This was reported by the Russian news agency Rbc.ru.
I’ll wait for a less suspicious source, thanks.
RBC is actually akin to FT in Europe. And the source is the European commission, a link should be present in the article.
RBC hasn’t been independent since 2016 (remember Panama Papers?). On the other hand, EU is expected to lift sanctions against its owner, Grigory Berezkin, this week. Of course, Putin’s oligarch deserves more rights than ordinary Russians, totally understandable.
Not really saying that it’s independent, just that it’s not a random propaganda rag. Given that they’ve already received a strike mid 2022, they’re operating within a narrow corridor of permitted professionalized speech. Even a budding totalitarian regime is interested in having a decent financial newspaper to prop up the business/investment sector, and RBC is a far cry from the shrill propagandistic dross produced by Kremlin-originating sources. So, I don’t trust them to report everything, but I don’t expect them to outright produce fake news. That goes against the mutually beneficial niche they have settled in.
So, if you want to run, you can’t. Who is this helping?
The problem isn’t refugees; it’s the people selling stuff and then going back with Euros to avoid sanctions.
I get that. I just really don’t think that it’ll have enough of an impact to matter in that case. All of the high level people have their own methods for getting things in and out of the country, so you’re probably going to affect some “middle class” smugglers, but the I’m worried that people trying to flee are going to be affected more.
If you’re just now deciding you want to flee, you’ve already chosen your battles.
This war has been going on for 1,5 years, but now that the drones are circling Moscow you’re suddenly making an issue, whilst being quiet while Ukrainians were killed by kamikaze drones? Quite hypocritical.
Average citizens aren’t going to leave their family homes because their government is waging war on innocent people. I, personally, did not leave the US while we bombed the shit out of several undeserving countries. If those countries had managed to start bombing California with any efficacy, I would probably try to leave.
On the other side of the border…
“Average citizens have been forced to leave their family homes because that same government is waging war on innocent people.”
Sure, you can stay until it impacts you personally… but don’t expect anyone whom your country was calling an “enemy”, to take you in just like that.
If those countries had managed to start bombing California with any efficacy, I would probably try to leave.
Would you be actually trying to leave, keeping your head down and preparing to go in the quietest way so that your government couldn’t stop you? Or would you be spending your time writing posts online crying because the countries your country had attacked were limiting your free movement across the border, and setting some reasonable boundaries on your behavior?
Would you be insisting on the red carpet and complaining that you could not bring this or that? Or would you be humbled by your circumstances and grateful that you actually could cross a border, like so many who were bombed by your country could not?
Would you understand that as a citizen of an aggressor country other countries have every right to limit your entry, your imported goods, and your behavior? Or would you quietly take advantage of your immense privilege of being able to leave a war zone, glad that you made it out alive?
There’s a big, big difference between people crossing war zone borders as homeless, stateless refugees and those doing it to turn a profit and come back home.
I think that’s a very flawed way to look at this. Just because it’s been 1.5 years doesn’t mean that every person living inside a series of imaginary lines on a map is responsible for the minority that is in charge of that shaded map regeon. By that logic, you’re at fault for whatever your government has done since you’ve become a legal adult. If you are one.
Putin took power when most of the people fighting in this war were small children. There’s not been a real election since.
Russia has begun all of its recent invasions by claiming it is stepping in to protect ethnic Russians from persecution.
So, let’s punish refugees trying to leave the nation.
Look, I get it. This sanction is meant to make it even harder for Russia to move money in and out. But realistically, this is going to disproportionately affect the people trying to run away from the draft, or other political dissidents.
Vlad, all your points are very well taken, and correct within their context, which is the life of any individual Russians trying to leave Russia today, a full year and a half after the start of the war.
But I downvoted almost all of them. Why?
