[diiiimaaaa]

I am in Ukraine right now. In a small village to the north of Kyiv. I am the author of PhotoSwipe (https://github.com/dimsemenov/photoswipe).

Yesterday I was filling bags with sand to make a fortification for local defenders. I hear artillery as I am writing this. And by the way, you get used to it.

In the last few days I received about 20 emails offering support, none of them were from russian devs. One asked a technical question about my lib, I answered "do you know what's happening in Ukraine right now?" - no reply.

I see a few russian companies and personalities openly condemn the aggression (such as JetBrains) and I'm very grateful to them. However most are silent, or have very weak Instagram post "no war" with a sadface, or even worse - post with "we are out of politics".

And that's IT people, which are presumably more informed. Unfortunately, due to misinformation most russian people have no idea what's happening here, that's why sanctions should affect regular people, and not just putin and his close allies.

[gdy]

Dmytro, I'm Russian living in Russia and I'm devastated and terrified by this war of aggression.

I have friends in Ukraine and I can hear siren wailing while talking with them via Skype.

There are already about 30 thousand members of Russian IT-industry who signed open letter against this war. Yesterday it was about 20 thousands.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rSmclqedrhTASIsyXLOz39pU...

[app4soft]

JFYI, I'm also Ukrainian living in Ukraine[0] (Poltava region), actually joined territorial defence forces as volunteer to defend own town.

All Russian should do right now — go outside of your house, gather with other Russsians and strike & show your protest "by hands" near your city administration!

Signing "open letter", "petitions" or just "keep placard" would NOT has any effect — so do not waste your and our time & lives!

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30395897

[gdy]

I know

[diiiimaaaa]

I really appreciate your position, but the letter is incredibly weak. I understand that it's aimed at government that won't read it otherwise, but:

You call it "operation", it's not operation, it's war.

You ask to prevent human casualties, but thousands are already dead.

A lot of people signing from companies such as Yandex - a search engine that promotes propaganda and hides evidence-based journalism. From VK - a social network that bans opposition communities and spreads misinformation. You can't have it both ways folks.

[gdy]

I didn't want to imply that we are doing anything meaningful, just that we at the very least don't condone what's happening.

Many are running the hell away from Russia and that's something the government has already got concerned about. Unlike the letter.

[jacquesm]

The iron curtain was never about keeping people out, it was about keeping people in.

[gdy]

Yes, my fear is that we are moving into 1990s economically, and politically into the times of the USSR.

For now they are promising tax benefits for programmers and IT-companies, cheap mortgage and safety from being conscripted. The last one is scary.

[jacquesm]

The exact same happened just before the wall fell in other former USSR countries. Anything to keep the smart people from joining the protests because they needed them badly to keep the country running. In most places that did not work, the writing was on the wall. But it took a long time for it to go from protests to the final effect. Longer than I fear we have today.

[allie1]

I think this is more so because they are afraid.

[anovikov]

Russian here. This is not misinformation or anything. This is just because yes, vast majority of Russians from all walks of life are pure evil. Even those living in the Western countries for decades. I have deleted myself from all social networks 5 years ago and people keep sending me screenshots from Russian facebook groups in Cyprus and that makes me freak out. Nearly everyone is pro-Putin. Ridiculous posts get hundreds of upvotes.

I really can't see a fix for it. You have to keep containing Russia: there is no chance in hell to ever have a sustainable democratic government there, Putin or not, because people are wholeheartedly against it - they don't respect any government that doesn't make them frightened as hell.

[rpm91]

I think calling the "vast majority" of any country "pure evil" is painting with a pretty over-broad brush.

Specifically here, social media sentiment tends to be poor evidence of anything broader, due to being dominated by the vocal minority of people who post the most, as well as a non-trivial number of bots.

[m_fayer]

On the one hand, instinctively, calling such a large group of people evil feels wrong, it's painting with too broad a brush.

On the other hand, I know where you're coming from. I grew up in NYC feeling pretty much American, but my family is Russian and I speak the language. Over years of encounters with my own extended family and the social network around them, I've struggled to not overgeneralize, to keep context in mind, and to remain open.

But it's hard when you repeatedly encounter so many deeply cynical, bigoted, punitive, and hatefully-normative personalities. I'm hardly a counter-cultural outlier, but I do deviate from the suburban right-wing-materialist worldview that this particular Russian community prefers, so I may as well be from Mars. For that I was told to my face, multiple times, that I'm not normal ("not normal" is the exact phrasing they use) - and because of that I deserve and should accept the criticism and abuse coming my way. And it just keeps coming - casual racism that's basically accepted wisdom and notably bloodthirsty (nuke em all and don't look back!). Then, habitual low-level fraud that no one even recognizes as such (you should really file for divorce! then you can do (a) and (b) and get this [social benefit!]), the elevation of hustle and cunning above all other forms of intelligence, and smug superiority when it comes to political and ethical questions.

