I am not going to express my position on the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, because if I say that I support Russia, then I will be a scumbag, if I say Ukraine, then I will be a scumbag, and if I keep silent, then in the end, too, a scumbag, because someone will say that I'm afraid of my government or something. And since my destiny is to be a condom, then so be it. You can't escape fate
War is bad. Very bad. Nobody wants war except sick people. It would be really cool if I just said "No to war" and everyone went away. It is quite easy to talk about this being neither in Russia nor in Ukraine. But it doesn’t work like that, the current war is a fait accompli and we must come to terms with it, learn to live with it and become able to overcome this fact.
Here I will describe what is currently happening in my country. I live in the second largest city in Russia - St. Petersburg. I will try to do this not through morality, moralizing, without appeals to human feelings. I will speak the language of a robot vacuum cleaner. This is probably the surest way to convey information without emotional overtones, because soon the cries of war will be replaced by frowns at the store shelves.
Everyone goes to work, gets the same salary, but because of the decision of many foreign companies to leave Russia, such as IKEA, H&M, etc. left thousands of people out of work, but some companies have left people on the payroll just like they did during the lockdown due to the pandemic.
Food prices began to rise, not significantly yet, but quite noticeably, no one knows when prices will stop rising.
Russian banks have opened new accounts to save people's money at a good interest rate. It is clear that they are collecting cash in order to somehow survive the sanctions that the West has imposed on us. I'm not sure that this money will not burn out the way it did in the 90s. I won't talk about the dollar exchange rate, you yourself can see everything. The people in Russia have become at least 30% poorer.
The main problem is sanctions. Putin has been trying for the last 8 years to bring the country to import substitution, but it is absolutely impossible to do this in such a short time. The shortage of cars, equipment, spare parts is a huge problem. In Russia, there is no microelectronics of its own at all. Russian processors are assembled at TSMC, which banned their production. Russia is a huge country - air and road communications are critical for us, Russia has lost most of its imported cars, but the worst thing is aircraft. The civil aviation industry is not developed in Russia. Almost all planes are Boeings and Airbuses, now their service is impossible for us, we will stupidly not be able to repair planes if these sanctions drag on for more than six months. Also, these companies will not supply spare parts for us. A huge number of directions will disappear. Businesses will not be able to continue to operate, mail, transportation of goods and spare parts within the country.
Disney, Netflix and others are canceling subscriptions and banning the rental of their films, leisure has clearly become worse. YouTube has disabled advertising in the Russian segment and now Russian content makers do not receive money from advertising.
Also, problems will soon arise with high-quality everyday goods, such as clothes, phones, and so on. They just won't be around anymore. A huge shortage greatly raises the price of foreign goods.
The country becomes isolated from the entire Western world. An iron curtain descends from the West and from Russia.
Surely you are most interested in what is happening with the people of Russia.
Russia banned Twitter, but does not ban Telegram, bans independent media, there is information about blocking YouTube and Twitch. Pervasive censorship. Thousands of people take to the streets with the slogan "No to war", but even more support Putin. I noticed that mostly people born after 1991 oppose the war. There are also people who do not support any side and are simply waiting to see what Russia and the West have decided in this situation. People who go to rallies are massively detained. About 10,000 people were put in jail for pickets and rallies. The authorities severely press any opposition, which they have always done.
(I'm posting in a couple of days)
The culture of cancellation and logistical problems is causing more and more companies to leave or stop investing in Russia, and support for Google Pay and Apple Pay in Russia has also ceased. Fortunately, the country has long had its own payment systems. You also know that Visa and Master Card have suspended the activities of cards that were issued by Russian banks, but you probably have not heard that the Chinese Union Pay system will continue to work both in Europe and with our banks, because everyone who is going there in the near future receive these cards. Some countries, like my native Estonia, impose restrictions on tourist visas, but only during the war.
The Russian government still continues to pour information in order to maintain the loyalty of the population to it, for example, information about biological weapons, but as you understand, we cannot now say whether this is true or false.
Food prices continue to rise, but it depends on the country of production. They rose especially strongly on fruits and baby food.
Funny thing - Instagram resets and “installs” the Russian language every morning, looks like the laziest means of expressing protest, but today they allowed to write any aggression, including calls to kill my people on Facebook, having come up with an answer about the need for context about the military.
Every day in different cities there are rallies against the war and every day thousands of people end up in a pre-trial detention center, but now in Russia they have adopted a law stating that you can’t vilify the army online, now they either take it away or write out a fine in the amount of more than teachers’ salaries in regions. There was also a funny case that a priest who held an anti-war service was fined.
That's all for now, if you want to know an opinion about what is happening on the Ukrainian twitter or a personal opinion - you can always write to me on the discord until no one has blocked it. I am extremely glad that the community on Smogon is able to lead a discussion about this conflict, and also that none of us received angry letters, like for example Alexander Ovechkin in the NHL. Thank you.
p.s. after reading the latest posts, I will answer a couple of points of some users
1. In Russia, no one has ever wanted to destroy schools, hospitals, or other important social facilities in Ukrainian cities.
2. There is no talk of using nuclear weapons.
3. It seems that no matter the outcome of the conflict, the government in the country will not change.
4. For Russia, the best outcome of the war is the demilitarization of Ukraine and an agreement with NATO that neither they nor conditional Sweden and Finland will join the alliance.
5. Russia has totally lost info-war, but still any information from both sides should be treated with a great deal of skepticism