Recent comments in /f/worldnews

heavy_highlights t1_ja2832r wrote

Reply to EU slaps sanctions on top Russia officials, banks, trade by BrandYearg525

Russian here

I don't write much here, but I wanted to speak up

as i read a lot of independent mass-media, western and so on, i hope my opinion, as a private person, will not be perceived as propaganda and i will not be told that i am a bot :)

With your permission I will use the translator and if there are any mistakes, please forgive me in advance.

And so, what I would like to say

This is the personal opinion of a man who lives in Moscow, I can't speak for the whole country and all the people. I hope someone will be interested in how I see life now.

What is the real situation here now (let's ignore the propaganda from both sides)

- Gone are the car manufacturers (but imports of used cars from Europe, on the contrary, has increased, and came a lot of Chinese cars. Just so you understand, these are NOT cars from Alibaba, but rather the level of cars from Korea a few years ago). Spare parts are available (I drive a Mercedes GLA 250, oil service is the same price as a year ago, parts are available)

- Food. Not so much is missing. Some of the brands just renamed or imported through other countries. Basic products are available. No empty shelves. Remember a couple of days ago we were talking about Heineken adding 61 new brands in Russia. Well the situation is about the same in everything.

- Electronics. There were a lot of Chinese brands even before February 24. (Xiaomi, oppo, huawei and so on). Apple a lot, price as it was before the war. A lot of electronics are coming from Dubai.

- Clothing. Not a few brands have gone (masmarket), some brands just changed the logo (this is incidentally, in my opinion a good indicator of duplicity, first they said they were leaving, and then they just changed the sign and stayed to work - here Westerners should ask their manufacturers why so).

- Communication. Internet at home has not become more expensive, mobile Internet or cellular communication has not become more expensive or worse. 5g has never been introduced, yes. But they say it will be soon. China is not standing still. Time will tell when the telecom companies start to experience a shortage of equipment, base stations and other things, but so far everything is fine and I do not see panic.

- Banking. Apps are being removed from the App Store. But new ones are coming out, no problem there. Everything works. The banks are also quickly making mobile versions of their sites, with full functionality as in the apps. It's not for nothing that they say we have a strong IT sector.

- Entertainment. Gone are Netflix and Spotify. Well, I personally (I was talking about myself here) did not use them. Kinopoisk and Yandex Music are my choices. Now something is starting to disappear from subscriptions. Well, Russia has the experience of content piracy and online sites have not gone anywhere. People will get content anyway.

I want to make an additional point in advance - "leave the country and not support its economy. I know people who have left the country personally - they are all IT people.

Problem 1 is that someone has to leave relatives and relatives here. It's hard, leaving parents and grandparents behind forever.

Problem 2 - they work remotely for Russian companies (to the question of taxes and where they go), and face the fact that they are often denied jobs in the new country (because Russian). We live in the real world, not a Hollywood movie, no one is waiting for you with open arms.

Problem 3 - not everyone wants to give up the standard of living that we have. (And we understand that leaving can often be a person with above-average income).

If you have questions about normal life "under sanctions" - ask, I will try to tell you or answer you. Again, this is just my personal opinion, and it is not intended to hurt anyone's feelings.

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takeitineasy t1_ja27kmo wrote

Reply to comment by ScurvyBOT in Hungary signals fresh delay in Finland, Sweden NATO approval, says more talks are needed by green_flash

Around half of those were terrible colonial nations, and one can make the argument that France and the UK still are. Nations whose historical and perhaps current sins are even greater than that of hungary's. One of them actually voluntarily left the EU recently. Hungary is being a dickhead now, but never in its history did it do something as bad as Belgium did. Great selection.

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CountVonTroll t1_ja278d0 wrote

Reply to comment by JeanValJohnFranco in EU slaps sanctions on top Russia officials, banks, trade by BrandYearg525

> Might matter a bit on the margins, but probably won’t make a huge difference. Seems like the expert consensus is that the overall sanctions regime has been a bit of a dud.

Incidentally, I happen to still have an interview about this open in another tab, with the professor whose group maintains Yale's well known list of companies that are still doing business in Russia or have pulled out.

The IMF and Worldbank figures for Russian GDP and their forecast make it look as if the sanctions weren't having much of an effect. However, these figures are based on the data that Russia/Rosstat, as a member of those institutions, gives them. Since after the sanctions had been introduced, Rosstat has stopped submission of the normally required detailed data. So IMF and Worldbank can't run their own numbers, and have no choice but to rely on whatever Rosstat (read: Putin) tells them it's going to be.

The point is, we don't have the data to know how Russia's economy is actually holding up. Only indirect and anecdotal evidence suggesting the sanctions do work on the one hand, and on the other, we have Putin's word that the Russian economy is doing just fine.

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