their position. I'd be surprised if after Putin's death the Russian state could settle for a coherent agenda and foreign strategy within a decade.
The last time Russians found themselves in a similar position, NATO and the EU showed up at their doorstep. Baltic countries, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria... all of them joined NATO and/or EU in quick succession.
That's what I think Putin is trying to prevent. So the goal is to either have loyal buffer states (e.g. Belarus, Kazakhstan) or leave "unruly" buffer states (Georgia, Ukraine) in such state of destruction and disarray, that after Putin's death, Russia could get back on its feet before those states could focus again on entering international alliances. In other worlds, if I need 10 years to recover, I'll make sure you need 20 years, even if it adds a couple of years to my tally.
Of course this need of keeping NATO at bay exists only if the economic and political strategy of the state is to be an international gun for hire. It's a pity that the Russian elites decided to go for the easy buck with gas and military instead of developing the huge technical and artistic talent of the Russian people.
The irony is, after Iraq's invasion, NATO was incredibly unpopular in many European countries, and actions against Russia were seen as undesirable. I think fellow Europeans will agree that we saw Russia as an authoritarian state with old-fashioned values, but we were hopeful that one day we could have shared institutions and deeper political and economic cooperation. Now a lot of my fellow citizens perceive Russia as a direct enemy.
>The last time Russians found themselves in a similar position, NATO and the EU showed up at their doorstep. Baltic countries, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria... all of them joined NATO and/or EU in quick succession.
NATO and the EU did not show up at their doorsteps. Baltic and Eastern European states willingly joined NATO and the EU seeking better economic opportunities than what they had under Russian imposed communism and protection against future Russian aggression.
NATO didn't invade those countries under special military operations but those countries joined willingly since it was in their best interest and despite the EU's and NATO's faults, they're better alternatives than living in the fear of Russian aggression where the sate can imprison you for saying stuff against state approved propaganda and living in constant poverty and corruption.
Eastern Europe has ~50 years worth of scars to prove how vile such regimes were. That's why they were so eager to join NATO and the EU at the first chance they got and they flourished quiet well after that economically and socially. And Ukrainians wanted the same for their country since 2014, not living as Russia's puppet state forever.
The decision of those countries is perfectly legitimate (and in hindsight a very good one, seeing how Putin instrumentalizes Russian minorities).
But my point is, before the soviet collapse Russia didn't have a lot of shared borders with NATO countries. Now they do. If Ukraine, Moldova (who knows, maybe one day Belarus) end up joining NATO or the EU, this will considerably hinder their power projection capabilities. Expanding on McCain's analogy, Russia is a sketchy gas station where you can hire bruisers.
Well, now you're just being obtuse. Putin just got into an incredibly expensive war, and protests are marginal at best. This is achieved through repression and violence, but if you don't think that is stability, you're deluded.
>Couldn't he just like take his insane wealth and retire to some Caribbean island
Putin isn't a startup founder. The man has no interest in leaving Russia and if you go and read his piece on the question of Ukrainian and Russian statehood[1] it's very clear that to him, Ukraine has historical and even spiritual significance. Going all the way back to the Kievan Rus he sees the three peoples of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia as inseparable and the emergence of, in his view, 'anti-Russian Russia' in Ukraine as a red line.
And I don't know why people keep this 'the world's richest man' meme alive but just because he always tolerated the oligarchs as a support structure for the state there was never any indication he cared a single bit about money. He always had aspirations to restore Russia to a great power, quite openly.
For somebody who doesn’t “care a single bit about money” he certainly has gathered a significant amount of material wealth for himself, his mistresses, etc.
But then again, since you’re taking his ridiculous casus belli scribblings at a face value, there’s little I can do to convince you.
Yeah. "He now has goals other than money (because he already has all the money he could possibly need)" makes sense. "He never cared about money" is incompatible with reality.
Similarly, it makes sense that he would selfishly prefer to be historically remembered as the guy who unified Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, rather than the most successful thief after the fall of communism. The citizens of Ukraine (and probably also Belarus) are not happy about it, but I guess the idea is that after being conquered and brainwashed and all dissidents thrown in jail, maybe their grandchildren will feel like happy patriots of the Greater Russia -- and if they won't, well, it's not like in Russia anyone actually cares about what people think (unless it is telling them what to think).
