Comment by tguvot
5 years ago
Given that Russian vodka is blacklisted from stores in USA (and Finland!) and replaced with message "we stand with Ukraine", it's not really surprising.
I read interview with somebody from Russia yesterday, russian tracks getting their tires punctured in EU and get stuck because credit cards don't work anymore. Ships refuse to offload goods in Russian ports and drop them of "wherever in Europe". Russian companies can't buy/rent containers to bring goods to Russia.
It's a lot of collateral damage.
On the other side my brothers in law family in Kharkiv sleeps in hallway for past few days while outside blow up cluster munition delivered by MLRS systems https://twitter.com/YWNReporter/status/1498271572292952064?s...
Edit: just to add, I myself was born in Kyiv. Company where I work now has officies both in Ukraine (in one of hotter places) and in russia. I am equally trying to help my colleagues from both offices to GTFO. Collateral damage is unfortunate for private person but frankly not surprising. What is "surprising" it's that a big chunk of Russian population is surprised by it
Truly awful. If you listen to Russian news (propaganda) they're claiming Ukranians want Russia to come liberate them and save them from poor living conditions. It's almost as if they forgot that people have the internet.
Internet doesn't help. I saw screenshots of bunch of chats between relatives in Ukraine and Russia in first couple of days. People from Russia claim that Ukrainians are brainwashed, russia comes to liberate them and only neo-nazis are fighting back and shooting into cities.
There is also articles on official new sites (like RIA) that neo-nazis are executing Ukranian Military personal that doesn't want to fight.
Internet doesn't help. It's all about bubble...
As very unpleasant example, my father who lived most of his live in Kyiv but lives in Germany for past 15 years or so, is consuming only russian media. He is sure that Ukraine is ruled by neo-nazis from bunkers in Kyiv and whatever Russia is doing it's appropriate. This was his opinion after first day. Don't think that it changed
> Internet doesn't help.
Just ask anyone who has moved to Seattle, but has conservative family back in their home state. Folks believe we live in an anarchist hellscape. Myself and several friends have had the experience of being called liars by family members who trust Fox News over the word of their blood relatives. It's absolutely maddening.
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Genuinely curious, how does he see the US, UK, EU etc helping Ukraine? Does he think all those countries are ruled by neo-nazis as well? Or does he not know the country he currently lives in is helping Ukraine because he only consume Russian media?
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Ah. Classic.
Living in <western ccountry> for <more than a decade> [0], telling how putin's russia is a heaven, and west is rotten gay propaganda hellscape.
Asking why they are not moving back to russia usually leaves them speechless.
russian propaganda/troll machine is next level, I could give them that. goebbels would be proud.
[0] If there's a significant russian speaking diaspora it's not unusual that such people do not understand local language almost at all, even after living for decades.
Got links to those screenshots?
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The internet, right? How else will they learn that President Trump (not the illegitimate so-called-president Biden) supports our great leader Putin!
Putin has really been playing up the West’s “Russophobia” leading up to the invasion and I worry that social media has caused some of these “sanctions” to get out of hand really quickly with everyone piling on to the point some of the actions are, indeed, Russophobic. Cutting off service for Russian people who aren’t even living in Russia seems like it crosses that line to me.
Unfortunately this is a double edged sword.
Many times the West was very hesitant on acting against russia's shenanigans (most notably Georgia and Crimea), because "it will hurt the common person and not those who are making decisions".
Now russia is in de facto conventional war with Ukraine and in information/business war with __all__ of the West. putin is out of ideas and freaking blasting cities with bombs like it's London 1940. The West is still not enganging russia in conventional war, due to nukes, but if it's war why one side needs to cry, run, starve and die, when other nation can sit by their propaganda tv and eat the kool-aid.
In this new information age it's the only possible resistance against the regime - Iron Curtain 2.0. The West cannot win informational war inside russia. Those who know english and know how to use internet are mostly young Moscovites, everyone else is sucked into propaganda, there's not enough critical mass. Propaganda is at the same level that Germans did not know or believe that there are concentration camps next door.
Either topple the regime, leave [0] or be living under Iron Curtain 2.0 stand in lines for bread with your money that are worthless.
I believe the West tried for the longest time not to play into this "russophobia" card. The sanctions definitely work together with russian propaganda ("look wht those evil gay nazi imperialist west are doing for simple russian people"). And for the longest time big players like DE, UK, FR did not understand putin, compared to how post-soviet countries like the Baltics and Poland warned. DE for the longest time that you can work with putin like any other liberal democratic leader. Now all this is in the trash and everyone is united against putin.
I am repeating myself - but I guess it's the only way to work against putin. Conventional war with other superpowers will most likely mean nukes, i.e. end of the human world.
