Photos of queues in shops and empty shelves is the only resistance left.
Any non-official information about the war is punishable with 15 years in prison camps.
What's happening in Ukraine is a tragedy, but what's happening in Russia as a result of sanctions is quite tragic in itself.
Currency is in free fall, hundreds of companies closed shops and offices, many will lose their jobs, etc.
This will hit marriages and relationships. Men become depressed and paralyzed when they lose their incomes. So just like in the 90s, the economic collapse will hit women of Russia hard.
The smartest and most beautiful women - aka the ones used to live in abundance who got all the attention, etc will try to leave the country.
'Russian' is now quite a bad word for anyone in Europe, so women will have a hard time finding and maintaining European men (of course any men will take a beautiful woman for sex, but providing for her long term is another thing).
They say war is men protecting their women and children from the invading men.
But in this situation there will be Russian women who leave their men for foreign men.
As much as I disagree with Russia's actions and even if the majority of Russians support the war (are afraid of the criminals running the country), I still feel sad for what these families are about to experience this year.
> any men will take a beautiful woman for sex, but providing for her long term is another thing
Looks like you never dated a Russian woman. Beware! You may end up totally dominated and providing her long term :).
Jokes aside, poverty combined with increased materialism and class division was indeed a big problem in Eastern Europe after the fall of USSR. Lots of women simply wanted "something better", which is to be translated that they valued money a lot more than true love. Social values were turned upside down. Thieves and crooks became the new social reference for success. You could no longer impress a girl with just a smile and a guitar. It was somewhat normal to prove your masculinity by fighting on the street or spending lots of money in a stupid way. Police rarely bothered, unless someone "important" person was involved. Crime proliferated to unbelievable levels. People were stealing things like tires, fuel and windshield wipers. At some point I had to lock the battery of my soviet car with a padlock (battery costed nearly half of monthly income and for some people over here it still does). Oligarchs were born out of criminal activity and questionable privatization of government property, such as factories and land. Later it turned down most of oligarchs had connections to the ex-secret service ranks. Some of them were loyal to the US, others to Russia. Most medium to large business is still controlled by such people or their offspring. Foreign investment often needed their blessing. It is a long story indeed, but I feel that after more than 30 year of "transition" to the new form of rule, people are slowly returning to some of their previous values, such as family, friends and other non-material things.
Maybe you got down-voted by pissed-off Russian men, but your prediction regarding what will happen in the Russian society is spot on. The problem with the alcoholism and prostitution over there has already been pretty bad, but now it will of course get much much worse.
Unfortunately, so far in history Russia has only been a one huge long tragedy. Navalny gave a speech at his kangaroo trial that his wish is that Russia be happy. Maybe some day they might eventually figure out how to make that happen. But maybe not. 50 / 50 chance perhaps. But the next best thing would be that Russia does not spread tragedy to all other countries with radioactive fallout, and also no way to say for sure if that might happen or not, but does look likely.
Yes, I do feel sad for the Russian population. From the start of the invasion, I knew how much collateral damage Russia would take and that the damage done would last for decades. But then, the country of Russia is invading and destroying Ukraine right now. Just because no one bombs Russia, you cannot assume there are not damages to the country. The obvious way out would be massive public resistance to end this quickly.
Also, this should be a warning to any people who currently feel the temptation to elect a government which is basically fighting democracy. The effect in Russia is obvious, but it isn't as if there aren't such tendencies in other countries. Just watch which political parties try to discredit free media and you have a good first indicator.
> but what's happening in Russia as a result of sanctions is quite tragic in itself.
No, it's not. Your actions have consequences. Russia has been attacking neighboring countries and taking parts of their territories.
Moldova 1992.
Chechnya 2000-2009.
Georgia in 1992 and 2008.
Ukraine in 2014.
They are using the standard scheme of "oh, this part of your country decided to become independent, we will flood it with our troops and defend them, and then install russian puppets to rule over it".
Enough is enough. Russia needs to understand that this will not fly. You lose your job? Cry me a river. Look what you did to Ukrainian cities.
We have no idea what the higher order effects of this will be.
There is an article in the Atlantic how this could cause a depression in Tajikistan.
This couldn't possibly be at a more fragile global economic time either after 2 years of COVID.
The economic damage of this is not going to be isolated to Russia. We have practically injected the global economy with an unknown economic poison and we have no idea what it is going to do or how far it will spread.
