Exactly! The tech community is the epicenter of change in Russia, same as in most places.

My situation is different, but equally anecdotal. I left Russia years ago, as soon as I could. My company isn't in Russia. I don't pay taxes in Russia. I am not even Russian by ethnicity, but I have relatives in Russia and I am still holding a Russian passport. Does that make me a bad person? Even if I were Russian, is it against the ICANN rules to belong to certain ethnicities or nationalities?

As a final note, people who live in CIS all have friends in both countries. For them the war is real and not on a TV screen. Imagine how many hours will those people waste changing those damn configs instead of helping people in need in both Ukraine and Russia...

Sorry, but you should be happy the whole world and companies are joining your fight. Putin has to be stopped now, that includes some uncool stuff like this and blocking SWIFT.

Easy to say when you are not the target.

Making me use 50% less electricity is one thing. Having to move all my domains would be quite another.

At least you are not a target for a missile. For a lot of people right now it's the best what they can hope for.

Ah yes, the "someone else has it worse therefore your concerns are irrelevant" argument.

This decision will not prevent a single missile from being fired. On the contrary, it will put more power into Russian entities.

I don't understand, you're saying that the fact a missle is aimed at someone in the Ukraine gives namecheap a license to shit on their paying customers?

They're saying that the fact that Russia is invading Ukraine gives namecheap a legitimate reason to decline to provide services in Russia.

you didn't get the problem. Namecheap made two unethical things, one annoying and small and the other that cost lives.

1) The fact that they ask to move Russians to other registrators, is just barely an inconvenience. It cost me 30 seconds to create a ticket in scrum and developers will move everything. But misjudgment by nationality is bad. Imagine if all Jewish customers will get such letters because Isreal/Palestinian war?

2) Catastrophic is this: instead of using millions of dollars from Russian customers to help to save Ukraine and lives - they steer away from this money to governmental control Russian registrators. In other words, their CEO Richard just send this million dollars to Putin instead of Ukraine. That will cost lives.

In your mind, they are just aimed? And btw companies are free to do or not do business with someone based on their internal reasons. If they find that their business should not conduct business with a customer, it's totally up to them. Until they are following the agreement and contact is withdrawn according to all legal requirements. It's just a regular business practice. Benefits probably were suppressed by the cost.

I'm there with you, but the opposition is disproportionately reliant on VPNs and foreign cloud hosting. It is required to have any shot at tipping the scales at all. The Twitter and Facebook are blocked already at this point.

Blocking SWIFT was for the little people to suffer, same as what Namecheap is now doing. Russian gas company still uses SWIFT and they are not banned it's all theater by the Germans. Germany and France could have prevented this catastrophe but they choose not to.

Or that could be the best way to start WW3. Your call!

If you continue to make this flamewar worse, we will ban you. Please stop now.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

(Edit: the parent comment originally read "I don't mind." It has since been abusively edited, and I've banned the account.)

You fight with the weapons you have. If you have a rock to defend your family with, you fight with the rock. The guy you kill with the rock is, realistically, probably as innocent as the commoners back in Russia.

If you have the ability to hit the Russian government where it hurts - in their money - not using it to defend your employees is as unconscionable as not picking up that rock to defend your family.

War has never differentiated between innocent and guilty in the past, nor can it differentiate today. It's a battle between governments, and people who are really hurt will always be the innocent.

Fuck war. But don't blame someone for defending themselves, their family, their employees, with the weapons they have, not the weapons you wish they had.

You are right, but deliberately hitting crowd of commoners with a huge rock trying to hit a coward warrior? Don't pretend the West has no more precise option

Economic damage is probably one of the most precise weapons we have that will damage a government yet which doesn't kill people (directly, I know quite well the impact of losing your income on your life in winter).

Could the US (UK, France, Germany, etc) hit Putin directly with a drone or missile strike? Quite possibly (though chances are pretty high that would look a lot like your "coward in a crowd" scenario).

But - pertinent to this conversation - can Namecheap's CEO hit Putin directly with a conventional weapon strike? No. He doesn't have bombs, drones, missiles, or guns. He has domain name registries and web hosting, and the ability to offer and not offer those services to others.

Now Russian citizens will be forced to spend their money inside the Russian economy, how will Putin recover from this?

