Fren, I follow Russia news quite closely and for a while had a Telegram channel that got used as a source for some stories by some well known journalists (I was just doing timely legwork, but that’s my point). The only actual reporting I have found anyone claiming to relate to this is that July 4 rotation of one diplomat. If there’s more please do link it up. My searches for this post turn up only non-credible claims that are not of falsifiable substance. I’m not claiming anything, only trying to verify anything about this post and came up empty. It’s not personal and it’s not lazy.
I have reason to disagree with some aspects of your position, but:
Sincere thanks and my enthusiastic updoot for one of the best and most specific and credible descriptions of the Russian deep state I have encountered in a couple years. Seemingly everyone either believes the western media, or the hysterical idiocy of the lady writing as “Edvard Slavsquat” (not that this person isn’t a western plant) and stop there. If you have anything to point me to about the events you describe I am interested.
So that page has one relevant tweet, and when that tweet’s author was asked for a source he pointed to https://www.reuters.com/world/russias-ambassador-us-says-his-assignment-coming-an-end-2024-07-04/ which discussed one key diplomat being rotated out. Extremely different than a scenario of a wave of senior diplomats’ families evacuating the US.
This post is fake news.
The Russian government is not trafficking people through its embassy. Yes there are deep state actors to clean out in Russia but I can tell you from my own interactions with several levels of the Russian government (I recently became a Russian citizen in addition to my US citizenship) that I am strongly of the opinion it is much cleaner than that.
Article 14(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:
All persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals. In the determination of any criminal charge against him, or of his rights and obligations in a suit at law, everyone shall be entitled to a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal established by law.
AI output is a product of its input, as processed by a very complicated set of steps whose effectiveness is not simple to measure. Putting a machine on the bench would raise huge and continuous questions of competence. Who among us would accept a guilty verdict from an AI?
The most I could see would be the attorneys on both sides using AI to form better arguments and surface helpful information, basically automated research assistance that would still need to be cross-checked.
We definitely found out where the totalitarian figures were and weren’t. Trump and Putin were both singing from the same songbook, both with variations of “so yeah we’re awesome because we got ahead of this with vaccines and we recommend everyone take them and freedom of choice is non-negotiable.” There were unfortunately some mandates — one dear person I know got the shot because he was required to for work and his health went way downhill and hasn’t fully come back. But there wasn’t the unanimity of pressure we saw happen in the west, and as I said, Russians found creative ways to opt out.
Covid was how we learned about the Russian approach to dealing with stupid / bad government laws and rules. Basically where the vast majority of Americans are "rule-followers", the large majority of Russians are not rule-followers, and see laws and rules as suggestions that may or may not come with a fine for noncompliance. So there were people who had to get a jab for their government jobs, but there were many, many people who found a way around it. The jab compliance numbers in Russia are an utter joke. Sadly, many people did get it, but many more knew better and used the Russian people's immune system against such things.
In the US, CPS represented willingness and eagerness to deny me that opportunity. (There were no allegations of wrongdoing or anything, just ridiculously frequent "checks" since we were a large family and some neighbors didn't like that. We had legal procedures printed out and ready by the door at all times. And had to use them to keep their "checks" in check.)
The Russian Federation is not the USSR, and I don't think I would have been interested in moving to the USSR. Russia today is really quite wonderful.
We homeschool. Here in Russia my children can do things like grab a bus across town and ride horses or go ice skating for an affordable price without having to be on a leash with a parent. Complete game changer.
And there's medical freedom—we can use hospitals and decline treatments without worrying about all our children being seized by CPS. It was a matter of existence for us.
Hi! I'm an American who moved to Russia with my large family back in 2019. Our immigration process has been absolutely insane. A member of the Russian Duma informed me several months ago that based on our case, legislation was being prepared for immigrants from "unfriendly countries". Yesterday it was announced that Putin had signed this law!
So this is very connected to a GAW member!
Moving isn't for everyone, and I have zero quarrel with those who want to stay and fight, but some families like our large, young family are in situations where a change is urgently needed. Russia has given my children a childhood, something that wasn't possible for us in the US.
Interesting that you were able to do this.
There are limits to what kinds of answers it will and won’t give: LLMs are good for giving the average take on things. They will not give you any help with the multiple meanings that Q emphasizes are coded into the drops, at least until/unless you specifically point it in that direction in your prompt.