9 ms·

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.
      - stonogo 7y ago
        Very few people have listened when the minority raised alarms about so much "open source" development concentrated into one privately-owned closed-source service. You, and many others, have said you don't like the US government controlling this information, but people rarely seem to be interested in doing anything about it. Nothing is stopping this person from sending email patches like they do in the Linux kernel project. No sanctions are involved in this person hosting a Git installation in Crimea that the rest of the world can access. The problem isn't politics. The problem is that programmer culture currently conflates "access to Github" (which is a service run at the whims of an American defense contractor) with "free or open-source software" (which is a spectrum of opinions about copyright law). They are not related concepts, no matter what Github's marketing team has convinced the world.
      - eesmith 7y ago
        "Open source" started in part as a political shift from the older free software movement. One justification was that companies were avoiding free software because they considered its ideological basis as incompatible with profit. Instead, "open source" focused on the development benefits, eg, others may find bugs and contribute code. I therefore agree with the view that 'free software' is a social movement, while 'open source' is a development methodology. OSS is full of commercial interests well beyond hobby interests. Joel Spolsky pointed that out in https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ : > I noticed something interesting about open source software, which is this: most of the companies spending big money to develop open source software are doing it because it’s a good business strategy for them, not because they suddenly stopped believing in capitalism and fell in love with freedom-as-in-speech. The free software movement is itself political - as are all social movements. For example, the emphasis on end-user freedoms related to copyright protection conflict with the emphasis on worker rights embodied in the Anti 996 License.
  - dogma1138 7y ago
    Because US corporations and non-US corporations with major US operations tend not to want to risk it and comply with sanctions. These sanctions tend not to be universal and some services can continue to be provided, however the price of violating said sanctions can be very severe. I don’t know how many people who work at Github or PayPal especially senior management are willing to risk fines not to mention jail time for something as simple as some Russian officer buying a DVD on the internet while being stationed in Crimea or a local IT guy from the current pro-Russian government making a pull request.
  - CalChris 7y ago
    Whether it is open source or not, GitHub is an American corporation (owned by Microsoft) and what it does is commercial activity. This isn't a free speech issue. It's not even a corporate free speech issue. This is commercial activity. Whether this is good policy or not, is another matter but it isn't a free speech matter.
    - leereeves 7y ago
      How did the free software movement allow a private commercial business to obtain so much power over it?
      - codetwelve 7y ago
        Private commercial businesses do this, they fool you with their marketing and make you think that their product is also free and open source. Github's branding and marketing are to thank. And the blame also goes to us and other developers for not seeing this.
        acqq 7y ago
        Yes, the similar stories happen again and again. As a good reflection, there was that comics with the "world tiniest open source violin" https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/
      - CalChris 7y ago
        Freely. Or cheaply. Or maybe just conveniently. Linus is worth an estimated $150M and he has a lot of power over it. It’s a conundrum.
      - mempko 7y ago
        You can thank O'Reilly and friends who undermined it by creating the Open Source movement.
    - decasteve 7y ago
      The Olympics and other athletic organizations support commercial activity, with many athletes coming to compete from sanctioned countries, where corporations benefit from the activity. Seeing free/open source software in the same light ideologically is not that much of a leap. There is precedent.
  - topspin 7y ago
    "OSS being politicised" GitHub is a subsidiary of Microsoft, a US company with lucrative interests in the US government. While this does indeed stifle OSS activity for people in Crimea it isn't really about OSS.
    - ShinTakuya 7y ago
      Oh I probably misworded my comment, I understand the legal and geopolitical reality, it just pains me that it's turned out this way.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    This sort of argument is usually applied to sports.
  - droithomme 7y ago
    > I reject the idea of OSS being politicised. Then don't use github. I don't. It's completely toxic.
- quaquaqua1 7y ago
  >for the most part the population is participating in it If anyone ever dared to assert that I support US war mongering just because I live the US..... lord
  - narrowingorbits 7y ago
    With taxes, you do.
    - ConcernedCoder 7y ago