What economy? An unprecedented experiment has begun and should Putin persist many Russians will likely be paying for things with either gas, grass or ass in the coming weeks.

Oh come on, we can actually see what’s happening to the Russian economy including the capital flight.

They could have done a 0 day warning. The rock they picked may not have been the absolute perfect rock, but they are making decisions quickly as imperfect people with limited knowledge and trying to make a just but humane action in support of what’s right. So I don’t fault them. Although I also would be quite upset at them if it put me in the situation of many of the commenters, especially if I had made sacrifices to fight against Putin.

War is cruel.

> Don't pretend the West has no more precise option

You are welcome to name what it is.

In this case you’re not hitting an enemy, though, you are hitting someone who’s actually on your side.

There is just no way to sanction someone like Putin directly, though. If Putin wants to transfer money or buy foreign currency, an FSB agent in Austria will contact some FSB near lawyer on Malta to set up a fake company in Liechtenstein to arrange a fake sale of goods from Romania - or whatever it takes. Unfortunately, the only way to have any effect is to affect the economy as a whole.

As we speak, the whole Ukrainian economy and infrastructure is destroyed, cities are bombed, hundreds of thousands are fleeing, and people are dying in Ukraine. While you're complaining that you have to transfer your Namecheap domain names. You need to get a sense of perspective.

There is: stop buying gas and oil from Russia. This is where the money you’re talking about come from. The bombs that are destroying Ukraine are bought with Western money.

But oh no, we can’t do it, we can’t have prices go up when inflation is already high. So we will make life harder for Russian people who oppose the war as a feel good measure instead.

But that's also happening. Nord Stream 2 is essentially gone, the company is being wound down, and the whole of Europe is switching away from Russian gas and oil as fast as they can. You cannot do that from today until tomorrow, but it's happening fast. The reliance on Russian gas and oil imports will be neglectable by 2030. Btw, you're asking the EU to bear all the disadvantages (no gas, no heating in winter) so you can maintain your economy? Doesn't that sound a bit selfish to you? Shouldn't you ask Putin to stop this senseless war instead?

As I've said, you need to get a sense of perspective. This is the most civil way to weaken the Russian military long-term. It will work. Sorry that it also makes your companies weak. If it wouldn't, Putin would just grab the money from your companies, as the Russian government has already threatened. (Weird move, but I guess they believe they can spin this into anti-Western sentiment.)

And what would the alternative be? Putin has not only started a war against an independent nation, he has also just - indirectly, but pretty much overtly - threatened the whole world with thermonuclear war. That would also turn Russia into radioactive ashes. You think world community should just stand there and watch, do nothing?

How much say does Namecheap's CEO have over the worlds use of Russian gas and oil? Probably as much say as I have over here in the US: None.

As with a sibling commenter, you're asking the CEO to fight with the weapons you wish he had, not the weapons he has. The CEO, the company he runs, are not "the west".

That someone who's on your side is inherently supplying money in the form of taxes to their Gov who is committing war crimes. We don't want sanctions to continue indefinitely, just until they get their troops out of Ukraine.

> If you have the ability to hit the Russian government where it hurts

Attacking my domains doesn't hurt the Russian government in any way. More than that, it has been the government's strategy to slowly close global internet to have more control.

I wasn't collecting a lot of info on this. But I can give you one small example.

https://www.indiehackers.com/product/mkdev-me/russia-blocked...

I occasionally come across websites that I cannot access.

Don't take it as a complaint. I just want to show you that the rock has been thrown not at the actual aggressor.

Your anger is understandable, but think of it this way: you are both fighting the same fight. Their action may well shorten the length of the remaining time for Putin, gives a very small comfort to their employees and if enough companies do this then it will hopefully make some real change for the better. Russia may be able to exist in isolation from the world, but not for long.

From the inside, it doesn't quite look that way. The state has been doing a lot to become less reliant on imports in the last decade.

If you also consider examples of North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and many other dictatorships, you'll see that isolation doesn't really correlate with regime change.

Yes, understood. I get where you are coming from, but at the same time I totally understand that for a company with such a large footprint in Ukraine it is absolutely unacceptable to continue to do business with what is now properly termed 'the enemy'. The price for access to the global market is that you behave like a team player and that you don't willy nilly invade other countries.

