No doubt that sanctions play into it to some degree but sanctions also don’t require such strong words and actions, which I think really show how they really stand behind what they say.
2022 has been a bad year for first Russia, then Iran and China and I hope they'll come crashing down, mostly because of the courage of Ukrainians as well as Iranian and Chinese citizens, but also because of actions like this.
Good work Jetbrains!
I personally welcome criticism against USA as long as it isn't based on hate of USA but on general ideas. Very simplified: one should be ready to be proportionally critical to everyone else.
For a practical example: I do not find it useful to listen to people who criticize USA (43000 dead civilians in Afghanistan in 20 years) while being utterly silent on Soviet Russia (somewhere between 500 000 and 2 500 000 dead in 10 years, sometimes in ways that make drone strikes look very civil).
Or, if you say Soviet Russia is long ago (it isn't, many of us grew up in its shadows), it seems Russia has already killed more civilians in Ukraine in 10 months than US killed civilians in Afghanistan in 20 years. This of course comes on top of what they did and still do in Syria etc.
Edit: I personally very much hope both:
- that the parts of US that haven't realized how much crazy some Americans have done abroad. I understand it will be very very hard to bring to justice those who are responsible, but at least find a way to make sure no nore weddings are bombed with precision guided weapons.
- that others who hate everything US is and stand for will at some point take a step back and realize how many people can thank American action for their lives.
Ukraine is a democracy of 45 million people that's never threatened another nation.
Sounds like this has been a significant undertaking.
They're dissidents, not refugees. Their country isn't being attacked nor under invasion.
If person says да (da) for "yes" I think they speak Russian.
I think Ukrainians use так for "yes". (Someone please confirm or correct me, but I am 90 something percent sure.) (Edit: looked it up and yes, I think I am right: https://www.ukrainianlessons.com/meanings-of-tak/. That said, Russian also have the word так, so try to infer if they say it as yes (e.g. так так так)
Of course many Ukrainians including famously Zelensky himself speak Russian natively even if more and more change to Ukrainian.
So a surer sign might be to say: "Slava Ukraini" and expect back "Heroim Slava" or something to that effect ;-)
Oh you were born into a family that speaks the evil tongue? Off with your head, unless there’s some confusion it’s Ukrainian, in which case you’re safe.
As far as I'm aware, not a single prominent US tech company left the US because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
JetBrains, by any standard, is doing a great thing here.
1. the company moved to countries with higher multipliers (i.e. with the same profit, the Dutch or German company is worth several times more than the Russian one). The current outbreak of Russophobia and panic associated with sanctions has given a unique chance to do such a relocation. They write that 800 employees agreed to move in 2022. How many would have agreed in 2021 or 2014?
2. in Russia, quite a few of the employees are local citizens. Some of them had their own homes. By getting a better offer, they could change jobs in 2 weeks. In Holland (Cyprus, Germany, ...), they need a residence permit for 1 year, tied to a specific employer. If they decide to change jobs, the new employer has to go through a months-long bureaucratic process, comparable to the process of initial migration from Russia - and this process does not guarantee a successful conclusion. And all these months they will have to pay for rented housing. And the previous (1 year, remember?) permit can expire during this process, which threatens deportation. That is, the employees have become much more dependent on the company, they will not scatter in the event of a major reorganization, cost-cutting (for the sake of morality and democracy, of course), etc.
This all looks like preparation for the sale of JetBrains. I would bet that this will happen in the coming months. The difference between 2014 and 2022 is somewhere in here, not in who attacked whom and when.
(the above is a subjective perception of their text and pure speculations, based on personal experience in a similar relocation of an IT company from Russia to EU short before 2014)