>The citizens of Ukraine (and probably also Belarus) are not happy about it
The citizens of Belarus have way less freedom of speech than even Russia, let alone Ukraine that's relatively free since 2014.
Russia has had, until recently, some forms of freedom of speech, at least on paper, while Belarus has none of that, not even on paper.
Putin wishes he had the authoritarian powers Lukashenko has in Belarus where he's been the sole dictator for the past 26 years.
Putin is basically a dictator but still has to go through a bunch of red tape to stay in power and pretend he's there though democratic elections and what not, while Lukashenko doesn't need to do any of that BS in Belarus, he's an absolute savage who doesn't even believe COVID is real and says "being a dictator is fine since it's better than being a homosexual".
So good luck being unhappy in Belarus and doing something about it.
>> I never understood what Putin's end game was here with this war
His endgame is to prevent free democratic elections in Ukraine. He sees Ukraine as the country most similar to Russia. He wants to prevent elections in Ukraine, because what works in Ukraine will work in Russia. And the very last thing he wants is free elections in Russia.
Could be a geopolitical move to gain resources, I've read some analysis that Russia's strength is currently peaking and will decline, and the territory that has been captured in Ukraine has coastal land around newly discovered gas fields.
If that's the case I doubt that it would have been done if the current outcome was known in advance.
It would be so much easier for any skilled worker to flee Russia if various western companies would stop virtue signalling and stop this trend of cancelling all services for Russians. By doing this they feel good, but are actually helping Putin and his criminal gang.
I was ready for our criminal government to start building a Russian Firewall to hinder access to non-government propaganda for Russian Citizens, but I wasn't ready for EU and USA to help them do this.
Take Figma, these dumb fucks decided to stop providing services to Russian users. Whom do they think they are punishing? UI designers, who are overwhelmingly against war and Putin? Real Putin supporters don't even know Figma exists.
I had a personal firewall on ionos hosting (registered to an Estonian company, no less!). These dumb fucks sent me a notification that they are cancelling my server in a few days, so I need to move out. Thank you, idiots, according to you I only must have access to what government tells me.
The list goes on. Remember this: when some politician says, "stop issuing visas to russians", or company CEO "we'll stop providing services to Russians", he is unwittingly a Putin ally.
I'm sorry that this is the way that it is, but do note that the real reason for most companies doing this has less to do with "punishing" anyone and more to do with practical concerns like "how do we get paid?" and "how do we make sure we don't accidentally violate sanctions?" Russia likely represents a small enough fraction of most companies' users that it's cheaper to just stop doing business there than to keep adjusting to the rapidly changing political/geopolitical climate.
There are ways to pay for services. With up to 50% additional expenses, but it is possible.
I also did some research, and it seems that services without KYC obligations so not need to comply with the sanction restrictions imposed on specific persons, so this excuse looks to be invalid for services like Figma.
(And in the future I wouldn't trust any SaaS that unilaterally cuts off a whole group of customers by their nationality)
> (And in the future I wouldn't trust any SaaS that unilaterally cuts off a whole group of customers by their nationality)
Just to clarify, this is not what is happening. Figma et al are cutting off a whole group of customers by their place of residence, which is a completely different question, and one that is much less legally and ethically fraught.
This really hurts. I left Russia a while ago, have not paid taxes there since then, and otherwise have no connection to the country, but I still feel like everyone hates me because of my passport and my language. It seems we truly are the new Germans as they were around 1940s.
None of it matters right now. The current goal is to stop the war at any cost, and people are just trying to do something. I suggest we have a discussion about what we can do to help despite the (indiscriminate) pressure.
You're angry. I understand. No one likes having services taken away.
I work with Russians. I see accounts getting cut off or threatened to be cut off. But none of the firms are saying "we'll stop providing services to Russians". They are saying "we'll stop doing business in the Russian economy". Russian citizens are still very much using Figma, for example. But not in Russia, through Russian companies, using Russian credit cards. Conversely, non-Russian immigrants in Russia are also cut off. Ukrainians working in Russia are getting cut off.