Even if isolation does not necessarily correlate with regime change that is still something that in the end gets decided within the country, not outside of it. After all, regime change is exactly what Putin was after in Ukraine so that would seem to be fair turnabout.

This war has created such pain and damage in only a few days its unimaginable. See my previous comments for my position on russians, but at the same time, out of solidarity i think they should move out of namecheap. Its too sensitive for the company to debate it and process it. People that last week were working at tech giants, people like you and i, were here commenting and debating and now they need to hold guns in their hands and fight in a war started by russia while their families are displaced.

So out of solidarity, russian users could move their domain names out and leave it as is.

> This war has created such pain and damage in only a few days its unimaginable.

Not to spoil your evening but it is so far perfectly imaginable, though it very well could become unimaginable soon.

I am well aware. Tbh i am trying to figure in my mind what the first target will be. Hope its just and overreaction on my part.

Edit: grammar

At a guess a minor city in the North East of Ukraine, or one in Europe away from fall-out ending up over Russia. The latter would not be worth thinking about any further, you can kiss the world goodbye in that case.

The 'lets start with a small nuke' aka tit-for-tat scenario has been wargamed literally to death: it ends with total annihilation.

I don't think Putin is that brave. But he's also perfectly capable of killing millions of Ukranians with conventional weapons.

That will have the exact same effect. Why do you think Kyiv is still standing relatively unopposed? It's not as if Russia lacks bombers. But Putin knows very well that if they are moving for a Grozny scenario that the West will have to react, initially probably by wiping out the invaders in the hope that that will put an end to this but it may well escalate from there.

All of those countries have support from larger countries that aren't party to the sanctions/embargoes they face. Russia is the entirety or a substantial part of that support. Who does Russia turn to that wouldn't worry about being similarly isolated?

True however isolation does help limit the damage they can cause through influence and soft power

The problem with sanctions is that they A) fail to cause regime change and B) cause deaths. In Venezuela, sanctions caused 40,000 deaths in 2 years.

Now, domain names going away won't cause deaths, but then again they won't cause regime change.

Russia has been propping up Venezuela. Maybe there will be quite a few regime changes this year?

On the contrary, their action plays right into Russian government propaganda.

That's beside the point. With the presence they have in Ukraine they are forcing their employees to trade with what is at the moment their mortal enemy. That's impossible.

Personally I think the tax bit is thin, but I totally understand the pressure on their employees and that that does not feel right. They are waiting for the next missile impact while at the same time they are working to keep the websites of their enemy up and running, that's not something you should want or expect.

Their mortal enemy is Russia - the state and the government - not every individual Russian.

But in the absence of any ability to hurt said mortal enemy, they seem to have picked a target by association that is within their reach, so as to hurt something related to the enemy.

I understand why this is happening, but I don't see it as justifiable.

I agree, which is why I argued upthread that they exempt private individuals and focus on domains that are operated by companies.

Until those Russians do something they are supporting the status quo

What do you expect them to do?

Do you realize how many people would suffer and even die because of that?

How many Russian people are gonna die because of losing the ability to have their domain registered with Namecheap?

And yes, people will suffer, that's what happens when one country invades their neighbor in an unprovoked attack. You're placing blame in the wrong place here.

You are right - people do suffer already. That does not mean that you should purposely act to harm people even more just because “that’s what happens”. Your actions are your own responsibility.

It's not just because "that's what happens", it's a deliberate act to discourage the Russian state from continuing in their current course of action, and it significantly less destructive (to an absurd degree) / will cause significantly less suffering than what Russia is doing in Ukraine as we speak.

More or less than during the war in Ukraine?

In the country where the problem originates or in some other country?

No, clearly not, you were the one that brought that up.

> Do you realize how many people would suffer and even die because of that?

>Unlike you, I've been protesting the regime for several years, putting my health and well-being at risk

If you've been protesting your regime for years, why don't you also understand their protest?

It seems like you are both aligned here.

His protest probably didn't cause collateral damage to innocent people.

As someone that protested frequently and usually has a "short fuse" regarding abuse of authority, I find that unlikely. Marching down a street can cause collateral damage, you slow down emergency services when you do that. Same with picketing government buildings, people providing essential services just can't show up to work that day.

