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A comment on Tell HN: If You Are in Russia. Parent comment

Re:Tell HN: If You Are in Russia by gattilorenz on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @02:16AM (#30510708)
This is not whataboutism. I am in favor of strong sanctions again Russia, but saying that "Russian companies paid for death and destruction in Ukraine. I feel no empathy. This country should pay for every war crime they committed. There are no innocence in war. Silent complacency what brought it on." is blatantly false, and it becomes apparent when you reverse the narrative. Are all American companies responsible for/complacent with US war crimes?

Not all Russian companies wanted the war, not all companies are complacent, and they only financed it by contributing to the GDP of the country.

Is it fair to sanction them? No. Should we do it if it helps destabilizing Putin? Yes, absolutely, even more than we are doing now.

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Re:Tell HN: If You Are in Russia by darebak on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @02:27AM (#30510787)
>Is it fair to sanction them? No. Should we do it if it helps destabilizing Putin? Yes, absolutely, even more than we are doing now.

As someone who was from a country where sanctions were supposed to destabilize our leader, it doesn't work, never did, never will. In the tough times people rally behind their leaders, just look at Zelensky or Boris Johnson right now.

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Re:Tell HN: If You Are in Russia by gattilorenz on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @03:30AM (#30511232)
> As someone who was from a country where sanctions were supposed to destabilize our leader, it doesn't work, never did, never will.

Did you rally behind your leader because of sanctions?

More importantly, what would you suggest, given your previous experience? Start an actual war to depose the leader (not always turning out great, and I'm assuming your country wasn't a nuclear superpower)? Leave everything as it is, let the leader invade neighbors with no repercussions?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Tell HN: If You Are in Russia by darebak on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @03:44AM (#30511346)
Maybe not the leader, but around the country itself. Even people that were vehemently against the leader were deeply against "the West".

>Start an actual war to depose the leader (not always turning out great, and I'm assuming your country wasn't a nuclear superpower)? Leave everything as it is, let the leader invade neighbors with no repercussions?

I don't know, I am not a world leader but I know that those sanctions are not going to have the intended consequences, just about the opposite.

If I had to say something, I would recommend to let them battle em out, with substantial military aid to Ukraine. Throwing out common Russian people from universities and jobs across Europe is just going to feed a siege mentality and its plainly speaking, racist.

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Re:Tell HN: If You Are in Russia by gattilorenz on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @05:01AM (#30512094)
> Throwing out common Russian people from universities and jobs across Europe is just going to feed a siege mentality and its plainly speaking, racist.

where is this happening? who is advocating this?

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Re:Tell HN: If You Are in Russia by azalemeth on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @03:32AM (#30511246)
Boris Johnson's popularity has completely and utterly sunk after a series of scandals that have exposed him as a lying, cheating, hypocrite. It's quite likely that he won't be allowed by his party to contest the next election. To say that he's popular and in particular popular as a rallying cry against international condemnation is utterly false. He's deeply disliked by a large chunk of the population.
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Re:Tell HN: If You Are in Russia by ardit33 on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @02:41AM (#30510885)
Not true. When people get hungry, they eat their leaders....

Look at what happened to Ceaușescu... Putin risks to end up like him.

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Re:Tell HN: If You Are in Russia by darebak on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @03:00AM (#30511007)
Not true.

Tell me, if Google banned you from all their services because you only lived somewhere and you were a "soft liberal", would you support Google in their decision or would you dig in and go the other way? Or in more simpler terms, take football fans, are they hungry at their ultras when they get fined for something or are they angry at UEFA?

All Europe is doing by these discrimination measures is creating a siege mentality among Russian citizens.

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Re:Tell HN: If You Are in Russia by Closi on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @03:25AM (#30511200)
The “rally behind your leader” effect is only usually temporary.

These sanctions and moves spread an unambiguous and clear message which can’t be blocked by state news channels which is “no matter what your government says, nobody supports you”.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Tell HN: If You Are in Russia by darebak on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @03:47AM (#30511373)
It's not temporary, or it depends on what time scale do you define "temporary".

>“no matter what your government says, nobody supports you”

Exactly my point, people at this point flock toward their country not against it. They develop this "so fuck 'em" mentality which would just enable wars to go on.

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Re:Tell HN: If You Are in Russia by gattilorenz on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @03:20AM (#30511160)
Those of UEFA and Google are silly, symbolic sanctions. What the EU and US are doing is trying to tank Russia's economy and seize/block the oligarchs' properties. Whether that works is left to be seen, but there are already large protests against the war, there might be more protests against the harsh economic conditions, and Putin cannot just arrest everyone.

But in any case, the whole point is that sanctions are unfair, as they will hit plenty of people that are not involved in the war in any way and do not support it. "We" use them because "we" believe that they work (I hope so, but you might be right of course, I'm no expert), not out of spite for a whole population.

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Re:Tell HN: If You Are in Russia by darebak on Tuesday March 01, 2022 @03:51AM (#30511404)
I was using a personal anecdote what happens when some foreigners sanction "our" nation, so I used UEFA as an example. It's a similar mentality when it comes to other kinds of sanctions waged against "our" nation.

>not out of spite for a whole population

You may see it that way, but you and average Russian were consuming different media up to this point, and if we admit or not, media has an enormous influence on our worldview.

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