Because for the last year and a half I have been watching individual Russians – many with personal ties and relatives in Ukraine – contentedly look away, entirely disinterested, happy to feed on Putin’s propaganda, while other, Ukrainian individual lives have been far more casually destroyed, and in far greater numbers. For example, I bet there are many now dead residents of Bucha who would have been thrilled to be able to walk instead of drive away, many schoolchildren and hospital patients who would have loved to be able to escape by any means possible before they were bombed out of existence by your government openly targeting civilians.
Just as a reminder, Vlad, your country is not only waging war without cause on a neighboring country, but committing the most abhorrent of war crimes against individuals, and threatening the entire world.
What do you think sanctions are supposed to do for you, Vlad, as a Russian?
What do you think your neighboring countries are obligated to do for you, Vlad, as a Russian, when your government has made no secret of its intent to swallow them all and recreate a glorious Russkiy Mir?
Are they supposed to WELCOME you, Vlad? Because you write as though they should, instead of casting the most suspicious of eyes toward every Russian that has waited this long to cross the border.
Your whataboutery in this thread, while true on an individual level, does not make me forget that these hypothetical Russian refugees of today are only now concerned because Ukraine has brought the merest fraction of Russia’s war back to them.
Just to be clear, Russians have been running away from the draft since last year. Political dissidents, like Vladimir Kara-Murza and Alexey Navalny, have been in danger and running for much longer. These have my full respect and support, as do the many now in Russian prisons for whom all borders are closed.
The few Russians running now are the ones who didn’t give a shit about anyone but themselves, the ones who are just now recognizing that they personally might be inconvenienced or even – gasp! – physically harmed by their own country’s war, long after HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of similarly innocent Ukrainians have been killed, maimed, injured, displaced, or otherwise similarly inconvenienced. And that’s if they’re even running. Not all of them are.
You may have forgotten that. Others here may have forgotten that.
I will NEVER forget that.
And when the leopards finally turn and look hungrily at YOUR face, Vlad, be very grateful if you still have the option of walking instead of driving to the nearest border of another country your own country waits to swallow. You’re very fortunate they’re letting any Russians cross the border at all, and the ones that allow Russians today may well refuse you tomorrow. Instead of wasting your time writing pro-Russian pity posts, you should be getting your own shoes ready.
And a handful of sunflower seeds, of course.
Слава Україні!
Did you forget how as soon as the war started, the Russians protested and thousands were arrested, beaten, jailed, etc?
The people in Russia have family and children to worry about, you can’t blame them for staying and not wanting to risk starving and leaving with nothing.
Not to mention that they know their country is in the wrong, so they would also be fearing oppression outside of their country as well, not to mention losing all of their assets, being homeless, potentially starving.
The people that will be fleeing now will be desperate. It’s clear that all the risks they face outside of Russia are now less than what they face remaining.
The citizens of Ukraine have had it incomprehensibly worse obviously, but that doesn’t diminish the plight of Russian refugees now, it all adds together in the cost to humanity.
Just to be clear, Russians have been running away from the draft since last year. Political dissidents, like Vladimir Kara-Murza and Alexey Navalny, have been in danger and running for much longer. These have my full respect and support, as do the many now in Russian prisons for whom all borders are closed.
Jesus Christ bro, relax.
You’ll find I am very much relaxed, when it comes to the mewling cries of Russians getting a tiny taste of their own back.
Where are you from? I’ll tell you how many deaths you’re directly responsible for.
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You can run, but you can’t ride.
Military industry complex, billionares and governments
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Leave your car at the border and walk.
Wow, so smart
This doesn’t make any sense to me. Someone’s car that they drove to Germany with doesn’t generate any money for Russia at all
Sell in Germany, go home, wash rinse repeat.
Why would they sell in Germany? With sanctions they can probably fetch better price in Russia.
You’d sell in Germany because you get paid in euros there. Unlike rubeles they don’t devalue significantly and universally accepted (unlike yuan or rupee)
Back in 90-00s it was a booming business, seems its
I imagine that they suspect that those Russians with valuables entering the country are illegally importing them to avoid tariffs.