A modern "government" is a controlled civil war in the same way a modern engine is controlled explosions. I day dream and have the stamina to engage in endless friendly debates about how we can improve or change this, but let's not pretend there's a clean way to engage with "the system" because there's not.

Protests almost by definition cause collateral damage.

If you are blocking off streets, you are slowing down people getting into work, slowing down emergency services...

If you are not doing any of that, you are not getting heard and there's not much "protesting" going around.

I think GP's point was that these protests, while aligned in spirit, might actually work against each other. Non-Russian companies stopping to provide service to Russian-protesting entities will mean that they can't achieve their protest objectives anymore.

But his government is directly killing innocent people in Ukraine right now, which is worse.

Different times call for different measures of protest, albeit these two people still share the same goals against the same aggressor.

> his government

In the US, Europe, etc, one's government is actually approximately representative of a large portion of the populace.

In Russia, the government is autocratic and not at all representative of the populace, so comparisons like "their government is doing a worse thing than we're doing to them" kinda falls flat.

What it sounds like is happening here is that Namecheap feels like they want to do something, and they're doing a thing that they are able to do, and something causes damage in the general direction of the intended target. Probably there are non-zero Russian state news, propaganda, etc sites that will be affected by this.

But this is clearly not a war born out of popular desire of the populace, and the collateral damage from this is huge. The amount of harm this will cause random people who may be trying to flee Russia, or to Russian opposition organizations that might now be less able to organize internal protests, almost certainly outweighs any inconvenience caused to the Putin regime.

Yes it's true the Russian regime is not a representative democracy, but it is an oligarchy.

International trade and economic sanctions hits the wealthy elite and is effective at influencing change. It's unfortunate that this inconveniences citizens but when the regime is unjustly declaring war and killing people it's one of the few moves left to make.

I'm not arguing against economic sanctions, those definitely hurt the responsible parties most. Kicking Russia out of SWIFT probably does 10x the damage to the oligarchs as to the citizenry.

Something like kicking every Russian person off of a web hosting platform does not hurt those in power most. Anyone with enough resources to matter in Russian politics will have enough resources to simply employ someone to move everything over and this will barely register as a blip. This probably impacts random citizens 10x more than the people in power.

You are arguing against international trade and economic sanctions though, by saying it inconveniences Russian citizens while ignoring the Ukrainian citizens who are being killed.

Officially removing your business from Russia is a form of boycott, and it does hurt the oligarchs who own the businesses who use the registrar.

I don't think they ( namecheap) has a choice, considering a lot of their employees live/lived in Ukraine.

> a lot of their employees live/lived in Ukraine

I get the impression this is a lot of why they made this business decision. They're standing strongly by their employees.

For sake of perspective.

Let's say Belgium was invaded and I had to to handle a support ticket from the same nationality as the agressor.

I'm not sure if I would have the clarity to handle it with the "expected" care, if I just had to flee my home. While standing with your employees is one thing, I'm not sure if the same support quality can be achieved.

The whole continent received nuke threats by now, making it worse.

Dear fellow Belgian,

Belgium already took part in the conflict, sending arms to Ukraine and troops to Romania to strengthen NATO presence along the border.

Even if Belgium is not yet invaded nor bombed, you have to rethink your doing business with Russia, even though individual Russian citizens you deal with are agreeable people you always had pleasure working with.

That's one of the worst parts of the war. It breaks relationships between millions of people while mere thousands die.

Note: Belgium hasn't played an "active" role. My example was hypothethical to illustrate my point.

NATO is a defensive measure against ( as it is proven now) a valid threat. I'm reiterating my statement of 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23679110 - Which was flagged, but unfortunately seems to be already proven right (partially, since it's not over at all) in hindsight. Since the latest threats of Russia are now also against the EU ( and as such, NATO)

Russia ( as in Putin's Russia) is destroying everything possible. The West ( as in democratic countries) tried for a long time that trade will improve democracy, this is even the underlying 'raison d'être' of the EU.

There is ( i believe) a big shift coming away of that thinking. Where other countries like Hungary ( as in Orban's Hungary) should be aware that the EU is toughening their stance with the latest events unfolding.

I agree Belgium's NATO contributions are not playing an active role in the conflict.

