7 ms·

> an entry point for Russians in Europe. > we have opened an office to easier collaborate with sanctioned individuals As a Russian living in Belgrade I love h

by floppyd 10mo ago

> an entry point for Russians in Europe. > we have opened an office to easier collaborate with sanctioned individuals As a Russian living in Belgrade I love how you see "being open to people from Russia" as a negative, and how you just instantly equate being russian with being under sanctions. I, and everyone I know of, left russia not because they're a weasel trying to help putin move his money in and out of Europe, I moved because I was afraid I'd be forced to go kill and be killed, and because I just didn't want to take part in any of it. And I chose Serbia because it's one of the rare few options that would welcome me without too much restrictions and that's not prohibitively expensive for me to live.

jimbohn 10mo ago
Given the number of russians that approve of the regime and the war (including those living in the west!), the ongoing hybrid warfare, the ongoing war in Ukraine, AND past history; is it really so difficult to understand why people wouldn't see this as a positive? Or why people don't want to have a russian minority in their own country, perhaps one bordering with russia? What do you think about Ukraine? Should it be a free country? What about its territorial integrity, to whom does Crimea belong? What does "everyone you know" think about it?
- floppyd 10mo ago
  > What do you think about Ukraine? Should it be a free country? What about its territorial integrity, to whom does Crimea belong? Just wanted to let you know that asking those questions as if there can be any variation in my answers really shows you are judging russians from the outside. The Crimea question has been akin to a meme for a decade at this point. I'm obviously not saying "everyone" is thinking one way or another, because there's no "everyone", and there's also no "almost everyone". There are huge chunks of the population that are very much on the opposite ends of the spectrum, and judging one chunk by opinions and action of another one is highly disingenuous, imo.
  - jimbohn 10mo ago
    Couldn't you just answer those simple questions? Why is that question a meme? I've yet to find a russian that "just didn't want to get involved" able to provide me straight, simple answers to those questions. I wish other Westerners would wake up to this behaviour, because even navalny was just another russian imperialist (see his past comments about Georgians, for example). About the "everyone", you mentioned that "I, and everyone I know of, left russia not because [...]", so I assumed you must know at least a bunch of like-minded people that share your opinion on the aforementioned facts (not that we know your opinion yet). About the "huge chunks" on a certain spectrum, I am not sure that chunk is huge at all. It's likely a tiny minority that would very much put an asterisk next to their answers to those questions. That minority has been quite silent, regardless of their geographical location and relative safeness.
    - veeti 10mo ago
      Did you consider the possibility that not all people in the world enjoy such a huge degree of freedom of speech? If I had family in Russia and I didn't want them to fall out a window I would also "avoid getting involved". For the same reason I also recommend you don't try using Tiananmen 1989 as a conversation starter when talking to Chinese people.
      - jimbohn 10mo ago
        I did. He has a 6-month-old account with apparently no personal information attached. And, if there is personal identifying info in some comment, it will conveniently allow him to "not get involved" for his own security. But he felt the need to tell us how we should be welcoming of russians. Worked well in the past centuries; I am sure it will work well in the future.
      - Tadpole9181 10mo ago
        Then why does Kagi use a search engine (Yandex) from such a repressive nation with such powerful censorship that someone in Siberia needs to watch their back simply supporting Ukrainian sovereignty? Insofar as pushing back against their customers asking them to stop funding them, or at least providing opt-out.
- TomasBM 10mo ago
