Russia invades Ukraine

[burn_this_city]

Russians bombed a civilian train killing at least 15.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1562508025398980608

[CroFlames]

So much loss of life. For nothing.

Go home Russians, and stay there forever.

[Huntingwhale]

Christ. GTFO FFS

[SutterBrother]

15 year old Ukrainian warrior who looks as nerdy as you expect helped destroy Russian collumn.

Andrii said that they posted in a local village group that they had a drone, and that Andrii knew how to operate it. A man named Yuri Kasyanov from the civil defense forces responded to their post, Andrii told ABC News, adding that "he didn't know that I'm 15."

Andrii was asked to use his drone to spy on advancing Russian vehicles in Makariv, a village near his own village of Kolonschyna, in the outskirts of Kiev.

"There were fuel trucks, tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers," he said. "I tracked them on a drone, they were in my picture. And then I opened the tab with the map on the drone and put a mark on it and the coordinates appeared there."

Andrii said he passed the coordinates to Kasyanov, who passed them on to the Ukrainian artillery. The artillery decimated the column of Russian tanks within minutes.

https://abcnews.go.com/International...ry?id=88740689

Shine on Drone Boy.

[burn_this_city]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1562804210873159681

[CroFlames]

Scary and sad. Genocide happening in real time in the year 2022. This is insane.

[burn_this_city]

Ukrainian soldiers capture MTLB, including some Russian "bullet proof" vests. Proceed to show us how well those vests work. No actual sensitive content shown.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1562877619871559680

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by Mull

I don’t think that’s correct. I am too lazy to start googling his past position given now google is full of his Aug 2022 statement but here is an article from 2021 where his government saying Crimea must be returned. And unless he countered it it represents his view - I “know” he has said similar things in the past too.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/turkey/turk...ficial/2398163

He always held the view that Crimea should be returned, however never before did he state this as a condition for peace. Throught the war his message was to bring peace as quickly as possible, peace at any price, if you will. He always looked like a man who's trying to find a solution to stop the bloodshed first and care about Crimea later. Not any more it seems.

https://m.republicworld.com/world-ne...ticleshow.html

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle...ts-2022-03-31/

[Huntingwhale]

Slowly but surely the EU is moving towards limiting the issuance of visas, mostly tourist, for Russian nationals. Eastern Europe (as well as Denmark) is on board. Some pushback from the usual suspects in France and Germany.

Will be interesting to see if the bloc can find a consensus on this topic.

EU foreign ministers are this week set to back suspending the bloc’s visa facilitation agreement with Moscow in an effort to curb the number of travel permits issued after some eastern member states threatened to unilaterally close their borders to Russian tourists.

Some countries have demanded collective action to stop ordinary Russians from travelling to the EU on tourist visas, in the latest challenge for the bloc as it tries to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine while maintaining unity among its 27 members.

Parts of the 2007 deal relating to free movement of government officials and businessmen were suspended in late February. A wider suspension would remove preferential treatment for Russians when applying for all EU visas, requiring more documents, making them more expensive and significantly increasing waiting times.

Countries in favour of a full ban on Russians visiting the EU for tourism have said that they do not want a full border closure, and that exceptions must be retained for humanitarian reasons, asylum claims and to allow dissidents of the Putin regime to flee.

https://www.ft.com/content/857fbd33-...a-6482805bfc62

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Huntingwhale

Slowly but surely the EU is moving towards limiting the issuance of visas, mostly tourist, for Russian nationals. Eastern Europe (as well as Denmark) is on board. Some pushback from the usual suspects in France and Germany.

Will be interesting to see if the bloc can find a consensus on this topic.







https://www.ft.com/content/857fbd33-...a-6482805bfc62

Limiting tourist visas is a move many in the Russian opposition aren't at all universally supportive off.

The logic being:
1) "Closing up Russia only benefits Putin", in the sense that Russians are less exposed to outside views, news etc, and it makes it harder for opposition people to stay in touch with people outside Russia.

2) economically speaking, tourists take money and foreign currency out of the country


I would say both of these are credible and valid arguments, and views somewhere along these lines are fairly common in probably every European country, not just Germany and France. (Common in the sense of easily found, not in the sense that it's the majority view.)

Especially the people who still remember the Cold War and the Iron Curtain tend to feel iffy about the idea. Basically, not allowing Russians to travel to Europe was a bad thing the Soviet Union did to it's own people, so are we sure it's now a good idea that we do it to them?

I'm honestly not sure what the right answer is, I think these concerns and views are valid enough to be carefully considered.

That said, I'm still leaning towards travel restrictions on the basis that 1) in the age of the internet, information travels across borders just fine even without travelers, and 2) if Russians can just come to Europe to buy stuff, it waters down the sanctions, especially for the wealthier Russians who can afford to travel regularly.