I'm not sure I can agree that Belgium's contribution of machine guns to Ukraine [1] don't qualify as playing an active role.

I guess I should say that regardless of whether it's an active role, I'm happy that they are doing it, and I'm happy that my government is doing the same.

[1] https://www.thebulletin.be/belgium-sends-convoy-military-equ...

Me too. I'm glad Europe as much as possible is united in this, I don't think there is a real precedent like this since ... ever.

Some quirks to work out, but at the current time it doesn't even matter.

I do hope that Ukraine can fend off long enough. It makes me sad that they are on the front and we are sitting in the comfort from our chairs surrounded by countries enjoying hard-fought democracy by our grandparents.

PS. Planning to take a month holiday to help in Ukraine if all goes well. Donated some, but I'd rather spend time physically helping, no military experience.

> There is ( i believe) a big shift coming away of that thinking

The US has just weaponized global finance. A country's access to most of the world is now contingent upon playing by the US/EU's rules. Or, there's China.

Oh no, not the global finance! How sad.

And if by "rules" you mean not acting like North Korea, then yes. You should play by those rules.

> Oh no, not the global finance! How sad.

You jest, but much like a man who has just lost his job and has no foreseeable income, Russia is now entirely dependent upon what savings it has to pay for everything... from China. Surely, China wouldn't take advantage of their comrades, right?

China knows how to fleece a country in need. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93China_25-year_Coo...

> So I'm also very angry at you, for screwing me over

Just out of curiosity, how are you screwed? Is it so hard to move to a different registrar? It's not like you are being kicked out from a cloud provider, which would indeed be a pain in the ass.

If you just had most if not all international payment methods stop, your only option now is to transfer your domains to a russian state owned or controlled entity which should be obvious why it could be problematic.

Commenter said they are fleeing Russia, should have more options available outside the country, no?

If they’re fleeing they’re not yet out, and foreign payments have been stopped.

Wow. Shameful.

People don't get to choose where they are born and describing other people and another society in such a way despite their current government is quite pathetic.

I hope others see your xenophobia and learn to treat others more respectfully.

> Just out of curiosity, how are you screwed? Is it so hard to move to a different registrar?

Normally, if you pay for a service for a year and then it ends after a couple months by surprise, you could describe that as being screwed.

> Additionally, and with immediate effect, you will no longer be able to use Namecheap Hosting, EasyWP, and Private Email with a domain provided by another registrar in zones .ru, .xn--p1ai (рф), .by, .xn--90ais (бел), and .su. All websites will resolve to 403 Forbidden, however, you can contact us to assist you with your transfer to another provider.

Looks like a bunch of people were kicked from Namecheap's cloud services with 0 notice though. Or do you mean that these services are relatively simple, and it would be a pain to migrate from a service provider who provides much more complex services with 0 notice?

The list of countries that the US has invaded is so deep. We must have solidarity with each-other and hold sociopathic leaders accountable, the way current sanctions are being structured is imo targetting civilians much more than russian elite or oligarchs. I wish nothing but peace for Russian and Ukrainian people, good luck friend.

so, putin was right! the west hate us! russophobia!

please...

Nobody hates Russians. Hell, I like Russians a lot. But this is war. World is unfair. I hope you see your "sanction" is such a minor grievance if compared to people that just died in an unjust war. That's why it would have been more elegant and with decorum just to be silent and accept this without whining that (omg!) your domain needs to move.

I really hope the CEO, Richard Kirkendall, responds to your comment. It would be cowardly not to do so.

Edit: It seems like he has responded to other comments but not this one.

> Welcome to having your country at war

Please keep snark off HN at the best of times (this is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and certainly in a case like this. Piling on an individual is definitely not a good way to respond.

I appreciate what you said later in your comment but unfortunately flamebait is determined by the flamiest bit, and you led with that.

Wasn't intended to be snarky. It was a bit of shock and surprise at the anger towards Namecheap and intended to point out the fact that while his country literally kills, terrifies, and displaces a country of people, he's on an internet forum complaining that some company inconvenienced him by no longer providing him a service. His anger is misplaced and misguided; his country is at WAR.

Of course I believe you about your intent. But intent isn't enough. "Welcome to X" is a dismissive phrase that belittles someone while purporting to teach them the obvious about a topic. When the topic is "your country at war", that's extremely provocative and presumptuous.