Only false information will get you a fine or a criminal conviction. If you report facts backed by hard evidence you'd be safe. To get 15 years you'd need to create some fakes on purpose that led to for example mass casualties at the war zone.
I feel exactly the same way and while #IStandForUkraine, my pessimistic side of me thinks that pushing Russia to extreme isolation is not going to have the expected result in the long run neither. This is an absolute tragedy.
Go visit the homepage of this newspaper. It's crazy, there's no clear reference to war or attacks. This article on Ikea is just an attempt to tell the desperation without breaking the censorship law.
I was also surprised by this. I find it absolutely crazy. The reason is that just few days ago the parliament of Russia introduced a law on "fakes about Russian army" with 15 years in prison penalty. What is "fake" is not defined so anyone for any statement about the war could be put in prison. Ah yes, people are also forbidden to call this a war, an agression or an invasion. You may say that there are other outlets of information, but no, all critical to Russian government newspapers, radio stations, tv channels were recently closed. Facebook, BBC, DW, YouTube blocked. The best analogy to what is going on there would be: a frog slowly boiling in a pan.
As one of Novaya backers, I voted for it to continue operations, even under the censorship. The Novaya team and their readers are bright people who can write and read between the lines, a working independent media of any form, not blocked by roskomnadzor, is more valuable than none. The alternative was to shut down and wait until the situation resolves. I admire their resolve.
They're clearly still doing what they can... There is a big long story about a mother who has had to have a funeral for her soldier son who has died but the authorities won't give the body back or any details about how he died.
These kind of photos always impress me about the number of people who are on their phones. We dont live in countries anymore, we live in screens with our legs on some kind of ground. I hope it's not irreversibly long until these stores can be reopened. We should stop pretending we re living in the cold war era, world is always new. Russia has shown itself to be an irresponsible holder of nukes. After the fall of putin regime it has to rejoin the rest of the world as just a 'country'
They say every crisis is an opportunity. This could be a great opportunity for Russian owned brands to establish themselves and thrive later when the crisis is hopefully resolved.
Provided they are vertically integrated and own the entire supply chain.
Otherwise they will find that planes not flying in/out and container ships not delivering will make it hard to import anything at scale. Not that they could pay for goods anyway.
Also I suspect China may use its new found leverage to flood the Russian market with their goods.
I talked with friends in Moscow at the beginning of 2020. They said there were simply no good alternatives to IKEA. There were reasonable furniture from Belarus if one looked for things made from whole wood, but then one still may need to hire somebody to fix/adjust it due to quality control issues. Plus there were small Russian companies, but their stuff while good was expensive. Things that were produced by bigger Russian companies that were supposed to give alternative to IKEA, were really of low quality.
How would they do that though? Russian interest rates are through the roof, so even if you could borrow money to start a business you likely couldn’t make it profitable. If you had assets to begin with they better not have been in the stock market, because that has been closed since the invasion began and basically everything you own is now rated 0. If your assets were in savings, then they too have lost basically all value along with the rubbles.
Even if you somehow overcome the need for capital, how do you setup the supply chain necessary in a world where you can’t readily trade with anyone but China? Which you may not be able or doing in a month if things turn sour and China also start sanctioning.
Sure Russia has a lot of wood, but Russia doesn’t have the industrial material to transform it into furniture, and right now, Russia doesn’t have access to the high tech commodities required to build an efficient lumber industry, let alone factories to process it.
You’re right of course, this will open up for opportunities in the very long run, but it’ll be very localised opportunities that can’t take advantage of the global supply chain in a country that had an economy which was around the size of the economy of Italy before this began.
If you look at history, then you can’t really build empires in isolation. Even the current “American empire” saw a lot of its economic rise throught things like the Marshall plan, which as an example, lifted my country (Denmark) from what was basically medieval farming methods with lots and lots of manual labour to the average farmer owning tractors in less than a decade. Unless the oligarchs of Russia plan on investing basically all their national profits into building the country’s industry, then I would personally wager that these images are the last chance that a lot of Russian have to but IKEA things for a good while. It won’t stop there either, after a few years of isolation the average Russian won’t be able to buy things like coffee if the sanctions get worse.
Anta is doing exactly this. With major labels refusing to use Xinjiang cotton, Anta has said they have no problem with it and are building an empire based on forced labor.