[0] I bet many young people from Moscow or Peter will attempt to do this.
Not that it makes a whole lot of difference, but those explosions don't appear to cluster munitions.
Probably some kind of fragmentation rocket fired from a grad[0].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM-21_Grad
These do look like submunitions, though: https://twitter.com/_____Tweety____/status/14983843018298941...
At least I don't see any rockets in any of the frames. And the explosions don't seem that big.
With a cluster bomb/submunitions, you should see a bunch of impacts all at the same time, in this video the impacts all seem to be spaced apart at a rate similar to the fire rate of a grad.
With the frame rate and resolution of the video, it isn't surprising that it's hard to see a rocket.
The rockets look like fragmentation warheads, you can see a lot of shrapnel get thrown off on each impact, frag explosions won't look as large or bright as other kinds of HE warheads.
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They been finding cassetes. Most likely uragan. grad is more straight-forward. Also in another bombardment were found scattered around those lovely things https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFM-1 . It's also been shot by uragan
I don't understand how "collateral damage" is relevant. Aren't people supposed to minimize collateral damage? Namecheap didn't HAVE to do this. The chose to do this in a very particular way, which hurt its customers, especially those opposing Putin's regime and currently fleeing the country.
I don't want to start flame war, and I really feel bad for your situation for for situation of many other people who opposed Putin regime who got majorly f(&d today (my head was spinning last few days as I saw russian economy falling through the bottom while city where I born is shelled), but... actions (or not actions) of Russian population over past 20 years created today's situation (don't tell me that you don't know the common opinion in russia that Ukrainians not really nation and do not deserve their own state). You are unfortunately collateral damage of your own actions, not of those of EU. EU and rest of the world trying to do damage control.
I really do sorry for your situation, I really hope that namecheap will work out with you. I do hope that EU and other countries will extend humanitarian visas to people that try to escape russia now before iron curtain will fall down. Yet, at this moment, it is what it is.
This is what sanctions are. Blocking bank accounts also hurts the people trying to flee, but it's one of the standard sanctions. It seems that everyone is hoping that making the Russian people's lives more difficult will make them stop supporting Putin and he will end the attack because of that. Why a dictator would care at all whether citizens support him or not is unlear to me, so I can't imagine any of this is going to be particularly effective.
I think there's a solid chance that they can twist it in a way that bolsters support for Putin.
He's long said something like "when the West hates me, that's when I'm on the right path." (My paraphrase from memory)
So the population is perhaps primed for another conclusion.
> Putin’s public approval is soaring during the Russia-Ukraine crisis, but it’s unlikely to last
> Approximately 69% of Russians now approve of Putin, compared to the 61% who approved of him in August 2021
https://theconversation.com/putins-public-approval-is-soarin...
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Historically I can't find any significant example of sanctions that helped topple a dictator from outside (Iran, Cuba, Syria, ...)
It might very well be inflicting lots of suffering on the populations, for no result.
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I'd be open to making exceptions in cases that are anti-regime.
So after five plus years of being a client, a private company will be deciding whether I'm worthy of their service or not based on whether I got my teeth kicked in during the protest actions for the past few days?
Should I e-mail some photos of my bruises left by police batons on my ribs? Or maybe I should kneel?
This is humiliating, and you know it. You're just making more problems and creating more danger for absolutely innocent people, just in spite.
This is the essence of cancel culture, now on a national level.
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How do you reconcile your actions with your claims of protecting free speech and the First Amendment? (https://www.namecheap.com/blog/internet-freedom-the-state-of...)
Where do you get off reneging contracts and fleecing people of their money based solely on longitude and latitude and TLD?
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I don't think it's possible for a private company to implement a process that can provide "anti-regime exceptions" though. Would you request evidence of anti-regime activity?
(Edited for clarity)
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I find what Russian government doing completely disgusting and savage. I'm totally against this war. Any war for that matter.
I have many domains at Namecheap and I will not be able to afford transfer them out due to financial situation.
Is there any way I can still keep domains at Namecheap? Which cases are anti-regime?
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A lot of sites (with domains in non-RU tld) that coordinate, help, inform people about what's really going on are under great pressure from Putin's regime. Sites are getting blocked, people are getting fined and jailed.
Now you are joining this effort on behalf of Putin. Good job, товарищ! Please report to Russian embassy to get your 30 silver pieces.
That sounds very "you're either against us or with us".
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you have to think twice and careful before getting involved in political ideas hitting people like me even not Russian. If you want a war with me, I'm ready, it's exactly what you did, you are provoking ordinary people againt you.
The only way to make change is to inconvenience people.