Anyhow, it's clear you didn't mean it that way and it needn't be a big deal. The big-deal aspect is not one phrase in one individual comment—it's the tendency of humans to become mobs when emotions get activated. That, unfortunately, has been displaying itself a lot here lately.

OK, that's fair.

Yes, but he is an ally. See the nuance please.

I understand that. But how is Namecheap supposed to deal with this nuance? It seems like they're handling it pretty darn well. They said they're not going to provide a service to the people attacking them, and are willing to consider exceptions where it's clear they're hurting people that are supporting Ukraine.

In the meantime, the policy as a whole makes a lot of sense to me. While it's certain to have some collateral damage, but so does shelling a city. Guess which group of people I have more sympathy for at the moment?

I think Namecheap should focus on corporate customers first and foremost, and if after sufficient grace time has passed they believe that it is also right to cut off the personal domains then they should proceed with that. But not like this and without differentiating between Russia and Russians.

Think this tone policing is substantially worse discourse.

That wasn't about tone and you are not contributing.

This is petty, the comment is factually accurate and not written in an inflammatory manner.

These are the consequences of the decisions made by exizt88’s government, it is not unfair to point this out. Nobody is blaming him.

E: How could this comment possibly deserve to be flagged?

Of course these calls are matters of interpretation, but I really don't think you're correct here. "Welcome to $foo" is a snarky way of conveying that you know all about something while the other person is ignorant and doesn't even know the basics yet. When $foo expands to "your country at war", that is a really, really awful thing to say.

> not written in an inflammatory manner.

Suggesting that exizt88 should "welcome" this war is indistinguishable from nationalistic flamebait. The point about government involvement was already addressed in their previous comment. The basic argument that government decisions have unintended consequences is valid, but could certainly be made in a more polite and respectful manner.

That’s not what the expression means in English. This is a particularly strange way to interpret those words.

First of all, you missed my submission about Navalny app being blocked by Apple, and also my submission about getting Internet access to information that is not controlled by the government.

But more importantly, what? You went through my comments, you haven't found evidence of me being against Putin and decided to point that out?

Maybe he prefers to stay on topic.

I'm glad they kept politics out of it when not relevant to the discussion.

Have you already stopped paying taxes, that fund this war?

Hypothetically should Americans stop paying taxes? Their government has a history of arming extremists/conflicts worldwide.

I understand the Ukrainian invasion is sickening/a travesty but I struggle to square what appears to be an underlying hypocrisy.

Indeed. And given the state of democracy in Russia and in the US (for now), you could argue that the average US citizen bears more responsibility for the actions of the US government over the last decades than the average Russian for the actions of the Russian government.

I know at least one person who, around the time of the Iraq war, mostly stopped working and no longer pays taxes. It can be done, but it's a pretty serious lifestyle choice.

While there's a lot to criticize about US foreign policy, invading a western nation with a democratically elected government isn't on the list. You really can't sympathize with Saddam Hussein or the Taliban. I wouldn't (and didn't) stop paying taxes over it.

If the US government invaded Mexico or Canada, I might.

Civil disobedience is a personal decision. Judging other people on their decision to practice it is also personal.

In the U.S. it is even coded into the Declaration of Independence.

Quakers in the United States have been lobbying for this for decades. It has no hope of succeeding but, hey, at least they're trying.

Taxes stopped supporting war in the US a long ago because people don’t like paying for wars they don’t support. The “department of defense” finances its wars by borrowing from the FED. These credit card wars inflate the money supply instead and although everyone still loses its a sneaky way to steal money from people.

Specifically Re: hypocrisy. The scale of the issue is the crux to the yes/no answer to your question. Plenty of people drew the line to choose "yes" for the US war efforts in the past. I personally do not believe it would be justified right now.

Yeah but the main point is America mostly doesn't kill Europeans, certainly not western(ised) ones.

So you are saying it’s ok to kill people with some other skin color or language, like, Iraqi people for example?

No, it's not OK, but the drive that some people have to make it an issue of skin color is misguided. It's not skin color, it's relevance. Equally cruel, but still different.