      Yeah, instead you can show your solidarity against it by going to federal prison for tax evasion...
      - geofft 7y ago
        They couldn't fit all of us into prisons, if we all refused to pay taxes.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - squirrelicus 7y ago
        Or you could choose to become a citizen of a country you support instead. I'm not saying "get out if you're not all in", I'm not trying to be dismissive. But your citizenship and temperament are accidents of your birth, and you have the power to rectify the former.
        filleduchaos 7y ago
        > But your citizenship and temperament are accidents of your birth, and you have the power to rectify the former. This is an incredibly naive/somewhat condescending statement, considering that it is far beyond the reach of the vast majority of people.
- droithomme 7y ago
  Astonishing how anti-democratic HN and the media are. Despicable too.
- gdy 7y ago
  "The idea behind the sanctions is in the end to make the life of the populous sufficiently difficult so they will rebel." Isn't it evil? I mean, if you don't believe the results of referendum and subsequent Gallop's poll, than sanctions are intentionally hurting people who are victims of Russian occupation. And if you do believe that overwhelming majority of Crimean people support reunification with Russia, the sanctions punish Crimeans for exercising their right of self-determination and reek of double standards. I don't remember any sanctions on Chechen republic after it separated from Russia, for example.
  - mrrrgn 7y ago
    > I don't remember any sanctions on Chechen republic after it separated from Russia, for example. The double standards are all explained by geopolitical maneuvering. Western powers pulled Kiev into their orbit and threatened to use that influence to harm Russia's economic and military capabilities. The tl;dr is that Russia needs access to warm water ports. They were happy to lease a port from the Ukraine until rumors began spreading in Kiev that Russia's lease would be ended.[1][2] Because the Russian economy and military couldn't afford to lose access to a naval base with a warm water port they decided to take drastic action. Another odd footnote about this situation is that Crimea was given as a "symbolic" gift to the Ukraine while the USSR was still strong.[3] It's not like it's some ancient sacred Ukranian land. It's just very valuable for trade and military purposes. 1. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/navy-base-syria-crimea-putin/408694/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/na... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv_Pact 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_transfer_of_Crimea#Complications_of_the_%22personal_gesture%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_transfer_of_Crimea#Compli...
    - compuguy 7y ago
      In that case Russia should of renegotiated the deal, instead of invading a portion of a sovereign country (the Ukraine)..
      - gdy 7y ago
- zzzcpan 7y ago
  > The sanctions are for the most part per the request of the Ukrainian government. Sanctions were pushed by the US for the most part. > The idea behind the sanctions is in the end to make the life of the populous sufficiently difficult so they will rebel. The idea is to flex power for the enemy government and other countries, nobody cares about the people. People are definitely not going to be happy about the west after that and even less likely to participate in organized rebellion against the government, as all sides are bad now.
chr1 7y ago
Maybe because people setting sanctions know that Crimea is not a victim, and most of its population supported joining Russia, and hope that making their life harder may reduce the support.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  Why didn't my newspaper tell me about these people who now have the government they prefer?
- ShinTakuya 7y ago
  I don't support Crimea's situation because I'm not a fan of the Russian government, but to play devil's advocate, if Crimea were to be returned to Ukraine, wouldn't that then make Crimea a victim given it's not what its people desire? So the sanctions are in favour of making Crimea a victim?
- droithomme 7y ago
  Yes, most people despise democracy and self-determination.
  - dang 7y ago
    Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've been doing it a lot lately, unfortunately, and we're trying for better than that here. If you'd please review the site guidelines and take their spirit more to heart, we'd be grateful. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- buran 7y ago
  Yeah, because those who didn't like joining Russia are arrested and/or killed. Russians have their unofficial name "katsaps" (butchers) for reason. Nobody asked population of Crimea anything. Nobody asks a sheep is it agree to be shaved.
  - chr1 7y ago
    Do you have information how many were arrested or killed, i know only about Sentsov.
bin0 7y ago
Because they don't want to allow Russia to use it as a port or for commerce; Russia has been trying to take the Crimea for commercial purposes for the last millenium or so. And because they don't have the guts to sanction all of Russia.
- dvt 7y ago