[Huntingwhale]

I am 100% on board with a tourist visa ban. Travelling as a tourist is privilege, not a human right. Having open borders and visa-free regimes between countries in contingent on their relations. Right now Russia is ####ing up literally every relationship they have with the west, so it was only a matter of time before tourist visas took a hit. Canada takes countries on and off our travel list all the time. This is nothing new for countries to do this when disputes happen between them.

As for student/work/resident visas, I'm fine with leaving those in place, as long as the proper applications processes and approvals are granted. When I moved to the EU with my wife we weren't allowed to simply show up at the border and proclaim we were there to "brain drain" our countries and start a new life. It took time, effort and money to get the necessary work permits and work visas. Lots of pushback from various people I've debated with, because they seem to think that a tourist visa is a valid excuse to move to another country because you don't like it at home, in this case Russia.

So if Russians want to "brain drain" their country and work/live in the EU for better opportunities, than they should apply for the correct kind of visa and perform due diligence to ensure they are approved. Almost all of them that I've engaged with online seem to think it's fine to show up on a tourist visa and move that way, which is entirely illegal. Tourist vacations at the latest EU hotspots should be off the table until Russia ####s off from Ukraine and shows they are serious about making amends politically.

With direct flights banned between Russia and the EU, I think it's only matter of time before tourist visas follow suit.

[White Out 403]

wall off Russia and let them become North Korea.

or, you know

Russia could stop ####ing invading sovereign nations and engaging in ethnic cleaning.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by White Out 403

wall off Russia and let them become North Korea.

or, you know

Russia could stop ####ing invading sovereign nations and engaging in ethnic cleaning.

We can't.

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by Itse

Limiting tourist visas is a move many in the Russian opposition aren't at all universally supportive off.

The logic being:
1) "Closing up Russia only benefits Putin", in the sense that Russians are less exposed to outside views, news etc, and it makes it harder for opposition people to stay in touch with people outside Russia.

2) economically speaking, tourists take money and foreign currency out of the country


I would say both of these are credible and valid arguments, and views somewhere along these lines are fairly common in probably every European country, not just Germany and France. (Common in the sense of easily found, not in the sense that it's the majority view.)

Especially the people who still remember the Cold War and the Iron Curtain tend to feel iffy about the idea. Basically, not allowing Russians to travel to Europe was a bad thing the Soviet Union did to it's own people, so are we sure it's now a good idea that we do it to them?

I'm honestly not sure what the right answer is, I think these concerns and views are valid enough to be carefully considered.

That said, I'm still leaning towards travel restrictions on the basis that 1) in the age of the internet, information travels across borders just fine even without travelers, and 2) if Russians can just come to Europe to buy stuff, it waters down the sanctions, especially for the wealthier Russians who can afford to travel regularly.

I don't see how Russians buying stuff in Europe undermines sanctions. The point of sanctions is to weaken Russian industry. If I buy a shirt in Milan, I buy a shirt produced by Italy and thus help Italian economy. Conversely if you lock me inside Russia, I would by a shirt produced by Russians thus helping Russian economy.

[Mull]

Tourist ban all Russians from all allied nations.

Make the Russian who can afford to travel feel like they aren’t wanted by banning them. Because they aren’t.

The average Russian, as from poll after poll I saw (not just kremlin polls but to be fair have looked at them in a while) is FOR the war in Ukraine. 3/4 of Russians support.

Hurt the people. Their support is enabling the rape, pillaging and murder of Ukraine adults and children.

Hurt the Russian people.

There support of the war shows that the average Russian is a gross human.

Hurt the Russian people with things like tourist ban and continued trade embargo. They seem to care what the world thinks of them.

[Mull]

Originally Posted by Pointman

I don't see how Russians buying stuff in Europe undermines sanctions. The point of sanctions is to weaken Russian industry. If I buy a shirt in Milan, I buy a shirt produced by Italy and thus help Italian economy. Conversely if you lock me inside Russia, I would by a shirt produced by Russians thus helping Russian economy.

I don’t think anyone is advocating that a tourist ban will hurt the Russian economy. It’s 100% not about that.

It’s taking away their right to travel. Hurting the people in another non violent way.

[Mull]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1564201768187207680

[Cheese]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1564215210352820229

https://twitter.com/user/status/1564205620189962244

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Mull

I don’t think anyone is advocating that a tourist ban will hurt the Russian economy. It’s 100% not about that.

It’s taking away their right privilege to travel. Hurting the people in another non violent way.

No one has a right to enter another country. This should be an easy one.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Pointman

I don't see how Russians buying stuff in Europe undermines sanctions. The point of sanctions is to weaken Russian industry. If I buy a shirt in Milan, I buy a shirt produced by Italy and thus help Italian economy. Conversely if you lock me inside Russia, I would by a shirt produced by Russians thus helping Russian economy.

Much of the sanctions is really to make life suck in Russia.

And yeah, there's definitely an argument to be made that Russians traveling hurts the Russian economy.