
No Russian - lordmax
http://skibinsky.com/no-russian/
======
rdtsc
> Big business is subject to federal mafia clan wars.

This can be summarized with one word "corruption". Corruption that is deep,
toxic, and permeates every sphere of life. From small things like getting a
passport or drivers' license. What kind of grades kids will get in
kindergarten, to large things like the government appropriating and stealing
billion dollar companies.

Corruption becomes a way of life and it spreads like a disease.

It is hard to describe how it feels. You know as corrupt as US is, one can at
least have a little hope that the judicial system will work. At the end of the
day if someone commits murder and they are caught, you know there will
probably be a good trial. In these countries (at least where I am from), one
can commit murder and then there is a price you pay to the prosecutor, police,
judge to make it "go way".

If you start a business, and are very successful you might pop on the radar of
the local mafia, who has members in the local government. They will ensure
that your business has not "paid all the taxes" or that your immigration
paperwork "was not in order" and kick you out of the country and take your
business.

Going through life you see this. Colleagues in school who fail everything and
don't do work are getting top grades in a final exam. You try to pass a
drivers' exam and you are getting deliberately failed with hints that a bribe
is necessary for you to pass and so on. That is very stressful and it
something I am not used do and don't want to be used to. Others, on the
contrary, thrive and prosper in that environment.

~~~
tomaskazemekas
Recent news confirm this. >> Pavel Durov the former CEO of Russia's main
social network, VKontakte and founder of Telegram quit his job at the
beginning of this month saying, "it has become increasingly complicated to
stick to the principles we once founded our social site upon.” Speculators
gave an educated guess that Russian authorities have been pushing for more and
more censorship on the site. Two days later, he apparently "unresigned," but
that wasn't the end of this story. >>
[http://arcticstartup.com/2014/04/25/lithuania-pavel-
druov](http://arcticstartup.com/2014/04/25/lithuania-pavel-druov)

------
acqq
See however the previous extreme plane shootings, around 370 deaths total, by
the US and Ukraine:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655)

"shot down by the _United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes_ on
3 July 1988," "All 290 on board, including 66 children and 16 crew, died" "The
Fogarty report stated, "The data from USS Vincennes tapes, information from
USS Sides and reliable intelligence information, corroborate the fact that
[Iran Air Flight 655] was on a normal commercial air flight plan profile, in
the assigned airway, squawking Mode III 6760, on a continuous ascent in
altitude from take-off at Bandar Abbas to shoot-down.""

and

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812)

"shot down by the _Ukrainian military_ over the Black Sea on 4 October 2001"
"Ukraine eventually admitted that the disaster was probably caused by an
errant missile fired by its armed forces.[1] Ukraine ended up paying $15
million to surviving family members of 78 victims ($200,000 per victim)."

~~~
baddox
Most people will probably say the key difference is that the US incident was a
mistaken attempt to defend an imminent attack, rather than a terrorist attack.
Being perhaps more cynical, I would say the key difference is that Russia is
not the biggest kid on the playground.

~~~
piroflip
Summing all the evidence, I would say this was a mistake shot down too.

~~~
baddox
But presumably not a situation where the attackers mistakenly thought they
were shooting down an aircraft that was about to attack them.

~~~
homhomhom
They definitely thought it was an Ukrainian military transport plane. I don't
see how the distinction between enemy military transport plane and enemy
fighter/bomber is of any importance here.

~~~
acqq
How do you know what "they" thought?

~~~
homhomhom
Version about rebels taking passenger plane for AN-26 seems plausible,
considering that rebels themselves seemed to believe it in the first minutes
after the event (I am judging by the reaction of their mouthpieces on Russian
internet which I happened to see with my own eyes).

Anyway that's not the point, the point is that even if (people may still
doubt) the rebels downed the plane, _at worst_ they thought of it as of an
Ukrainian military plane, ie they had no intention to kill noncombatants, it
was definitely not an 'act of terrorism' as Ukrainian govt wants to paint it.

~~~
acqq
How can you know if "mouthpieces" are real rebel commanders or just some
hotheads in their mommies' basements (or Russian equivalents of such)?

~~~
homhomhom
I am talking about Boris Rozhin's livejournal ('colonelcassad'). That's about
as close as it gets to rebels' mouthpiece, being probably the most popular
social media outlet with separatist viewpoint (not to be confused with Russian
govt's viewpoint). Of course he is not an official figure of any kind, but if
anyone can be trusted to be able to tell legit sources from 'hotheads in their
mommies' basements', that's him.