  Further, sanctioning all of Russia would probably break the Principle of Proportionality[1]. [1] https://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e1459 https://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/...
  - bin0 7y ago
    I'd disagree with that. Russia seizing foreign territory is an extremely concerning act. The goal could well be to cripple Russia and ideally promote regime change such that she becomes an ally of America; this works towards that.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  1954, when USSR voluntarily transferred Crimea to its then-vassal state Ukraine, was 65 years ago, not 1,000.
  - buran 7y ago
    Crimea and Kuban were removed from Ukraine after soviet occupation, then "gifted" back in exchange for other territories of Ukraine of same size. However, Ukrainians, Tatars, and Greeks were exterminated first, to free space for Russian colonists.
    - jessaustin 7y ago
      1783 was also not 1,000 years ago.
      - buran 7y ago
jchook 7y ago
If you want a long but clear image of the Russian geopolitical chess game, read "The Fourth Political Theory". Putin loves this book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Political_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Political_Theory
- pizza 7y ago
  Just out of curiosity (not judging), what concrete observation makes you say Putin supports Duginism, as opposed to, say, Dugin said some things years ago that just now coincide with some recent news?
  - jchook 7y ago
    I learned about it via a political science professor at the University of Virginia. Even the Wikipedia on Dugin's older book says, "The book has had a large influence within the Russian military, police, and foreign policy elites[1] and it has been used as a textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military.[1][2]" The correlation between suggestions in the Fourth Political Theory book align a little too perfectly with recent events: - Break GB from the EU [2] - Heightened racial tension in the US [3] - Annexation of Crimea and Ukraine - etc. Hard to ignore how much Russia operates "by the book". Also in the Wikipedia for FPT I linked earlier, "The book has been cited as an inspiration for Russian policy in events such as the War in Donbass..." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_Brexit_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...
mr_toad 7y ago
> Why do they sanction Crimea (victim) instead of Russia? Because Ukraine is pro-west and Crimea is pro-Russia. West good, Russia bad. Sanctions are black and white. The political situation is less-so: The Crimea voted in a (illegal) referendum to rejoin Russia after a coup in Ukraine (also illegal, obviously) had replaced the elected but somewhat pro-Russian president with an unelected pro-European government. While this revolution was popular with the west (funny how we support coups that overthrow elected governments when they go our way), it was unpopular in the south of Ukraine, which is mostly ethically Russian (the previous ethnic population having all been ‘relocated’).
- droithomme 7y ago
  Democracy is never illegal. Only fascists make that claim.
- buran 7y ago
  The Crimea didn't vote anything. Crimea was invaded by Russian army. "Referendum" was military action, with intention to distract people. I.e. it was just show, yet another Russian fake, not a real thing.
hihi123 7y ago
Why are you referring to Crimea as a victim? Their desire to leave the Ukraine has been well-documented since the beginning. See this amusing article from 1994 in the NYT for an example [1]: > A separatist candidate who wants Crimea to leave Ukraine and integrate with Russia won more than 70 percent of the vote today in run-off presidential elections, preliminary results showed. His victory sets the stage for a direct confrontation between Ukraine and Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula that is dominated by ethnic Russians. Russia took Crimea illegally by force, but people of Crimea are hardly victims. Ultimately, the goal of sanctions is to signal that the US is not accepting Crimea as part of Russia. To allow US companies to operate in Crimea would legitimize the annexation. (And as far as the people go - I don't think anyone cares for the people, particularly.) [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/31/world/separatist-winning-crimea-presidency.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/31/world/separatist-winning-...
- coliveira 7y ago
  If, as you say, people want to be part of Russia, what is the difference? Do they need to be punished for wanting to be part of another country?
  - hihi123 7y ago
    That's an open-ended question :) If your goal is to keep the Ukraine whole, you generally punish the people whose desire to leave runs counter to that goal.
  - riku_iki 7y ago
    Russia would severely punish people who wants to be part of other country (not Russia). It is in both countries (Ukraine and Russia) constitution, that it is against the law to separate territory without country-wide voting.
    - coliveira 7y ago
      But the discussion is not about what Russia or Ukraine would do, instead, it is about American companies punishing people living in a territory that is now separate from Ukraine.
eps 7y ago
Because it's mostly a symbolic gesture that doesn't greatly affect business interests.
flamey 7y ago
Because its not in their economic interests.

