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I'm sure HN will try throwing some shade here, but just about everyone has sanctioned Crimea, including Canada[1], the EU[2], and Ukraine itself. MasterCard, Vi

by dvt 7y ago

I'm sure HN will try throwing some shade here, but just about everyone has sanctioned Crimea, including Canada[1], the EU[2], and Ukraine itself. MasterCard, Visa, Discover, PayPal, etc., etc. also don't work in Crimea. [1] https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/sanctions/ukraine.aspx?lang=eng https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re... [2] https://europa.eu/newsroom/highlights/special-coverage/eu-sanctions-against-russia-over-ukraine-crisis_en https://europa.eu/newsroom/highlights/special-coverage/eu-sa...

baroffoos 7y ago
Does that make it better?
- dvt 7y ago
  No, it just makes it a geopolitical reality that you have to somehow punish Russia when it mobilizes ground forces and forcibly annexes pieces of land. Don't forget that Russian-backed insurgents literally shot a passenger plane out of the sky[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
  - option 7y ago
    this punishes people who live in Crimea
  - baddox 7y ago
    Something tells me Russia is not particularly bothered by the inability of people in Crimea to use GitHub.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
      Of course. Nobody is particularly bothered by the loss of one company's services. It's the totality of the effect that you're looking for.
  - viraptor 7y ago
    I agree with the idea, but wonder if that really hurts the right people. People in Crimea get both annexed and punished on global market. Russia gets access to what it wanted and gets no real punishment.
  - option 7y ago
    Have you actually been to Crimea? Because I had and still have lots of relatives there (I am originally from Ukraine). I have zero doubt that overwhelming majority of people there (easily over 70%) want to be with Russia instead of Ukraine
    - my_first_acct 7y ago
      I think your numbers are probably correct. I don't happen to know another number: how many people in Chechnya would rather be independent than part of Russia. But it doesn't matter; the Russian government is very selective about how it applies the "right to self-determination". The Russian government is likewise selective in its interpretation of the Budapest agreement (1994) [1], in which Russia guaranteed Ukraine's territorial integrity in return for Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons. Edit: I incorrectly wrote "Bucharest agreement"; fixed it (thanks jotm) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
      - jotm 7y ago
        Bucharest and Budapest are two different cities :)
      - option 7y ago
        I agree with what you said. But this means that US/West sanctions people for their democratic choice. We should instead sanction people associated with Russia’s totalitarian government.
        my_first_acct 7y ago
        The US has in fact sanctioned Russian officials associated with the annexation of Crimea. [1] You might also spare some sympathy for those residents of Crimea who did not wish to join the Russian Federation, for example, many Crimean Tatars. Not only have they suffered the loss of access to github, they also have to contend with a campaign of political repression. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_sanctioned_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_sanctioned_duri... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Crimea#Crimean_Tatars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Crimea#Crimean_Tat...
  - dn3 7y ago
    I don't mean this to sound aggressive, but would you agree then with sanctioning the U.S. after its actual military shot down an Iranian passenger plane, inside Iranian waters [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
    - dvt 7y ago
      Someone always brings up 655. Say what you will, the US government at least paid out to the victims (although never officially apologized). While Russia denies all involvement to this day and lawsuits are still ongoing.
      - Hidios 7y ago
        Saying Russia did it too and they were much worse about it is not a valid defense of anything.
        dvt 7y ago
        It wasn’t a defense. Two terrible things happened (let’s assume both accidental). The US admitted Iran-655 was an “accident that resulted in a loss of life” and paid out ~$200k per victim. Russia pretends like MH-17 never happened. Who do you think has more of a moral high ground?
        chinhodado 7y ago
        Not defending Russia, just saying the circumstances are a bit different. Iran-655 was downed by a US warship - clear from the outset and no space for argument, while MH-17 was downed by (most probably) Russian separatists with a mobile missiles system, which allows for a lot of deniability, and since they had the chance to deny it they went with it. The US didn't even have that luxury.