~~~
acqq
It's a journalist from Crimea, Nobody you should consider to be fully informed
with what rebels do. I can imagine he's now a kind of a war reporter, but in
wars there are a lot of rumors. Nothing can be more probable than that
somebody actually saw the crash and produced the rumor that that's an
achievement of the rebels and the journalist repeated it.

------
egao1980
This is one of the typical rants by Russian immigrant who enjoyed top quality
free education in USSR/Russia which made his success possible (+ no student
loans), left during turmoil of 1990-2000s and still judging Russia on that bad
memories basis. Article is full of clichés and gives general FOX news feel
while reading. I lived in Moscow in 2011 and I'm part of that creative class
he mentions and no one in my social network was supporting the protests. I
doesn't mean that we are happy with all that happens - we just believe in slow
and steady hard work towards better Russia and progress so far proves that
it's working. Stop blaming Russia for everything - you're not USA State
Department! :)

~~~
x4m
Confirm that. I'm from Yekaterinburg, and Max rant seems to me just exagerated
imagination of someone who haven't been here for decade.

~~~
xor-ed-wolf
It's easy to understand the author's hidden sentiment that Russia is very
ineffective state currently and depends too much on natural resources export
and enforcement. But what bothers me most is that all of those former Russian
immigrants sit in their comfortable chairs somewhere in Nebraska and yapping
endlessly while not giving a sparrow's effort to research the actual situation
and suggest anything to improve it. Instead they spread xenophobia and
popularize knee-jerk reactions to events. I.e. they're just hatred-filled
idiots who waste our time on reading them.

------
terranstyler
I have quite a few problems with Western media stating that it's Putin's
fault.

\- There is a lack of motive (seriously why would he?)

\- There is a lack of identity (if it were the Separatists, are they really
controlled by Putin to that degree?)

\- The murder weapon happens to also be in the hand of the Ukrainian army (19
systems, 3 of them stationed in the range of the crash site) [2]

\- The Ukrainian air control obviously let the flight deviate quite a few
kilometers of the "usual route" which goes south of Donetsk. [1]

\- The lack of prosecution in the case of Maidan snipers (and evidence against
the Ukrainian gov't as being behind it) and the Odessa fire.

I am not saying who it was or who it wasn't. I just state that I seriously
doubt anyone who claims to know it right now.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/VagelisKarmiros/status/48992616773114265...](https://twitter.com/VagelisKarmiros/status/489926167731142656/photo/1)

[2] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/18/us-ukraine-
crisis-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/18/us-ukraine-crisis-
airplane-buk-idUSKBN0FN03H20140718) 2nd paragraph

~~~
epsylon
> lack of motive

It was most likely a mistake.

> There is a lack of identity (if it were the Separatists, are they really
> controlled by Putin to that degree?)

Top members of the rebels group, including the leader, are Russian citizens
and former members of the FSB.

[http://20committee.com/2014/07/19/donetsk-rebels-and-
russian...](http://20committee.com/2014/07/19/donetsk-rebels-and-russian-
intelligence/)

> The murder weapon happens to also be in the hand of the Ukrainian army (19
> systems, 3 of them stationed in the range of the crash site) [2]

If the Ukrainians were responsible, why are the rebels trying to cover up all
the traces and why are they interfering with the international investigation?
(Also, the source you quote is from Russian media, which are inherently
biased, much more so than the multiple other sources whose evidence points
towards Russia-backed rebels)

~~~
terranstyler
I can certainly not say you're view is wrong and I didn't know of the group
membership (thanks for that). Still, my 2ct

Motive: The motive "mistake" is a motive that works for both sides.

Identity: The membership in the groups "Russian" and "former FSB" is at most
an indication. "All former FSB members that are Russian shoot down passenger
air planes" holds as much as "All Germans kill jews" and "All jews kill
Palestinians"

Murder weapon: The thing is, I assume Western media is as biased as Russian
media. The very fact they rarely even consider Ukrainian govt participation
(as they should also with the Maidan sniper shootings) makes me wonder what
side I should trust less.

