Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends

Re:Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends by jacquesm on Saturday March 05, 2022 @12:00PM (#30569242)

And that's the problem right there: most Russians don't hate him. They've been subjected to a decades long barrage of obligatory Putin worship and even today his support is higher than that of the American president. They don't speak any other language than Russian and don't have access to other news sources. This is a real problem, because (1) it all but ensures that this war will last much longer than it should (it shouldn't have started to begin with) and (2) that Russia needs some kind of victory to be able to back out in order to sustain the myth. No such victory can be defined. This makes for a very bleak future.

Meanwhile the West stands by wringing their hands and crying because 'there isn't anything they can do', when in reality they are just scared.

The best bet right now would be for some Russian faction near the seat of power to get rid of Putin once and for all. Of course the instability that would generate would be at least as dangerous as this war, if not more dangerous but it would also have the potential to improve things.

I won't say anything about your grandfather because anything I could say would sound meaningless.

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Re:Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends by jquery on Saturday March 05, 2022 @12:44PM (#30569803)

I’d love to know what you think the West can do, except that we are scared? I think the West is doing absolutely the right thing. This is a disaster for Putin but you know what could turn it around for him? If we give him an excuse to escalate the war and unite the Russian people against the West.

EDIT: those are some good ideas. I definitely think we need to turn up the sanctions, so far Putin seems on the backfoot but he has increased the shelling of civilians, even agreed-upon evacuation points which is just straight up evil.

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Re:Russians are trying to flee – data from Google Trends by jacquesm on Saturday March 05, 2022 @12:48PM (#30569843)

Cut off Russian gas and oil completely for starters, go after all Russian investments in the West, refuse to do business with any company in Russia, no more boats in and out of Russia, no more cargo, refuse to do business with companies from other countries that continue to do business in Russia, gift major arms and training to Ukraine on the assumption that this war isn't going to be over in a week.

Putin will see his reasons for escalation wherever he wants, whatever will suit him, if that becomes the touchstone then we are already way across the line regardless of our fears. After all, we exist.

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