Protest attempts have been really feeble so far in Russia, mainly because it turns out not a lot of people want to get violently clubbed by the police. Also Moscow’s attorney general officially warned that any anti-war protests would not be met well so the number of people that actually took to the streets over these past few days has been extremely low.
It gets worse every time Putin goes live and addresses something about the war, about half an hour ago he called the sanctions illegal and said that NATO-allies have made some extremely aggressive remarks towards Russia and ordered to increase defenses.
This is our government’s insanity at its peak and what’s even more frustrating is that the Russians who oppose this are entirely powerless. You either sit tight and watch your livelihood slowly crumble because of the sanctions over the next 2-3 years or you try and do something and, best case scenario, you end up with a criminal record and probably get a few limbs broken.
No one from my friends, family, work colleagues and overall network supports this. I just want to get this out there that anyone in Russia that has even a sliver of education remains anti-war and anti-aggression. Unfortunately, there are too many uneducated scumbags who fail to understand the effects this will have on Ukraine and on Russia.
About the SWIFT thing, from what I’ve gathered, for now the EU is only turning it off for sanctioned banks (Sberbank and VTB most notably), while the rest of the financial infrastructure remains SWIFT-based for now.
People around the country are panicking and withdrawing cash from ATMs in fear of losing their savings.
Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are to be held today on the Ukrainian-Belarus border, I doubt anything fruitful will come out of it, but let us all hope that it’s at least a step towards ending this madness.
If there’s anyone here from Ukraine, please stay safe.