The war is some kind of last straw for me. Now, I hear a group of people speaking Russian, I feel an instinctive revulsion. It's not good, but it is what it is.

[lifty]

I grew up in Eastern Europe and your statement regarding "the elevation of hustle and cunning above all other forms of intelligence" rings so true and brings back memories. When I grew up, being able to criminally take advantage of other people and the state was revered as a highly desirable trait. I suspect that any behaviour that leads to monetary success in a society, will slowly become admired, regardless if it's ethical or not.

[jdrc]

If it's any consolation, that's what happens to any highly corrupt country. People skirting the rules, from avoiding taxes to outright theft are called smart and others who don't are called wankers.

[jdrc]

this is becoming a theme with immigrant communities, in a similar vein how german Turks are supportive of Erdogan. I'm sure those people are not evil, but this phenomenon is worthy of investigation.

[eps]

Back when I lived in Canada and had some exposure to some of local Russian communities, it was bloody obvious that there was a concentrated Russian government effort to manipulate and control their opinion.

All online spots - forums, bbses, etc. - had at least one troll reposting from the offical news. More places than one had these as mods or admins. Agitating and stirring the pot was a daily occurence, which was quite effecient given that migrant communities tends to comprise people that aren't exactly well off and generally happy with life. To give an example - people discussing faking a divorce to double their unemployment benefits, that sort of thing. So given them an outlet to vent was working well. Conversely, those who were better established steered clear of these and formed smaller clusters of their own.

So what the GP is experiencing is likely related to them being (originally) a part of one of these poorer bubbles and the effect just lingers on.

[yznovyak]

> had at least one troll reposting from the offical news Look no further -- /u/5ESS have been "directing the narrative" here by posting the same youtube link 5 times already.

[jdrc]

Russians living in cyprus are not poor

[Ambolia]

People migrate for economic reasons, not because they want to replace their own brain with the brain of the destination country people.

The US was was relatively good at integrating migrants into a certain idea of america, but that's not the norm around the world, and I don't think that vision of america exists anymore. Maybe in the upper-middle class, but certainly gone in the lower classes.

[anovikov]

To Cyprus, Russian migrate to hide their money here and live a normal life in a normal country. They are not poor by any measure.

[Ambolia]

There's rich economic reasons and poor economic reasons, they are still economic reasons, none of them are migrating to be integrated, just to be more wealthy.

[CRConrad]

Sure, but as to Cyprus specifically, that's probably not where the poor ones go. It's a kind of l down-scale Switzerland in the economic and immigration senses.

[usrusr]

All the flag-raising and anthem-singing in US schools surely serves a purpose. We tried to avoid replicating that in Germany, for very good reasons, but now we have "third generation immigrants".

[pyb]

As an anectode, I spoke with a Turk who found Turks living in Germny much more conservative than people in Turkey.

Not to mention Brits who moved to Spain because there were "too many bloody immigrants" at home.

[anovikov]

It would be worthy of investigation if these people behaved in any way different from Russians in Russia. But they don't. My conclusion is that it has nothing to do with propaganda - to which those living abroad are naturally exposed less - but just because of what these people are.

Yes, after Soviet Union fell, we Russians found out that all we've been taught about capitalism was true: unemployment, dog-eat-dog competition, class divide and all that stuff. It's not at all a paradise we have imagined. It's time for you to see that all you've been told about Communism was true, too: McCarthy was an idiot, but he was right. There are no "good Russians" waiting to be liberated from "evil Putin". There are "evil Commies" who Putin wholly represents.

Stop trying to "fix" Russia. It is impossible. It has to be contained, made as weak and irrelevant as possible to present less danger.

[ynoxinul]

I'm a Russian in Germany. I've fled Russia after Crimea/Donbass events because of Putin's politics. No Russian I know in Germany or any other country abroad supports Putin.

[TrackerFF]

(preface: I'm from Norway)

The other day I spoke with this older Russian lady that works at the local pub - she overheard some of us patrons talking about the situation, and she went into a 20 min rant about western media being pure propaganda, that Putin was such a great guy, and that there was no real war. It was quite bizarre, as she's been living here since the mid-90s.

[ganzuul]

An expatriate's cultural identity is a fragile thing and easily threatened.

[5ESS]

How are sanctions going to make anybody more informed?

They dont…That makes no sense. Instead of sanctions, a more effective strategy would be to provide Russians with free VPNs so that they can access western news media.

[ncallaway]

I'm going to articulate the theory, but I want to be clear that I'm not advocating it.

The general idea is that a war in a foreign country (even a neighbor) is pretty easy to ignore (especially if state media doesn't cover it). If you don't have relative or friends there, you could easily go on believing exactly what the government reports--that it's a limited military operation, etc. You're busy at work, you've got a lot going on, so maybe you should spend some time looking into it, but maybe next week.