Unfortunately (and I mean it) there is barely any precedent for a regime like this turning around and the economy improving. In terms of economy, it's probably going to be downhill from here, companies will enter survival mode and innovation will be minimized. I really hope I'm wrong though :(
It could be but they need to be primed for it already.
How did the US not selling drones to Turkey made Turkey a drone superpower? Well, Turkey already had a large engineering talent pool and related industries, therefore US not selling drones to Turkey was an opportunity.
Does Russia already have a talent base or flourishing industries for all the stuff they are being denied? I find it unlikely, it's a common problem with natural resource blessed countries destroying high skill sectors because a very few things are as profitable and risk free as digging stuff from the ground, sell them and live off from than money. Norway is being smart about it, countries like Dubai and UAE are also trying to be smart about it but AFAIK Russia is not very smart. They used to have huge talent pool of all kinds during the Soviet times but that is no longer the case. They monetised the remains of the Soviets and used the money to buy yachts, palaces and luxury estate abroad.
What is the last innovation, art or product that came out of Russia and change the world? Probably there are some but not many. They used to be the ones competing with the west neck to neck, bringing in their flavour and coming up with something ingenious.
It's very sad actually, considering what the Russian people have archived in the past.
They say that foreign companies operating in Russia were required by the Putin's government to change their euros for rubles in three days if they want to stand open. Closing is the logical choice.
Well, IKEA leaving is not a big issue - making furniture is easy and doesn't require high-tech. Thus, in one year or two nobody will even remember them. The industries that require technology, like electronics, biotechnology, healthcare - those will be permanently crippled, maybe completely eliminated.
Not sure yet if this is shaping up to be another round of wild 90s or Stalinist times in Russia. It's kind of looking like a bizarre mix of both with political incarcerations back in play and government shutting down press. To piss away 2 decades of progress in 1 week is pretty unbelievable. Hard to believe that Putin did not see this coming...
Reading all these comments on every side (US, UA, RU, etc.) I mostly see the same - people discuss anything except key questions: why did US sanction the military action (what makes them)? Why did Russian Federation changed its course of actions so radically in 2017? Why did RU change its coat of arms on money? Did the SU really cease to exist? What was considered "Russia" during last 100-500 years (and what US)? It's one of a few "countries" that influence the whole world and those processes didn't start a decade or a hundred years ago. And current conflict is a publicly visible link in the long and entangled chain of geopolitical moves. There are great analytics in both US/RU who dug deep to the roots of WW2 and many other wars who are being equally hated by both US and RU governments/deep state. And I sincerely hope there'll be more understanding people. We just need to seriously catch up. Wars are made to cut human population, divide and disperse people. Please don't get dragged into that. I have friends from all around the world, and I WANT to have friends from all around the world, and I will.
(sorry, I'm not in a position to answer those questions directly, I just want people of all nations to think globally, regardless of pen-drawn borders, otherwise, one by one...)
I got lost in your word soup. Messy writing often implies messy thinking. Beware conspiracy theories. Yes, there's almost always more going on than you see in the news.
Russia's strategy has stayed remarkably true to The Foundations of Geopolitics, a 25-year old book. One of it's core principles is dividing the US from Europe. Nato is a clear threat to that.
>Ukraine should be annexed by Russia . . . Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible.
>The United Kingdom . . . should be cut off from Europe.
>France should be encouraged to form a bloc with Germany
>The book stresses the "continental Russian–Islamic alliance"
>Georgia should be dismembered. . . Georgia's independent policies are unacceptable.
>Russia needs to create "geopolitical shocks" within Turkey.
It's actually not the last day but a temporary suspension. Russian market is quite large and attractive to likes of IKEA and they will try to return when the hype is over. But some would be displaced by that time by the other companies. We've seen this in 2014-2015.
What I'm curious about all the sanctions is what if Russia changes? Say Putin quits or is killed and the replacement withdraws from Ukraine. Are we back on again?
Maybe a lot of these international brands exiting is more useful than some of the other sanctions. It hits the more wealthy, who lose a sense of status and feel left out of the world. That can't be good for Putin who is seeking glory.
[+] [-] delegate|4 years ago|reply
What's happening in Ukraine is a tragedy, but what's happening in Russia as a result of sanctions is quite tragic in itself.