The reason is the sanctions and the difficulty of complying with them. It's way easier to implement via geofencing, or by denying Russian-registered payment cards, than by checking users and companies against the ever-changing sanctions lists manually. And yes, many companies are horrified by the war and want to do something about it. Maybe something more than the sanctions require.
The purpose is to punish the Russian state and curtail its finance of the war. It doesn't really matter if Vasya Designer from Voronezh curses Putin and the war over tea at the dining room table every day. Putin doesn't care what Vasya thinks. So long as he keeps working, making money, paying his taxes, he contributes to the economy. His inner feelings do not affect the war. Even if there are many like him, it's unclear how they will change policy. 15 years, torture stories, and footage of crackdowns from Minsk to Almaty are pretty scary. They keep Putin from having to care what Vasya thinks, or how many think like him.
I know good people in Russia who can't leave and won't leave. It makes me sad, too, seeing them cut off, isolated, worried about money and their children. But it's the news from Ukraine that makes me truly angry.
Russians have had 20 odd years to do something about their government.
I would argue that if you are a citizen of Russia, you are the Putin ally here by letting things go so bad.
I understand that NOW it is a lot harder to reform the system or bring about any positive changes. This ship has probably sailed.
The Russian people are now reaping what they perhaps not sowed, but have ALLOWED to grow.
You are really not the victim nor others the idiots. The world just is having a bit courage to show what they feel about Russia. To put it nicely - Russia has so far been tolerated.
I'm slightly puzzled by the phrase "Estonian company, no less" (I am an Estonian myself).
I think that instead of condemning Russians for allowing Putin's regime to grow, an Estonian like you should be a little grateful that there were enough democracy-leaning Russians in 1980s who had weakened the soviet empire so that the other republics could slip away and have their chance of freedom. Some took it, like Baltic states, some turned into classical sultanates, some remain a battleground. The Russians, however, had to bear with all the KGB apparatus which remained firm in its place, and after enduring economic hardships of the 90s were feeling they were cheated by everyone. So no wonder that an upsurge in oil prices in the early 00s helped to create a calm and positive atmosphere, where the gradual deterioration of the democracy institutions went almost unnoticed. And actually it was unnoticed not only by Russians, but by everyone else: President Buss was Putin's 'friend', Germany chancellor ended up on a Gazprom board, the Queen was visiting Russia, etc., all was nice and fluffy. And let's not forget that the real funders of Putin's aggression are buyers of his energy exports, and they do this to this very moment, on the 30 odd day of the war, even having an exemption from Swift cutoff just to pay for it! But of course UI designers can no longer have their Figma access, that would be supporting Putin's regime.
Regarding the estonian company - I don't even know why exactly Ionos sent me a discontinuation of service notice. I operate my business with a company based in Estonia - mostly to NOT pay taxes to Putin's criminal regime - and hosting was invoiced to that company, and paid with that company's funds. So how they even arrived to a conclusion that I'm a customer from russia is rather interesting.
There are no limits for payments from Russian side. If not for visa/mastercard restrictions, Russian cards with RUB balance would still be available for payments abroad.
But yes, the current situation is that anti-government Russians are being actively strangled from both from within and from abroad.
Yeah, taking part in every protest against Putin in the last 12 years, being detained at a protest wasn't enough punishment for me. I should better perish in the announced coming purge of the fifth column, because persons like you like to feel good about themselves making statements like this one you made.
You people are exactly like the ones who were turning away Jews fleeing the Nazi Germany. And if you think that being against Putin in this country does not have potentially deadly consequences, you must think again.
I find it quite rich when people who have only ever lived in democracies condescend to those living in dictatorships about how we should have simply "protested harder" against the status quo.
I'm sorry Mr. Virtue Signaler safe in SF or NYC, but if my choices are shutting up temporarily in exchange for my and my family's continued security, versus "speaking truth to power" (or some other such drivel) and waking up in a black site the next day, I know which one I'm taking.
Advocating for collective punishment is a serious breach of the site guidelines and is not allowed here, regardless of how right you are or feel you are on a topic. No more of this, please.