However, if the value of your currency drops 25%, and your mortgage interest rate jumps 10% overnight you're much more likely to ask: "what the hell is going on". Those are significant changes that will really impact you. Suddenly you're a lot more motivate to do some research and see what's happening. Maybe when doing that research, you find some of the media of Kyiv being bombed or residential areas in Kharkiv being hit repeatedly by cluster bombs.

---

My theory for sanctions is different. My ideal sanctions wouldn't hit the average worker at all. They would hit _only_ the oligarchs and those close to or with a hand on the levers of power. But we don't have access to targeted sanctions that hit the oligarchs hard enough to get them consider taking actions that don't also hit the average worker.

I feel deeply sorry for those Russian citizens who have very limited power over their government, and will nonetheless be hit harder and feel the sanctions more deeply than those closer to power. But I also feel that it's necessary, as a tool to try and minimize the amount of time that Ukraine spends under siege.

[_ph_]

Most sanctions are aimed mostly at the oligarchs, and that is good so. But things have reached a point (and may be the sanctions started way to late), at which the whole population needs to be notified of what is going on and it needs to be made clear, that the whole population has a say in how things progress.

[wadim]

The same Russians who are currently using VPNs to post Russian propaganda all over reddit, facebook, twitter and co? If you think Russians are this way just because they don't have access to the guardian, then I have 20 years worth of Russian politics waiting for you. They don't care. They haven't cared when the wars in Chechnya or Georgia happened, they won't care now. The sanctions are supposed to force them to care.

[danuker]

Supposedly those can already read the news, so they would not be the target audience.

[ajuc]

I talk with Russians on several international forums (about architecture and about gaming). Thousands of people there, a big sample. That's the younger, English-speaking generation, BTW.

They believe in the propaganda mostly, celebrate the victories over "nazis" and support Putin.

What happened after Crimea annexation was appealing, and now it's even worse. It's a society brainwashed into imperialism and they want return of Russia as a global power and revenge on the west.

There are some exceptions, but they are rare. Possibly because of fear, I don't know.

They have western media and had for decades. They don't care, it's all lies for them. Also they have almost no influence over what happens. They barely protest and elections are a farce.

So - sanctions aren't targeted at regular Russians. They target the oligarchs that actually run everything in Russia. Regular Russians are hit by collateral damage, and it will be very harsh collateral damage. But I have no sympathy when I hear from my friends in Ukraine hiding in Kyiv metro for the whole weekend and having no contact with their families in shelled towns.

Ultimately the responsibility towards victims of war is more important than unemployed people in invading country.

[kilotaras]

> They believe in the propaganda mostly, celebrate the victories over "nazis" and support Putin.

I've had a coworker posting on FB how he's supporting Putin and "Russia doesn't start wars, it ends them."

He left Russia for US in early 2000s, returned for a year in 2018 and is now in London.

[khyryk]

Russia has been running Goebbels-levels of propaganda to counteract whatever benefit came from access to western media. How much progress has been made since 2014?

[jdrc]

Sanctions do work, cutting off communication with the west doesn't. There 's a feeling that Russians need to be jolted off their seats. I m seeing many of them asking for alternatives for payments or incorporation elsewhere

[chupasaurus]

Most of the pro-invasion citizens are being fed by propaganda exclusively, cutoff wouldn't make any significant impact.

[Yoric]

It's a nice thought but I don't think that this would work in any country.

Generally, the sanctions are designed to try and convince Putin that Russia cannot afford a war against Europe/NATO. They do this:

- by targeting the money of Putin and anybody in Russia with enough money to conceivably have influence over Putin (presumably, these sanctions don't hurt common people);

- by targeting directly or indirectly the financial reserves of Russia to make it hard for Russia to bankroll the army (these most certainly do hurt the common people, too).

I'm sure that there are also propaganda/counter-propaganda operations, but these are very likely to be illegal/covert, so no country is going to publicize them.

[danuker]

You can host a Tor bridge for friends, which is difficult to detect and block:

https://tb-manual.torproject.org/bridges/

[raverbashing]

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink it

Some people do prefer what the "voices in their head" are telling them (and while propaganda is big, it is not all of it)

Sanctions do matter as you're seeing all of Putin's acolytes feeling the heat these days

[a254613e]

Oh come on, someone asked you a technical question - you can't expect everyone to research the country of origin, country of residence, and perhaps a personal situation of every private person, developer, or a company before emailing them.

[thombat]

The whole sentence is self-explanatory:

> One asked a technical question about my lib, I answered "do you know what's happening in Ukraine right now?" - no reply.

Innocently asking the question seems fine; as you say we generally don't know the personal circumstances of online contacts. But once appraised of it a quick reply would be human, at least to the effect of "good luck, keep as safe as possible & please ignore my question until happier times are restored"

[zeroping]

Those few words are a perfectly adequate response though. The author has bigger things to get done right now.

[alephnan]

Then why not cache the response and just put a banner on the project giving people context, instead of individually half answering the technical questions with a rhetorical question?

[brandonjm]

They did, the README was updated 4 days ago with a banner explaining the situation.