      - dn3 7y ago
        Ignoring your initial tone, I see what you're saying, and agree these aren't identical cases. Though it should be emphasized they only payed out to the victims because Iran brought it to the international courts and they wanted to settle. They never, as you said, apologized, or even thought they had any legal obligation to the victims. Feels like your splitting hairs with "Russia denies involvement" as being dramatically different -- both seem like terrible events that neither super power really feels responsible for despite being the ones who put those weapons where they were without legitimacy.
  - jwieczorek 7y ago
    After the Ukrainian air traffic control spent weeks bringing the same flight closer and closer to the war zone, even though a ban on air traffic over that territory should have been put there immediately. No one is questioning the Ukrainian side how come they've "lost" and have not put forward before the Dutch Safety Board the primary radar recordings of the Dnepropetrovsk area from that period. The Ukrainian government, and the U.S., at that very moment needed something like this to happen to get the Western European governments to put their stake in that war and the Western European societies to approve it. They're partially responsible for this crash and in that regard your description of this event is highly misguiding.
avocado4 7y ago
Why do they sanction Crimea (victim) instead of Russia?
- dogma1138 7y ago
  Because Crimea is a defacto Russian state now and for the most part a large portion of the population and the current government is participating in it. The sanctions are for the most part per the request of the Ukrainian government. If Catalonia becomes a separatist state tomorrow and Spain and its allies sanction it everyone in it will be under sanctions regardless of who or what they support. This is what happens when your sanctions are geographical in nature. No one has the capability to validate if a person in Crimea is a Russian supporter or not. The idea behind the sanctions is in the end to make the life of the populous sufficiently difficult so they will rebel.
  - ShinTakuya 7y ago
    I don't like what's going in Crimea either, and I support most sanctions against it, but I also don't understand why they should be excluded from open source software participation. On an idealogical basis I reject the idea of OSS being politicised. Otherwise, where do we stop?
    - stonogo 7y ago
      Reality dictates that politics are inherent in human society. You are not above it, and neither is your hobby. Ignoring society is a privilege that never lasts.
      - ShinTakuya 7y ago
        Yeah I understand the reality of the situation, I probably shouldn't have said "I don't understand" in my comment. I just think it's a shame. I don't contribute to OSS, but I also think it's more than a "hobby". I'd rather see it as an international movement. I hope that one day the UN or something similar provides an equivalent service to Github without commercial interests. Even the UN is heavily politicised, but I don't like that the US alone gets to dictate what happens to some of the most important repositories of shared human technological knowledge when those repositories have been heavily contributed to by citizens of countries other than the US.
rcfox 7y ago
FYI: It's just "Ukraine", not "the Ukraine". "The Ukraine" referred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union.
- dvt 7y ago
  Fixed -- had no idea, thanks for the heads-up!
- microcolonel 7y ago
  Would've been nice if we called it Ukrainia in English from then on. It would make sense with the conventions for transliterating cyrillic country names.
  - Fins 7y ago
    How so? There's no "ia" there.
    - microcolonel 7y ago
      I put the i on the wrong side, then added it in one place but didn't remove it in the other.
- shitgoose 7y ago
  "The Ukraine" referred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union. no disrespect, but there is this coming from?!
  - egorfine 7y ago
    Ukrainian society is ill and this is one of the recent inflammations that hurts. Being unable to fix roads or economy, they have directed their frustration towards symbolic things, fighting everyone who calls Kiev "Kiev" instead of "Kyiv", renaming streets, etc. Now they have decided that "the Ukraine" is somehow referencing Ukraine as a territory and not a state. God knows where any of this comes from, but any "patriotic" idea gets boosted immediately no matter how stupid. Source: am Ukrainian.
kragen 7y ago
Deleting web pages and burning books is not the same thing as not providing banking services.
hugh4life 7y ago
"just about everyone has sanctioned Crimea" https://tariganter.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-international-community-for-dummies.jpg https://tariganter.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-internati... So what? They don't do the same to Turkey(Cyprus) or Israel(Golan Heights).