Currency is in free fall, hundreds of companies closed shops and offices, many will lose their jobs, etc.
This will hit marriages and relationships. Men become depressed and paralyzed when they lose their incomes. So just like in the 90s, the economic collapse will hit women of Russia hard.
The smartest and most beautiful women - aka the ones used to live in abundance who got all the attention, etc will try to leave the country. 'Russian' is now quite a bad word for anyone in Europe, so women will have a hard time finding and maintaining European men (of course any men will take a beautiful woman for sex, but providing for her long term is another thing).
They say war is men protecting their women and children from the invading men. But in this situation there will be Russian women who leave their men for foreign men.
As much as I disagree with Russia's actions and even if the majority of Russians support the war (are afraid of the criminals running the country), I still feel sad for what these families are about to experience this year.
[+] [-] kavalg|4 years ago|reply
Looks like you never dated a Russian woman. Beware! You may end up totally dominated and providing her long term :).
Jokes aside, poverty combined with increased materialism and class division was indeed a big problem in Eastern Europe after the fall of USSR. Lots of women simply wanted "something better", which is to be translated that they valued money a lot more than true love. Social values were turned upside down. Thieves and crooks became the new social reference for success. You could no longer impress a girl with just a smile and a guitar. It was somewhat normal to prove your masculinity by fighting on the street or spending lots of money in a stupid way. Police rarely bothered, unless someone "important" person was involved. Crime proliferated to unbelievable levels. People were stealing things like tires, fuel and windshield wipers. At some point I had to lock the battery of my soviet car with a padlock (battery costed nearly half of monthly income and for some people over here it still does). Oligarchs were born out of criminal activity and questionable privatization of government property, such as factories and land. Later it turned down most of oligarchs had connections to the ex-secret service ranks. Some of them were loyal to the US, others to Russia. Most medium to large business is still controlled by such people or their offspring. Foreign investment often needed their blessing. It is a long story indeed, but I feel that after more than 30 year of "transition" to the new form of rule, people are slowly returning to some of their previous values, such as family, friends and other non-material things.
[+] [-] 2xpress|4 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, so far in history Russia has only been a one huge long tragedy. Navalny gave a speech at his kangaroo trial that his wish is that Russia be happy. Maybe some day they might eventually figure out how to make that happen. But maybe not. 50 / 50 chance perhaps. But the next best thing would be that Russia does not spread tragedy to all other countries with radioactive fallout, and also no way to say for sure if that might happen or not, but does look likely.
[+] [-] _ph_|4 years ago|reply
Also, this should be a warning to any people who currently feel the temptation to elect a government which is basically fighting democracy. The effect in Russia is obvious, but it isn't as if there aren't such tendencies in other countries. Just watch which political parties try to discredit free media and you have a good first indicator.
[+] [-] bufferoverflow|4 years ago|reply
No, it's not. Your actions have consequences. Russia has been attacking neighboring countries and taking parts of their territories.
Moldova 1992.
Chechnya 2000-2009.
Georgia in 1992 and 2008.
Ukraine in 2014.
They are using the standard scheme of "oh, this part of your country decided to become independent, we will flood it with our troops and defend them, and then install russian puppets to rule over it".
Enough is enough. Russia needs to understand that this will not fly. You lose your job? Cry me a river. Look what you did to Ukrainian cities.
(i'm a russian immigrant to the US)
[+] [-] veganhouseDJ|4 years ago|reply
There is an article in the Atlantic how this could cause a depression in Tajikistan.
This couldn't possibly be at a more fragile global economic time either after 2 years of COVID.
The economic damage of this is not going to be isolated to Russia. We have practically injected the global economy with an unknown economic poison and we have no idea what it is going to do or how far it will spread.
[+] [-] InvOfSmallC|4 years ago|reply
Also, you probably never dated an Eastern woman, they are not weak at all :)
[+] [-] egao1980|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ed_balls|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kronks|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jeanloolz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitwise101|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nuccy|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Klaster_1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ranieuwe|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NicoJuicy|4 years ago|reply
Where they explain what "fake news", according to the governement, is.
[+] [-] londons_explore|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twiss|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdrc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k12sosse|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oezi|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oliv__|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sAbakumoff|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyriakos|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] threeseed|4 years ago|reply
Otherwise they will find that planes not flying in/out and container ships not delivering will make it hard to import anything at scale. Not that they could pay for goods anyway.