This view is partially based on the WMD allegations in Iraq and the use of
chemical weapons by Assad, both of which can be considered "false flags". Re
Assad, see [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/world/middleeast/new-
study...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/world/middleeast/new-study-
refines-view-of-sarin-attack-in-syria.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

~~~
epsylon
> Motive: The motive "mistake" is a motive that works for both sides.

Yes but as I said, if this was a mistake from the Ukrainian part, the rebels
would have everything to gain to prove it. But all they seem to be doing right
now is strongly interfere with the investigation.

> Identity: The membership in the groups "Russian" and "former FSB" is at most
> an indication. "All former FSB members that are Russian shoot down passenger
> air planes" holds as much as "All Germans kill jews" and "All jews kill
> Palestinians"

That's not the point that I made there. The most likely explanation is that
it's a mistake. Russia gave the "separatists" (which are truly agents of the
government) a sophisticated anti-air weapon. Someone used it against a plane,
only they messed up and ended up shooting down a civilian airplane. I am
pretty sure that the Kremlin is super pissed off that this happened. This
doesn't change the fact that: the "separatists" are Russian agents (who are
maybe a bit too much on the loose?) and that Russia gave them the weapon that
lead to this mistake. I'm certainly not saying that Russia wanted this plane
to be shot down (and that seems very unlikely, considering how much backlash
they are facing now).

> The thing is, I assume Western media is as biased as Russian media. The very
> fact they rarely even consider Ukrainian govt participation (as they should
> also with the Maidan sniper shootings) makes me wonder what side I should
> trust less.

I would disagree. Of course, Western media are biased, but the bias they have
is mostly done through capital (big media groups with ties to politicians).
Russian media is a propaganda machine. Despite all the flaws of our Western
countries, they are still less corrupted and less susceptible to propaganda
than Russia.

> The very fact they rarely even consider Ukrainian govt participation (as
> they should also with the Maidan sniper shootings) makes me wonder what side
> I should trust less.

It's a sad thing but that's something to be expected of "general consumption"
media. Of course they will paint Ukraine as the good guys and Russia as the
bad guys because it serves their story. But that doesn't mean that Russia
isn't the bad guy here, and most of the evidence points that way.

In particular in this plane crisis, it has to be said that neither the USA nor
the EU want to be involved in Ukraine. A war over there would be yet another
mess (like Yugoslavia was). So far the position of the EU and the USA has been
fairly tame, but the fact that Russia was caught red-handed delivering weapons
to wage their proxy war (and annex some new territory to "the Greater Russia",
which is Putinism's ultimate goal), changes things, and the USA and the EU may
have to get reluctantly involved if Russia doesn't back off. Considering that
the USA and the EU don't have much to gain or to lose in Ukraine (because
let's face it, Western people don't give a shit about the fate of the
Ukrainians for the most part, as has been demonstrated by the previous very
weak involvement during the riots; and due to the fact that Ukraine has very
little to offer since they don't have any significant natural resources), I'd
say that Western media (and in particular more specialized media you can find
on the web written by analysts and not general purpose journalists) are much
more likely to be trustworthy on this.

> This view is partially based on the WMD allegations in Iraq and the use of
> chemical weapons by Assad, both of which can be considered "false flags".

The WMD allegations were largely countered by many of the Western media (in
particular in Europe). France refused to participate in that war.

PS: An interesting read: the AmA of a Ukrainian man who lives in a rebel
controlled zone on Reddit yesterday:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2b72ir/iama_ukrainian_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2b72ir/iama_ukrainian_who_currently_lives_on_the/)

------
kofejnik
He's mostly right, although I'd correct a few important things:

* Putin's approval is now at 86+%, an all-time high,

* and it's universal across socio-economic classes. A lot of young bright facebook-equipped software engineers are Putin's fans.

* even a _lot_ of first-generation Russians in US absolutely love Putin, for the sense of belonging to a great empire which he gave them (finally someone stood up to evil America!)

* because of the above, any dissenter is basically a pariah

Just keep that in mind.

------
bloat
This is not a serious article. It is a rant.

"The population at large is, statistically speaking, not very bright. Many are
deranged from overuse of alcohol or drugs."

~~~
jwr
... and yet it is a quite accurate portrayal of the current situation in
Russia. I should know - I'm Polish and my country was annexed by Russia on
several occasions.

I would add that the western EU countries seem to have learned nothing from
history. Trying to appease a country with ambitions to become an empire, that
annexes neighboring countries -- let's see, haven't we seen that before?

~~~
egao1980
And if we are going back to the times of Polish annexation we can remember
Polish people robbing Russia, burning Moscow, trying to put Polish dude on the
throne and best part - exploitation of Ukrainians :). And yes, Poland is also
known for imperial ambitions. Generally European history is full of wars and
mutual blame. Take UK for example - conquered by French and ruled by German
dynasty.

So once again, please, stop blaming Russia, go on with your life, build better
country for you to live in.