There's a fine line between advocating for collective punishment and just acknowledging the fact that populations who more-or-less fail to advocate and/or work towards responsible government within their own countries will eventually reap what they've been (perhaps inadvertently) sowing-- if only by getting caught in the resulting cross-fire. The latter is an important point and it should not go unsaid in such a challenging situation. No one sane is happy about average Russians' current predicament. But it is what it is.
Sorry, didn't realize, but the context is the question of collective punishment, which really is being imposed by the world. I'm explaining what is rather than calling for anything that hasn't come to pass.
Thanks dang for keeping this place intellectually functional on a daily basis.
The burden is on the commenter to distinguish their comment from sickening tropes of inhumanity.
It's astonishing how quickly these things come back to the surface and feel ok and perfectly justified. They're not ok, they're not justified, and this is no way to react to the atrocities and suffering happening right now.
The site guidelines for comments begin with Be kind. It's hard to imagine an uglier absence of kindness on the internet than advocating for vengeance against an entire population. If you want to make a policy point you can do it without that level of inhumanity.
Edit: you've already managed to break the site guidelines repeatedly in multiple threads on multiple topics. That's not a good sign. If you'd please review the guidelines and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
It's one thing to say "I recognize that individual Russians are not at fault, but in the middle of a total war civilians inevitably get caught in the crossfire. At least with these economic weapons no one is getting killed."
It's another to say "you are all at fault, even if indirectly, and so you all deserve to be punished."
That second comment would violate at least "be kind" and "comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Modern international law is based on the acknowledgement of popular sovereignty, which has an unavoidable "collective" dimension. What's wrong with making the argument that, like most everything else, sovereignty comes with rights but also responsibilities when the country that one's "sovereign" on starts engaging in bad behavior towards others? Average Germans have had to apologize and be responsible "collectively", at least to some extent, for the Nazi regime's atrocities. Was that inhumane, too?
For the purposes of what kind of comments are acceptable on HN, the HN guidelines supersede international law or your interpretation of it. Fulminating at an entire nation is pretty straightforwardly not ok.
> And that punishment is not decided by the one being punished.
Ah, so that's what it is. Not the mechanism of economical pressure on a dictator, not the attempt at containment or instigating political unrest inside the country. Punishment. Thanks for being straight.
Well, we'll see how well this works. I doubt it will do any good in the long run, unfortunately for everyone.
What Republic of Utopia are you from? By those standards, the Ukrainian people should be punished for their persistent history of corruption. After all, in 2014, Ukraine was parallel with Nigeria on a global corruption index - and it has been significantly below too. As for the Ukrainians doing "a lot" to fight corruption, it seems not yet to have worked so well. Zelensky himself is featured in the Pandora Papers[0] where he is believed to have participated in the offshoring of 41 million. His closest associate, whose private ski resort he was visiting just before the invasion, was Kolomoyskyi - who has been sanctioned by the united states and had 2billion in assets seized. In 2018, he stated to journalists that Ukraine needed to "return to Russia"[1]. A strange creature to associate with.
I do not disparage Ukraine or its leaders. I do not support Russia. But it isn't all so simple.
Ukrainians revolt, and then try a new guy. Russians, in the other hand, overwhelmingly support the same guy through everything he does. There's almost no resistance. The population feels they have no responsibility, that the higher ups always do what's right. And this is the result, Russians confused about why anyone may be upset at them.
If you keep breaking the site guidelines like this, we're going to have to ban you. I realize the current situation is highly charged, but you have a history of doing this on HN since long before this war, and we've had to warn you many times. It wasn't ok then, and it's not ok now. Difficult circumstances do not make it ok to burn this place down.
Ultimately, the only legitimate way to remove Putin is for its people to evict him, either through election or protestation. There are only so many ways to increase the pressure at the international level that won't impact the lives of the casual citizen of Russia.
Protestations would be simply drowned in blood. See how Ukraine is doing against Putin's machine - and they have weapons, Javelins, Bayraktars, tanks, and big support of the West, including asylum for non-combatants.
Would EU countries give refuge to families of Russian people fighting the government,or fleeing the coming purges? No, they'll better cut off Russians from the Internet [1].