Also I suspect China may use its new found leverage to flood the Russian market with their goods.
[+] [-] Borrible|4 years ago|reply
By the way, the elimination of Western influence at all levels has been the goal for at least 15 years. It happend much earlier higher up.
We're back in 1961.
“We cannot negotiate with people who say what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable."
And frankly said, if the performance of the Russian furniture industry is similar to that of the Russian military, I wouldn' buy a doorstop from them.
[+] [-] _0w8t|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EnKopVand|4 years ago|reply
Even if you somehow overcome the need for capital, how do you setup the supply chain necessary in a world where you can’t readily trade with anyone but China? Which you may not be able or doing in a month if things turn sour and China also start sanctioning.
Sure Russia has a lot of wood, but Russia doesn’t have the industrial material to transform it into furniture, and right now, Russia doesn’t have access to the high tech commodities required to build an efficient lumber industry, let alone factories to process it.
You’re right of course, this will open up for opportunities in the very long run, but it’ll be very localised opportunities that can’t take advantage of the global supply chain in a country that had an economy which was around the size of the economy of Italy before this began.
If you look at history, then you can’t really build empires in isolation. Even the current “American empire” saw a lot of its economic rise throught things like the Marshall plan, which as an example, lifted my country (Denmark) from what was basically medieval farming methods with lots and lots of manual labour to the average farmer owning tractors in less than a decade. Unless the oligarchs of Russia plan on investing basically all their national profits into building the country’s industry, then I would personally wager that these images are the last chance that a lot of Russian have to but IKEA things for a good while. It won’t stop there either, after a few years of isolation the average Russian won’t be able to buy things like coffee if the sanctions get worse.
War is hell.
[+] [-] thelastknowngod|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] george0812|4 years ago|reply
examples: Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, ...
[+] [-] mrtksn|4 years ago|reply
How did the US not selling drones to Turkey made Turkey a drone superpower? Well, Turkey already had a large engineering talent pool and related industries, therefore US not selling drones to Turkey was an opportunity.
Does Russia already have a talent base or flourishing industries for all the stuff they are being denied? I find it unlikely, it's a common problem with natural resource blessed countries destroying high skill sectors because a very few things are as profitable and risk free as digging stuff from the ground, sell them and live off from than money. Norway is being smart about it, countries like Dubai and UAE are also trying to be smart about it but AFAIK Russia is not very smart. They used to have huge talent pool of all kinds during the Soviet times but that is no longer the case. They monetised the remains of the Soviets and used the money to buy yachts, palaces and luxury estate abroad.
What is the last innovation, art or product that came out of Russia and change the world? Probably there are some but not many. They used to be the ones competing with the west neck to neck, bringing in their flavour and coming up with something ingenious.
It's very sad actually, considering what the Russian people have archived in the past.
[+] [-] drewcon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EugeneOZ|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deltaoneseven|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] pvaldes|4 years ago|reply
They say that foreign companies operating in Russia were required by the Putin's government to change their euros for rubles in three days if they want to stand open. Closing is the logical choice.
[+] [-] Aeolun|4 years ago|reply
I really don’t know what he was going for here.
[+] [-] xvilka|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sakopov|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IYasha|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abandonliberty|4 years ago|reply
Russia's strategy has stayed remarkably true to The Foundations of Geopolitics, a 25-year old book. One of it's core principles is dividing the US from Europe. Nato is a clear threat to that.
>Ukraine should be annexed by Russia . . . Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible.
>The United Kingdom . . . should be cut off from Europe.
>France should be encouraged to form a bloc with Germany
>The book stresses the "continental Russian–Islamic alliance"
>Georgia should be dismembered. . . Georgia's independent policies are unacceptable.
>Russia needs to create "geopolitical shocks" within Turkey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
[+] [-] egao1980|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] d1sxeyes|4 years ago|reply
'Делаем честную журналистику вместе с вами'
Tell us you need help, but don't make claims that you clearly aren't fulfilling.
[+] [-] c7DJTLrn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tiku|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkl95|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _HMCB_|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rr808|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chmod600|4 years ago|reply
Maybe a lot of these international brands exiting is more useful than some of the other sanctions. It hits the more wealthy, who lose a sense of status and feel left out of the world. That can't be good for Putin who is seeking glory.
[+] [-] YaBomm|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] deltaoneseven|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]