by dvt 7y ago

baroffoos 7y ago

Does that make it better?

dvt 7y ago
No, it just makes it a geopolitical reality that you have to somehow punish Russia when it mobilizes ground forces and forcibly annexes pieces of land. Don't forget that Russian-backed insurgents literally shot a passenger plane out of the sky[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
- option 7y ago
  this punishes people who live in Crimea
- baddox 7y ago
  Something tells me Russia is not particularly bothered by the inability of people in Crimea to use GitHub.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    Of course. Nobody is particularly bothered by the loss of one company's services. It's the totality of the effect that you're looking for.
- viraptor 7y ago
  I agree with the idea, but wonder if that really hurts the right people. People in Crimea get both annexed and punished on global market. Russia gets access to what it wanted and gets no real punishment.
- option 7y ago
  Have you actually been to Crimea? Because I had and still have lots of relatives there (I am originally from Ukraine). I have zero doubt that overwhelming majority of people there (easily over 70%) want to be with Russia instead of Ukraine
  - my_first_acct 7y ago
    I think your numbers are probably correct. I don't happen to know another number: how many people in Chechnya would rather be independent than part of Russia. But it doesn't matter; the Russian government is very selective about how it applies the "right to self-determination". The Russian government is likewise selective in its interpretation of the Budapest agreement (1994) [1], in which Russia guaranteed Ukraine's territorial integrity in return for Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons. Edit: I incorrectly wrote "Bucharest agreement"; fixed it (thanks jotm) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
    - jotm 7y ago
      Bucharest and Budapest are two different cities :)
    - option 7y ago
      I agree with what you said. But this means that US/West sanctions people for their democratic choice. We should instead sanction people associated with Russia’s totalitarian government.
      - my_first_acct 7y ago
        The US has in fact sanctioned Russian officials associated with the annexation of Crimea. [1] You might also spare some sympathy for those residents of Crimea who did not wish to join the Russian Federation, for example, many Crimean Tatars. Not only have they suffered the loss of access to github, they also have to contend with a campaign of political repression. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_sanctioned_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_sanctioned_duri... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Crimea#Crimean_Tatars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Crimea#Crimean_Tat...
- dn3 7y ago
  I don't mean this to sound aggressive, but would you agree then with sanctioning the U.S. after its actual military shot down an Iranian passenger plane, inside Iranian waters [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
  - dvt 7y ago
    Someone always brings up 655. Say what you will, the US government at least paid out to the victims (although never officially apologized). While Russia denies all involvement to this day and lawsuits are still ongoing.
    - Hidios 7y ago
      Saying Russia did it too and they were much worse about it is not a valid defense of anything.
      - dvt 7y ago
        It wasn’t a defense. Two terrible things happened (let’s assume both accidental). The US admitted Iran-655 was an “accident that resulted in a loss of life” and paid out ~$200k per victim. Russia pretends like MH-17 never happened. Who do you think has more of a moral high ground?
        chinhodado 7y ago
        Not defending Russia, just saying the circumstances are a bit different. Iran-655 was downed by a US warship - clear from the outset and no space for argument, while MH-17 was downed by (most probably) Russian separatists with a mobile missiles system, which allows for a lot of deniability, and since they had the chance to deny it they went with it. The US didn't even have that luxury.
    - dn3 7y ago
      Ignoring your initial tone, I see what you're saying, and agree these aren't identical cases. Though it should be emphasized they only payed out to the victims because Iran brought it to the international courts and they wanted to settle. They never, as you said, apologized, or even thought they had any legal obligation to the victims. Feels like your splitting hairs with "Russia denies involvement" as being dramatically different -- both seem like terrible events that neither super power really feels responsible for despite being the ones who put those weapons where they were without legitimacy.
- jwieczorek 7y ago
  After the Ukrainian air traffic control spent weeks bringing the same flight closer and closer to the war zone, even though a ban on air traffic over that territory should have been put there immediately. No one is questioning the Ukrainian side how come they've "lost" and have not put forward before the Dutch Safety Board the primary radar recordings of the Dnepropetrovsk area from that period. The Ukrainian government, and the U.S., at that very moment needed something like this to happen to get the Western European governments to put their stake in that war and the Western European societies to approve it. They're partially responsible for this crash and in that regard your description of this event is highly misguiding.

avocado4 7y ago

Why do they sanction Crimea (victim) instead of Russia?

dogma1138 7y ago
Because Crimea is a defacto Russian state now and for the most part a large portion of the population and the current government is participating in it. The sanctions are for the most part per the request of the Ukrainian government. If Catalonia becomes a separatist state tomorrow and Spain and its allies sanction it everyone in it will be under sanctions regardless of who or what they support. This is what happens when your sanctions are geographical in nature. No one has the capability to validate if a person in Crimea is a Russian supporter or not. The idea behind the sanctions is in the end to make the life of the populous sufficiently difficult so they will rebel.
- ShinTakuya 7y ago
  I don't like what's going in Crimea either, and I support most sanctions against it, but I also don't understand why they should be excluded from open source software participation. On an idealogical basis I reject the idea of OSS being politicised. Otherwise, where do we stop?
  - stonogo 7y ago
    Reality dictates that politics are inherent in human society. You are not above it, and neither is your hobby. Ignoring society is a privilege that never lasts.
    - ShinTakuya 7y ago
      Yeah I understand the reality of the situation, I probably shouldn't have said "I don't understand" in my comment. I just think it's a shame. I don't contribute to OSS, but I also think it's more than a "hobby". I'd rather see it as an international movement. I hope that one day the UN or something similar provides an equivalent service to Github without commercial interests. Even the UN is heavily politicised, but I don't like that the US alone gets to dictate what happens to some of the most important repositories of shared human technological knowledge when those repositories have been heavily contributed to by citizens of countries other than the US.

rcfox 7y ago

FYI: It's just "Ukraine", not "the Ukraine". "The Ukraine" referred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union.

dvt 7y ago
Fixed -- had no idea, thanks for the heads-up!
microcolonel 7y ago
Would've been nice if we called it Ukrainia in English from then on. It would make sense with the conventions for transliterating cyrillic country names.
- Fins 7y ago
  How so? There's no "ia" there.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    I put the i on the wrong side, then added it in one place but didn't remove it in the other.
shitgoose 7y ago
"The Ukraine" referred to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet Union. no disrespect, but there is this coming from?!
- egorfine 7y ago
  Ukrainian society is ill and this is one of the recent inflammations that hurts. Being unable to fix roads or economy, they have directed their frustration towards symbolic things, fighting everyone who calls Kiev "Kiev" instead of "Kyiv", renaming streets, etc. Now they have decided that "the Ukraine" is somehow referencing Ukraine as a territory and not a state. God knows where any of this comes from, but any "patriotic" idea gets boosted immediately no matter how stupid. Source: am Ukrainian.

kragen 7y ago

Deleting web pages and burning books is not the same thing as not providing banking services.

hugh4life 7y ago

"just about everyone has sanctioned Crimea" https://tariganter.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-international-community-for-dummies.jpg https://tariganter.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/the-internati... So what? They don't do the same to Turkey(Cyprus) or Israel(Golan Heights).