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.
    - stonogo 7y ago
      Very few people have listened when the minority raised alarms about so much "open source" development concentrated into one privately-owned closed-source service. You, and many others, have said you don't like the US government controlling this information, but people rarely seem to be interested in doing anything about it. Nothing is stopping this person from sending email patches like they do in the Linux kernel project. No sanctions are involved in this person hosting a Git installation in Crimea that the rest of the world can access. The problem isn't politics. The problem is that programmer culture currently conflates "access to Github" (which is a service run at the whims of an American defense contractor) with "free or open-source software" (which is a spectrum of opinions about copyright law). They are not related concepts, no matter what Github's marketing team has convinced the world.
    - eesmith 7y ago
      "Open source" started in part as a political shift from the older free software movement. One justification was that companies were avoiding free software because they considered its ideological basis as incompatible with profit. Instead, "open source" focused on the development benefits, eg, others may find bugs and contribute code. I therefore agree with the view that 'free software' is a social movement, while 'open source' is a development methodology. OSS is full of commercial interests well beyond hobby interests. Joel Spolsky pointed that out in https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/ : > I noticed something interesting about open source software, which is this: most of the companies spending big money to develop open source software are doing it because it’s a good business strategy for them, not because they suddenly stopped believing in capitalism and fell in love with freedom-as-in-speech. The free software movement is itself political - as are all social movements. For example, the emphasis on end-user freedoms related to copyright protection conflict with the emphasis on worker rights embodied in the Anti 996 License.
- dogma1138 7y ago
  Because US corporations and non-US corporations with major US operations tend not to want to risk it and comply with sanctions. These sanctions tend not to be universal and some services can continue to be provided, however the price of violating said sanctions can be very severe. I don’t know how many people who work at Github or PayPal especially senior management are willing to risk fines not to mention jail time for something as simple as some Russian officer buying a DVD on the internet while being stationed in Crimea or a local IT guy from the current pro-Russian government making a pull request.
- CalChris 7y ago
  Whether it is open source or not, GitHub is an American corporation (owned by Microsoft) and what it does is commercial activity. This isn't a free speech issue. It's not even a corporate free speech issue. This is commercial activity. Whether this is good policy or not, is another matter but it isn't a free speech matter.
  - leereeves 7y ago
    How did the free software movement allow a private commercial business to obtain so much power over it?
    - codetwelve 7y ago
      Private commercial businesses do this, they fool you with their marketing and make you think that their product is also free and open source. Github's branding and marketing are to thank. And the blame also goes to us and other developers for not seeing this.
      - acqq 7y ago
        Yes, the similar stories happen again and again. As a good reflection, there was that comics with the "world tiniest open source violin" https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/
    - CalChris 7y ago
      Freely. Or cheaply. Or maybe just conveniently. Linus is worth an estimated $150M and he has a lot of power over it. It’s a conundrum.
    - mempko 7y ago
      You can thank O'Reilly and friends who undermined it by creating the Open Source movement.
  - decasteve 7y ago
    The Olympics and other athletic organizations support commercial activity, with many athletes coming to compete from sanctioned countries, where corporations benefit from the activity. Seeing free/open source software in the same light ideologically is not that much of a leap. There is precedent.
- topspin 7y ago
  "OSS being politicised" GitHub is a subsidiary of Microsoft, a US company with lucrative interests in the US government. While this does indeed stifle OSS activity for people in Crimea it isn't really about OSS.
  - ShinTakuya 7y ago
    Oh I probably misworded my comment, I understand the legal and geopolitical reality, it just pains me that it's turned out this way.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- lostlogin 7y ago
  This sort of argument is usually applied to sports.
- droithomme 7y ago
  > I reject the idea of OSS being politicised. Then don't use github. I don't. It's completely toxic.
quaquaqua1 7y ago
>for the most part the population is participating in it If anyone ever dared to assert that I support US war mongering just because I live the US..... lord
- narrowingorbits 7y ago
  With taxes, you do.
  - ConcernedCoder 7y ago
    Yeah, instead you can show your solidarity against it by going to federal prison for tax evasion...
    - geofft 7y ago
      They couldn't fit all of us into prisons, if we all refused to pay taxes.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - squirrelicus 7y ago
      Or you could choose to become a citizen of a country you support instead. I'm not saying "get out if you're not all in", I'm not trying to be dismissive. But your citizenship and temperament are accidents of your birth, and you have the power to rectify the former.
      - filleduchaos 7y ago
        > But your citizenship and temperament are accidents of your birth, and you have the power to rectify the former. This is an incredibly naive/somewhat condescending statement, considering that it is far beyond the reach of the vast majority of people.
droithomme 7y ago
Astonishing how anti-democratic HN and the media are. Despicable too.
gdy 7y ago
"The idea behind the sanctions is in the end to make the life of the populous sufficiently difficult so they will rebel." Isn't it evil? I mean, if you don't believe the results of referendum and subsequent Gallop's poll, than sanctions are intentionally hurting people who are victims of Russian occupation. And if you do believe that overwhelming majority of Crimean people support reunification with Russia, the sanctions punish Crimeans for exercising their right of self-determination and reek of double standards. I don't remember any sanctions on Chechen republic after it separated from Russia, for example.
- mrrrgn 7y ago
  > I don't remember any sanctions on Chechen republic after it separated from Russia, for example. The double standards are all explained by geopolitical maneuvering. Western powers pulled Kiev into their orbit and threatened to use that influence to harm Russia's economic and military capabilities. The tl;dr is that Russia needs access to warm water ports. They were happy to lease a port from the Ukraine until rumors began spreading in Kiev that Russia's lease would be ended.[1][2] Because the Russian economy and military couldn't afford to lose access to a naval base with a warm water port they decided to take drastic action. Another odd footnote about this situation is that Crimea was given as a "symbolic" gift to the Ukraine while the USSR was still strong.[3] It's not like it's some ancient sacred Ukranian land. It's just very valuable for trade and military purposes. 1. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/navy-base-syria-crimea-putin/408694/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/na... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv_Pact 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_transfer_of_Crimea#Complications_of_the_%22personal_gesture%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_transfer_of_Crimea#Compli...
  - compuguy 7y ago
    In that case Russia should of renegotiated the deal, instead of invading a portion of a sovereign country (the Ukraine)..
    - gdy 7y ago
zzzcpan 7y ago
> The sanctions are for the most part per the request of the Ukrainian government. Sanctions were pushed by the US for the most part. > The idea behind the sanctions is in the end to make the life of the populous sufficiently difficult so they will rebel. The idea is to flex power for the enemy government and other countries, nobody cares about the people. People are definitely not going to be happy about the west after that and even less likely to participate in organized rebellion against the government, as all sides are bad now.