  It's fair to worry about the geopolitics of borders and minority groups, but this does not have much to do with a company placing its headquarters in a middle country where maybe (former) members of a controversial state could also work. People believe all kinds of weird things, and that includes Russians. In secular countries, you're free to believe in what you want, but that doesn't mean you will or should be taken seriously. What a random Russian person believes doesn't matter, unless they have power and it has an effect on others. Switch Russian with any other ethnicity or nation in the world, and you will perhaps see why the rhetoric of mixing geopolitics and ethnic politics with company policy (or even your own relationships) is not the best.
  - Tadpole9181 10mo ago
    Kagi also kept using Yandex - a Russian search engine - despite many people explicitly requesting they not provide funding to imperialist invaders (aside the obvious question of censorship skewing result quality). When they said no, and explained Yandex only gets paid when needed for a search anyway, people asked for a toggle to disable Yandex for their searches. That way at least they aren't funding it. Rejected that too. Not going to lie, it is kinda weird how this is happening again.
    - TomasBM 10mo ago
      I haven't followed the particular situation, but if it's as you say it, I agree that's bad company policy not to allow opting-out. It's still a leap to conclude that "HQ in a neutral country" equates to or results in "Russian influence". The obvious stepping stones between the announcement and the conclusion of the parent comment would need to be that: A) Kagi (intends to) hires many employees of Russian origin, who B) live in Belgrade and C) also evidently and publicly hold imperialist views, which D) have an effect on the company and its product.
      - jimbohn 10mo ago
        Note that this isn't "neutral" as in "I like chocolate" vs "You don't like chocolate". Sometimes being "neutral" is pretty damning, more so if you are providing a "neutral" ground for sanctioned individuals or people waiting the $CURRENT_GENOCIDAL_WAR out. I agree with you about not likely being there an A->B->C->D conclusion, but it's a signal about the preferences or lack thereof of the ownership of the company. But really, they can do whatever they prefer.
Yizahi 10mo ago
You and maybe other emigrant citizens can be completely opposing war. I'm not disputing that since I don't know you. Point 1 - I was discussing action of a corporation, not an individual. And that corporation has 1 (one) single office in the whole vast Europe, and it's in a country known to be a base of other similar trade arrangements. It is not an evidence, but it is a big hint based on more than a decade of other cases. Point 2 - regarding "one of the rare few options", as far a I know not a single EU country has or had a complete ban on immigration of Russian citizens. A few minor tweaks were made, most of them recent, after already a decade of war, like restricting only some subset of visas or restricting asylum seekers etc. Czechia had some bigger restriction just in 2025 afaik. But in most of the EU countries Russian citizen can legally immigrate and work.
- jimbohn 10mo ago
  I know I sound pedantic, but he didn't say he opposes the war (nor the regime), just that he doesn't want to be involved.
  - Tadpole9181 10mo ago
    Yeah, they were asked explicitly and danced around the question. Really seems like they don't mind the invasion of a sovereign nation and murder of its people - they just don't want to accept any personal risk.
    - jimbohn 10mo ago
      IMO russian culture/society, starting from the very early days of the empire, is drenched with imperialism and essentially a genocidal nature. This can be found from the lower strata of their society to the upper end, including authors like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, etc. Sadly for them (and especially their neighbours), the transformation from empire to soviet and later to empire again hasn't changed this factor. For some reason, there is an implicit assumption, in that culture, of their superiority w.r.t. anybody that isn't American. I heard funny stories from a professor in the US telling that russians were the only PHD students that he felt like were acting as if he was beneath them, because he was "just" a Western European rather than an American (he had citizenship, but anyway). This might get me a bunch of downvotes, but it's an unsolved problem that Europe refuses to face, and it has blown up in Europe's face pretty hard. It would be better for everybody involved to dismember russia so that it doesn't have the different *Stans to draw resources and cannon fodder from; but good luck with that. It's likely more pragmatic to "manage" them while they grind themselves out of any significance, but that is costing and will cost more lives.

