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.

It would also make it less desirable to move.

Besides the biggest hindrance of the emigraes is probably the bank account USD limit, but that is all Russias doing.

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.

I too would like to hear a rational explanation of how Netflix and Figma cancelling services to Russians helps Ukraine

It makes the situation worse for the average Russian. Happy people (bread and circuses) don't revolt.

And yes, a revolution in Russia is basically the only way this war can end without Ukraine making serious sacrifices.

You can't advocate for collective punishment on HN. No more of this, please.

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

? Sry?

So advocating for any punishment (which every sanction is) is not okay?

So everyone on hn is against sanctions?

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.

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar or cross into personal attack, no matter how provocative another comment is.

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

Ok, sorry.

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.

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

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.

I think he meant punishement as in sanctions

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 guidelines do not contain any mention of punishment.

And if a sanction is punishment, we are not allowed to discuss if sanctions and what level of them is okay?

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.

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

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.

1. https://archive.ph/3IbFz

2. https://www.occrp.org/en/the-pandora-papers/pandora-papers-r...

"Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."

Friedrich Nietzsche

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.

On what basis you say that 'there's almost no resistance'? Have you seen anti-war protests? Do you know the potential personal costs of such protests?

Have you been protesting?

Yes.

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.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29523580 (Dec 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28090599 (Aug 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26537314 (March 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21309680 (Oct 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20900584 (Sept 2019)

Edit: Just so you know, I posted this before I saw https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30812090 and was not intending to pile on.

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].

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/5/22962822/internet-backbone...