~~~
nazgob
That's what we're doing. But Russia again started changing borders of our
neighbor. This is scary stuff.

~~~
egao1980
NATO is expanding and Russians were not happy about that way before current
situation. Being Crimean myself I would say that so much feared 'annexation'
was forced on to Russia by Crimean local establishment. Not that Russia was
against it though. As a matter of fact - throughout 23 of the Ukrainian
independence it was never less than 65% of Crimeans that were ready to join
Russia.

Ukrainian crisis is the result of building nationalistic state in the country
with two different cultures, frequently incompatible. And also grave
incompetence of the Ukrainian government leading to escalation of the
conflict.

Poland and Baltic states - these countries are outright hostile toward Russia,
yes, it has historical reasons. But now it's easier to trade and use economic
power than to conquer and control territory. These countries are part of EU,
and Russia will never - until forced - engage in any military confrontation
with them.

~~~
avmich
I think saying "NATO is expanding" you mean that Ukrainian choice of signing
agreements with EU left Russia no choice.

From Ukrainian point of view, they are an independent country - which may, at
different times, get into different unions with different partners.

So, Russian (actually, Russian government) point of view that any Ukrainian
motion towards EU signals a threat to Russia doesn't justify Russian
hostilities, because Ukraine is an independent country. And when Russia in
turn decided to protect its perceived interests, it went against that
independence - and all things associated with that.

~~~
vadman
Ukraine is acting in its (perceived) interests, and Russia -- in its own.
Where is the problem?

The thing is, there is a handful of superpowers in the world, which dictate
the geopolitical motions. A smaller country bordering a superpower can be
friends with it, be strictly neutral (see Finland) or be friends with opposing
superpowers (see Ukraine). The last scenario means you are asking for all
sorts of shit to happen to you. It's not "good", but that's how things are.

------
timurtamerlan
Complete and total bullshit, based on US propaganda against Russia. I live in
Russia and build my second IT business here. Most of my friends are
entrepreneurs from Moscow and other cities.

Of course there is corruption, autocracy and alcoholism. It is there for
several hundreds of years, and we have to deal with that. But situation is
actually getting better with time. You can't change loves of millions of
people in an instant.

Propaganda is an interesting point. In fact, I think it is not strong enough
to counter the massive western information war against Russia. I read BBC and
NY times regularly, and constantly notice biased and one-sided view.

I think that the author fall victim to the NY Times style propaganda articles
about the evil Putin, connected it with his experience and decided to support
it. I don'think it is a objective point of view and it does not describe
reality.

~~~
xor-ed-wolf
It's confirmation bias at work. People often can't control their "reptilian
brain" effectively. Having some superfluous idea they only find confirmations
to it all around all worse if they are emotionally unstable at the moment.

------
vezzy-fnord
I honestly don't know how to feel about this. It's really just as deceptive in
presenting a clear cut and linear case about the other side, as if geopolitics
really are this straightforward, and not actually a cryptic clusterfuck. It's
just as pandering as Russian propaganda, or any form of propaganda.

That and, for what it's worth, I can see there being just as big of an
incentive for Ukraine, as for Russia, to take down MH17. In fact, I found the
immediate pinpointing of the blame on Russia to be strange. If they were the
perpetrators, then they shot themselves in the foot. It's just a baffling and
asinine strategic decision.

~~~
quaunaut
The problem is, it wasn't intentional. They seem to have thought they were
attacking a Ukrainian military plane. There wasn't any strategy in this.

~~~
gothy
So hitting Ukrainian planes is OK? There wasn't any kind of terrorists that
I'm aware of who got access to such a sophisticated weapons. And no one of
those 'monkeys' could even handle with that 'BUK'. It's obvious that only
trained army team could make this launch and it's obvious for us(Ukrainians
here) that after brutal annexation of Crimea , this sick freak wont stop until
he gets punched in the face. He doesn't understand any other language other
that rude force. Ukraine is weak, much weaker that Russia now. Mostly because
the very same Russia-oriented mafia clans. Former government of Ukraine is now
hiding in Russia and they wont be judged there. Russia's mission number one
was to prove that Ukraine is a failed-state. This is the main reason why all
this happening. Max explains the rest in his post.

~~~
quaunaut
I never said it was okay? I said there wasn't any strategy to it. Don't put
words in my mouth.

I was only saying that it wasn't intentional, there was no strategy behind it,
so you can't really ask "What were they thinking" because they _weren 't_. You
knee-jerked yourself into oblivion.

------
spingsprong
Can anyone seriously think of a reason why Ukraine, the Rebels or Russia would
have downed that passenger plane on purpose?

Because I can't.

Whoever shot it down, obviously thought it was a military aircraft. They made
a mistake.

If it's a mistake, it's not murder.