chr1 7y ago

Maybe because people setting sanctions know that Crimea is not a victim, and most of its population supported joining Russia, and hope that making their life harder may reduce the support.

jessaustin 7y ago
Why didn't my newspaper tell me about these people who now have the government they prefer?
ShinTakuya 7y ago
I don't support Crimea's situation because I'm not a fan of the Russian government, but to play devil's advocate, if Crimea were to be returned to Ukraine, wouldn't that then make Crimea a victim given it's not what its people desire? So the sanctions are in favour of making Crimea a victim?
droithomme 7y ago
Yes, most people despise democracy and self-determination.
- dang 7y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've been doing it a lot lately, unfortunately, and we're trying for better than that here. If you'd please review the site guidelines and take their spirit more to heart, we'd be grateful. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
buran 7y ago
Yeah, because those who didn't like joining Russia are arrested and/or killed. Russians have their unofficial name "katsaps" (butchers) for reason. Nobody asked population of Crimea anything. Nobody asks a sheep is it agree to be shaved.
- chr1 7y ago
  Do you have information how many were arrested or killed, i know only about Sentsov.

bin0 7y ago

Because they don't want to allow Russia to use it as a port or for commerce; Russia has been trying to take the Crimea for commercial purposes for the last millenium or so. And because they don't have the guts to sanction all of Russia.

