It’s amazing to me how much money Russia’s dumping into this drive for independence from Western tech (exchanging it for dependence on Chinese tech, but that’s another story), as if that’s going to be a long-term direction of the country. There’s precisely one person in Russia who actually thinks it’s a good idea, and he’s 71. Whoever succeeds Putin will inevitably have to mend those bridges, and the West will be all too happy to play along if only to prevent Russia from becoming a full-blown ally of China.
Also, Russian customers still have access to all the Intel/AMD/Nvidia tech they want; even if they’re not supplied officially, pipelines have been established for importing through neutral third countries. My personal PC has a 4090, a 5800X3D and
an ATX 3.0 PSU, none of which were ever officially available in Russia since they released after Feb 2022.
Probably, but in the best case, a change of leadership might at least give them an excuse to pull out of the money sinks they have in Ukraine and restore the territories. Worst case… could be really bad.
I think most analysts and leaders actually do have what you say in mind, but no amount of expertise can provide a better answer or remove that risk so we are just managing it and doing everything slowly.
Whoever comes in after Putin will probably be of the same mind and possibly be even more extreme.
Unfortunately most “Westerners” don’t understand this at all. And I am not talking “average joe”, just look at Merkel or Steinmeier.
Some of it is of course corruption and hypocrisy, but there is strong undercurrent of ignorance of both history and nature of russian “culture” in the west.
Hell I’m pretty sure that some of the hardware vendors are still operating in Russia to some extent, like MSI - way too many ads online from them, stores are still claiming ‘official warranty’ etc
There’s precisely one person in Russia who actually thinks it’s a good idea, and he’s 71.
That’s not true. There is a decent minority of hyper nationalists (even more so than the average russian - who is basically genocidal if you know how to read them) who support this. They may not know what “LoongArch 64” or Linux is, but they definitely support “independence от пиндосов”.
The “it’s only putin” pitch is a ruse used by alleged russian liberals.
And then you have the vast majority who in principle might like the idea of having an iPhone, but when it comes to actions (or lack of thereof) they will always choose the path that leads to imperialism, authoritarianism and razing their neighbour’s cities to rubble.
They had a unique opportunity in the late 80s and look what kind of society they built in the last 30 years.
It’s amazing to me how much money Russia’s dumping into this drive for independence from Western tech (exchanging it for dependence on Chinese tech, but that’s another story), as if that’s going to be a long-term direction of the country. There’s precisely one person in Russia who actually thinks it’s a good idea, and he’s 71. Whoever succeeds Putin will inevitably have to mend those bridges, and the West will be all too happy to play along if only to prevent Russia from becoming a full-blown ally of China.
Also, Russian customers still have access to all the Intel/AMD/Nvidia tech they want; even if they’re not supplied officially, pipelines have been established for importing through neutral third countries. My personal PC has a 4090, a 5800X3D and an ATX 3.0 PSU, none of which were ever officially available in Russia since they released after Feb 2022.
Whoever comes in after Putin will probably be of the same mind and possibly be even more extreme.
Probably, but in the best case, a change of leadership might at least give them an excuse to pull out of the money sinks they have in Ukraine and restore the territories. Worst case… could be really bad.
I think most analysts and leaders actually do have what you say in mind, but no amount of expertise can provide a better answer or remove that risk so we are just managing it and doing everything slowly.
Unfortunately most “Westerners” don’t understand this at all. And I am not talking “average joe”, just look at Merkel or Steinmeier.
Some of it is of course corruption and hypocrisy, but there is strong undercurrent of ignorance of both history and nature of russian “culture” in the west.
what’s with all the quotation marks?
Better dependent on China than countries attempting to overthrow Russia.
Attempting to overthrow Russia? Lmao. Which ones?
They should probably stop attacking their neighbors. Things were just fine before that.
Hell I’m pretty sure that some of the hardware vendors are still operating in Russia to some extent, like MSI - way too many ads online from them, stores are still claiming ‘official warranty’ etc
Gigabyte certainly never stopped, and seems to have actually increased their focus there.
That’s not true. There is a decent minority of hyper nationalists (even more so than the average russian - who is basically genocidal if you know how to read them) who support this. They may not know what “LoongArch 64” or Linux is, but they definitely support “independence от пиндосов”.
The “it’s only putin” pitch is a ruse used by alleged russian liberals.
And then you have the vast majority who in principle might like the idea of having an iPhone, but when it comes to actions (or lack of thereof) they will always choose the path that leads to imperialism, authoritarianism and razing their neighbour’s cities to rubble.
They had a unique opportunity in the late 80s and look what kind of society they built in the last 30 years.