~~~
nazgob
If you operate AA unit without knowledge how to detect civilian planes its a
bit more then mistake.

------
lafar6502
Great read, I like how author's perspective and distance helps him see through
a layer of lies and propaganda. I have russian and ukrainian friends and they
confirm everything said in the post, they left their home countries because
they didn't feel safe there.

------
gpvos
> If Kiev government survives, it will fairly quickly unlock economic benefits
> of non-mafia, free economy.

...maybe. The rest of the Ukrainian political elite is also fairly corrupt,
actually. So I expect it to take a decade at the very least. See, for example,
Romania and Bulgaria.

------
lordmax
[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/19/world/europe/m...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/19/world/europe/malaysia-
airlines-plane-victims.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0)

------
iliaznk
As much as most of it may be true, Russia's fault in the Malaysian plane
shoot-down hasn't been proved, even the crash site hasn't been examined
properly, isn't it too early for such conclusions?

~~~
jakozaur
It wasn't proved, but there is not a believable alternative scenario.

There are videos of transported missiles, intercepted calls, orders of
obstructing access to crash site... John Kerry even says there is "Enormous
amount of evidence" for that scenario. Still not 100% sure, but 99% yes.

~~~
Veinlash
For a country to officially start condemning or placing blame on Russia there
would have to be irrefutable evidence I'd say. I wouldn't want to get into a
seriously heated conflict without being 100% sure, so even 99% wouldn't be
good enough if I were in the driver seat. Result being people all standing
around, shifty-eyed, 99% sure Russia and the separatists are behind the
shooting, no one dares throw the first punch with 99% certainty.

~~~
lafar6502
But what kind of evidence do you consider irrefutable? This is a murky
situation where officially there are no russian soldiers in Ukraine and the
'separatists' are just volunteers who happen to have military training and
access to russian weapons. You know, nothing special, such things happen in
every country.

------
monochr
Seems like the stereotype of the self hating Jew now has its counterpart in
the self hating Russian.

While all deaths are deplorable being a world power means killing people you
disagree with. And unlike the US of to a small but quickly growing extent
China Russia lacks the geopolitical power to change the rules of the game.

------
CmonDev
"Modern Russia is not a weaker version of Soviet Union “empire of evil.” This
capability is, thankfully, long gone." \- empire of evil is still alive and
well, after defeating the Soviet Union and is still seeking for new proper
enemies (will it be you, China?).

------
sigsergv
He's trying to rationalize his personal hate of russians. I've heard a lot of
such speeches from 1980-90 emigrants, usually they have no idea what's really
going on here.

------
songco
At least facebook/twitter/github/most google services not blocked in
Russian....

~~~
egao1980
Living in UK I can say that something is terribly wrong with freedom of speech
and objectivity of mass media - Russian media reports all possible scenarios,
blames Putin, Ukraine, rebels, but UK press is all focused on blaming Russia.
Where's the alternative? UK media is free to blame Russia? Remember that
Russian gay propaganda ban? So much noise, and at the same time Saudi Arabia
executes gay people and there's no USA/UK campaign against it.

~~~
Lasker
Show me just one blame for Putin from Russian mainstream media. Or someone
calling separatists a 'rebels'. They prefer to hide them under credible-
sounded 'militia', you'll have to knew it if you're watching kremlin TV.

------
koshak
Is HN a proper place to feed politic trolls?

~~~
adamnemecek
which part is trolling?

------
lanbird
Who are you? Durov its you?:)

~~~
lanbird
I was wrong.

[http://ain.ua/wp-
content/uploads/2014/07/204243_101501575974...](http://ain.ua/wp-
content/uploads/2014/07/204243_10150157597457191_42296_o.jpg)

------
DominikR
This is one of the most racist articles I've read in a long time.

But it's the US enemy, so I guess it's okay to write:

"The population at large is, statistically speaking, not very bright. Many are
deranged from overuse of alcohol or drugs."

You could easily replace the word "Russian" with the N-word and post this
article on some white power blog.

~~~
un1x0nly
And this was written by a Russian.