dvt 7y ago
Further, sanctioning all of Russia would probably break the Principle of Proportionality[1]. [1] https://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e1459 https://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/...
- bin0 7y ago
  I'd disagree with that. Russia seizing foreign territory is an extremely concerning act. The goal could well be to cripple Russia and ideally promote regime change such that she becomes an ally of America; this works towards that.
jessaustin 7y ago
1954, when USSR voluntarily transferred Crimea to its then-vassal state Ukraine, was 65 years ago, not 1,000.
- buran 7y ago
  Crimea and Kuban were removed from Ukraine after soviet occupation, then "gifted" back in exchange for other territories of Ukraine of same size. However, Ukrainians, Tatars, and Greeks were exterminated first, to free space for Russian colonists.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    1783 was also not 1,000 years ago.
    - buran 7y ago

jchook 7y ago

If you want a long but clear image of the Russian geopolitical chess game, read "The Fourth Political Theory". Putin loves this book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Political_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Political_Theory

pizza 7y ago
Just out of curiosity (not judging), what concrete observation makes you say Putin supports Duginism, as opposed to, say, Dugin said some things years ago that just now coincide with some recent news?
- jchook 7y ago
  I learned about it via a political science professor at the University of Virginia. Even the Wikipedia on Dugin's older book says, "The book has had a large influence within the Russian military, police, and foreign policy elites[1] and it has been used as a textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military.[1][2]" The correlation between suggestions in the Fourth Political Theory book align a little too perfectly with recent events: - Break GB from the EU [2] - Heightened racial tension in the US [3] - Annexation of Crimea and Ukraine - etc. Hard to ignore how much Russia operates "by the book". Also in the Wikipedia for FPT I linked earlier, "The book has been cited as an inspiration for Russian policy in events such as the War in Donbass..." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_Brexit_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...

mr_toad 7y ago

> Why do they sanction Crimea (victim) instead of Russia? Because Ukraine is pro-west and Crimea is pro-Russia. West good, Russia bad. Sanctions are black and white. The political situation is less-so: The Crimea voted in a (illegal) referendum to rejoin Russia after a coup in Ukraine (also illegal, obviously) had replaced the elected but somewhat pro-Russian president with an unelected pro-European government. While this revolution was popular with the west (funny how we support coups that overthrow elected governments when they go our way), it was unpopular in the south of Ukraine, which is mostly ethically Russian (the previous ethnic population having all been ‘relocated’).

droithomme 7y ago
Democracy is never illegal. Only fascists make that claim.
buran 7y ago
The Crimea didn't vote anything. Crimea was invaded by Russian army. "Referendum" was military action, with intention to distract people. I.e. it was just show, yet another Russian fake, not a real thing.

hihi123 7y ago

Why are you referring to Crimea as a victim? Their desire to leave the Ukraine has been well-documented since the beginning. See this amusing article from 1994 in the NYT for an example [1]: > A separatist candidate who wants Crimea to leave Ukraine and integrate with Russia won more than 70 percent of the vote today in run-off presidential elections, preliminary results showed. His victory sets the stage for a direct confrontation between Ukraine and Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula that is dominated by ethnic Russians. Russia took Crimea illegally by force, but people of Crimea are hardly victims. Ultimately, the goal of sanctions is to signal that the US is not accepting Crimea as part of Russia. To allow US companies to operate in Crimea would legitimize the annexation. (And as far as the people go - I don't think anyone cares for the people, particularly.) [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/31/world/separatist-winning-crimea-presidency.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/31/world/separatist-winning-...

coliveira 7y ago
If, as you say, people want to be part of Russia, what is the difference? Do they need to be punished for wanting to be part of another country?
- hihi123 7y ago
  That's an open-ended question :) If your goal is to keep the Ukraine whole, you generally punish the people whose desire to leave runs counter to that goal.
- riku_iki 7y ago
  Russia would severely punish people who wants to be part of other country (not Russia). It is in both countries (Ukraine and Russia) constitution, that it is against the law to separate territory without country-wide voting.
  - coliveira 7y ago
    But the discussion is not about what Russia or Ukraine would do, instead, it is about American companies punishing people living in a territory that is now separate from Ukraine.

eps 7y ago

Because it's mostly a symbolic gesture that doesn't greatly affect business interests.

flamey 7y ago

Because its not in their economic interests.