The world is organized by a small group of countries and power blocks that are in charge, whilst the other 90% has no meaningful economical or military relevance. This in no way makes it "more OK" to do harm, I'm just saying the selector is relevance, not race.

Nobody remembers Iraq anymore and the million dead Iraqis, the destroyed country, the resulting vacuum that produced ISIS, the destruction of Syria, and all under false pretense. Oh, and Afghanistan, that unconquerable land that makes a mockery of all its invaders. Or Libya. Or Arab Spring. Or... And these are just the last 20 years.

Of course, Putin should be condemned, but it is interesting how nobody held the US to a similar standard.

Well, more than a few of those conquests were prevented by Russia. Assad wasn't spared because of his tactical genius. The calculus might change for a few regime changes this year...

Given that Russia has VAT, the only way for Russians to stop paying taxes is to starve to death.

There are multiple ways to not pay Russian taxes that go towards war effort against Ukraine besides starving to death.

Protesting the war is one of them. Leaving is another.

Being complicit and dying are not the only two options.

An average Russian can't just pack up bags and leave willy-nilly. Few countries will issue a visa for anything other than tourism or short-term business. If one has skills that are in demand (say, IT), it's easier - but most people don't have those skills.

I fail to see how protesting the war is a "way to not pay Russian taxes". Unless you specifically mean refusing to pay taxes to protest the war, which would go about as well in Russia as it would in US. Well, except that, once you get arrested, the cops are likely to "entertain" themselves by e.g. putting a gas mask on you and squeezing the hose. Or shoving a bottle into your anus. Or just beating you with rubber batons until you pass out.

The protesting issue you describe is a tragedy of commons. Mass denial of global services to Russian people is exactly the incentive for them to overcome it.

> There are multiple ways to not pay Russian taxes that go towards war effort against Ukraine besides starving to death. Protesting the war is one of them.

Do stores refund your VAT if you have a protest sign or something?

I feel insulted by your attempt to play dumb. Protesting is a way to stop the money you already paid from going towards the war.

Protests in Russia are not a way to stop the government from doing anything. Haven't been for over a decade.

That is debatable. Worked in Ukraine, I don't see what is so different about Russia, especially now when a lot of people understand that Putin is not just an authoritarian, but a completely deranged one.

Ukraine was never an authoritarian country, not even under Yanukovich. He tried to go there after the protests started, and the rest is history.

Russia has been an authoritarian country since 2011 at the very least - and arguably longer, just of a softer variety prior to that - when the regime crushed the largest protest in Putin's times (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932013_Russian_prot...). By now, it has a special branch of internal armed forces - National Guard / Rosgvardia - which is used primarily against protesters.

So yes, there's a big difference in practice.

Well, yes it is obviously different, but it is a weak proof for impossibly of change via protest.

I did not assert impossibility of change via protest. Only that, given where Russia is now, it would have to be violent, armed protest. And you're not going to get people engaged in that with economic sanctions, no matter how severe.

Russia tax income is less than $20B. But income from selling gas/oil is $80B, plus about same from other types of resource export. So if we talk about not paying taxes it's the Europe who buys that gas should stop buying it, that would make much bigger effect.

Not being EU citizen, I am in no position to tell them to stop, though personally I definitely would.

Perhaps it's not like the US where you stop paying taxes and no one even mentions it for several years. Then you get a slap-on-the-wrist fine and have to pay back taxes.

Indeed. They pay taxes at the source in Russia, so that humans get to know and discuss their net salary only.

It's dehumanizing and depoliticizing and should be changed once Putin is out of power.

Not sure what you're talking about, it was the same when I worked in the UK - unless you switch to self-employment, your employer pays taxes for you and you just get the net salary.

This is not specific to Russia. It's also not even close to dehumanizing. Locally, my employer handles the taxes from my income. I get both numbers on the payslips and get an annual national summary of "what were my taxes spent on".

What.. here in the UK if you're employed then you do not do tax returns, it's automatically deducted from your salary.. and businesses charge VAT at point of sale.. Nothing "dehumanizing and depoliticizing" about it, in fact I wouldn't ever want to change it. Only those with self-employed income complete tax returns, which is way more efficient.

Same in the Netherlands.

I never knew there were so many dehumanizing regimes in Europe!

In Russia your employer pays taxes for you whether you want it or not. You don't even know how much.