by floppyd 10mo ago

jimbohn 10mo ago

Given the number of russians that approve of the regime and the war (including those living in the west!), the ongoing hybrid warfare, the ongoing war in Ukraine, AND past history; is it really so difficult to understand why people wouldn't see this as a positive? Or why people don't want to have a russian minority in their own country, perhaps one bordering with russia? What do you think about Ukraine? Should it be a free country? What about its territorial integrity, to whom does Crimea belong? What does "everyone you know" think about it?

floppyd 10mo ago
> What do you think about Ukraine? Should it be a free country? What about its territorial integrity, to whom does Crimea belong? Just wanted to let you know that asking those questions as if there can be any variation in my answers really shows you are judging russians from the outside. The Crimea question has been akin to a meme for a decade at this point. I'm obviously not saying "everyone" is thinking one way or another, because there's no "everyone", and there's also no "almost everyone". There are huge chunks of the population that are very much on the opposite ends of the spectrum, and judging one chunk by opinions and action of another one is highly disingenuous, imo.
- jimbohn 10mo ago
  Couldn't you just answer those simple questions? Why is that question a meme? I've yet to find a russian that "just didn't want to get involved" able to provide me straight, simple answers to those questions. I wish other Westerners would wake up to this behaviour, because even navalny was just another russian imperialist (see his past comments about Georgians, for example). About the "everyone", you mentioned that "I, and everyone I know of, left russia not because [...]", so I assumed you must know at least a bunch of like-minded people that share your opinion on the aforementioned facts (not that we know your opinion yet). About the "huge chunks" on a certain spectrum, I am not sure that chunk is huge at all. It's likely a tiny minority that would very much put an asterisk next to their answers to those questions. That minority has been quite silent, regardless of their geographical location and relative safeness.
  - veeti 10mo ago
    Did you consider the possibility that not all people in the world enjoy such a huge degree of freedom of speech? If I had family in Russia and I didn't want them to fall out a window I would also "avoid getting involved". For the same reason I also recommend you don't try using Tiananmen 1989 as a conversation starter when talking to Chinese people.
    - jimbohn 10mo ago
      I did. He has a 6-month-old account with apparently no personal information attached. And, if there is personal identifying info in some comment, it will conveniently allow him to "not get involved" for his own security. But he felt the need to tell us how we should be welcoming of russians. Worked well in the past centuries; I am sure it will work well in the future.
    - Tadpole9181 10mo ago
      Then why does Kagi use a search engine (Yandex) from such a repressive nation with such powerful censorship that someone in Siberia needs to watch their back simply supporting Ukrainian sovereignty? Insofar as pushing back against their customers asking them to stop funding them, or at least providing opt-out.
TomasBM 10mo ago
It's fair to worry about the geopolitics of borders and minority groups, but this does not have much to do with a company placing its headquarters in a middle country where maybe (former) members of a controversial state could also work. People believe all kinds of weird things, and that includes Russians. In secular countries, you're free to believe in what you want, but that doesn't mean you will or should be taken seriously. What a random Russian person believes doesn't matter, unless they have power and it has an effect on others. Switch Russian with any other ethnicity or nation in the world, and you will perhaps see why the rhetoric of mixing geopolitics and ethnic politics with company policy (or even your own relationships) is not the best.
- Tadpole9181 10mo ago
  Kagi also kept using Yandex - a Russian search engine - despite many people explicitly requesting they not provide funding to imperialist invaders (aside the obvious question of censorship skewing result quality). When they said no, and explained Yandex only gets paid when needed for a search anyway, people asked for a toggle to disable Yandex for their searches. That way at least they aren't funding it. Rejected that too. Not going to lie, it is kinda weird how this is happening again.
  - TomasBM 10mo ago
    I haven't followed the particular situation, but if it's as you say it, I agree that's bad company policy not to allow opting-out. It's still a leap to conclude that "HQ in a neutral country" equates to or results in "Russian influence". The obvious stepping stones between the announcement and the conclusion of the parent comment would need to be that: A) Kagi (intends to) hires many employees of Russian origin, who B) live in Belgrade and C) also evidently and publicly hold imperialist views, which D) have an effect on the company and its product.
    - jimbohn 10mo ago
      Note that this isn't "neutral" as in "I like chocolate" vs "You don't like chocolate". Sometimes being "neutral" is pretty damning, more so if you are providing a "neutral" ground for sanctioned individuals or people waiting the $CURRENT_GENOCIDAL_WAR out. I agree with you about not likely being there an A->B->C->D conclusion, but it's a signal about the preferences or lack thereof of the ownership of the company. But really, they can do whatever they prefer.

Yizahi 10mo ago

You and maybe other emigrant citizens can be completely opposing war. I'm not disputing that since I don't know you. Point 1 - I was discussing action of a corporation, not an individual. And that corporation has 1 (one) single office in the whole vast Europe, and it's in a country known to be a base of other similar trade arrangements. It is not an evidence, but it is a big hint based on more than a decade of other cases. Point 2 - regarding "one of the rare few options", as far a I know not a single EU country has or had a complete ban on immigration of Russian citizens. A few minor tweaks were made, most of them recent, after already a decade of war, like restricting only some subset of visas or restricting asylum seekers etc. Czechia had some bigger restriction just in 2025 afaik. But in most of the EU countries Russian citizen can legally immigrate and work.

jimbohn 10mo ago
I know I sound pedantic, but he didn't say he opposes the war (nor the regime), just that he doesn't want to be involved.
- Tadpole9181 10mo ago
  Yeah, they were asked explicitly and danced around the question. Really seems like they don't mind the invasion of a sovereign nation and murder of its people - they just don't want to accept any personal risk.
  - jimbohn 10mo ago
    IMO russian culture/society, starting from the very early days of the empire, is drenched with imperialism and essentially a genocidal nature. This can be found from the lower strata of their society to the upper end, including authors like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, etc. Sadly for them (and especially their neighbours), the transformation from empire to soviet and later to empire again hasn't changed this factor. For some reason, there is an implicit assumption, in that culture, of their superiority w.r.t. anybody that isn't American. I heard funny stories from a professor in the US telling that russians were the only PHD students that he felt like were acting as if he was beneath them, because he was "just" a Western European rather than an American (he had citizenship, but anyway). This might get me a bunch of downvotes, but it's an unsolved problem that Europe refuses to face, and it has blown up in Europe's face pretty hard. It would be better for everybody involved to dismember russia so that it doesn't have the different *Stans to draw resources and cannon fodder from; but good luck with that. It's likely more pragmatic to "manage" them while they grind themselves out of any significance, but that is costing and will cost more lives.