The Guardian - Cosmopolitan no more: Russians feel sting of cultural and economic rift

[Pluvious]

Macdonalds, Starbucks, Facebook, Instagram, even Adobe’s software…

Denied. Gone. Blocked.

Now ALL Russians are realizing they are pariah - the World hates them

” When I had my first child, there was all this choice. Mothercare, Zara, you name it,” said Evgenia Marsheva, a 33-year-old architect. But when she went shopping in Moscow this month for her newborn, many of those large retail brands had been shuttered.

“Now, I can only find very cheap or extremely expensive Russian products. I was brought up with tales of the limited choices that my parents had during the Soviet Union. I never thought that would come back.”

It would be especially difficult for Russian companies to replace foreign technology products and microchips, Shagina added. Russia’s efforts to copy banned social media platforms have been met with ridicule, while sanctions have sent the car industry back to the 1980s, with new cars no longer legally obliged to have airbags, which cannot now be imported from the west.

According to estimates by officials, the Russian economy is expected to contract by between 8 and 12% in 2022. Car sales, an indicator often used by experts to measure the economic mood, fell by almost 80% in April, the largest drop on record. Meanwhile, the country’s central bank has predicted an inflation rate between 18 and 23% this year.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/20/russians-feel-sting-of-cultural-and-economic-rift-sanctions-ukraine

[SoonerPride]

1. The Russian economy will collapse.

Will that be enough to foment regime change?

Maybe.

[GregariousGroundhog]

8. Cracks are starting to form in Russia's support of Putin

I read the daily update from the Institute for the Study of War. The ISW contained some interesting updates yesterday:

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-may-23

Among them are:

Russian nationalist figures are increasingly criticizing the failures of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine and are calling for further mobilization that the Kremlin likely remains unwilling and unable to pursue in the short term.



The Assembly’s letter may be a leading indicator of elements of the Russian government and society setting informational conditions to declare partial mobilization. However, the Kremlin has so far declined to take this step likely due to concerns over domestic backlash and flaws in Russia’s mobilization systems.[3]



More Russians supportive of the Kremlin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine are beginning to criticize the Kremlin openly.



Unidentified assailants continued attacks against military recruitment offices in Russia on May 23, indicating growing discontent with conscription.[11]

[uponit7771]

9. +1,

[SoonerPride]

10. Very encouraging. Thank you!

[LoisB]

2. Gee, Evgenia, it is really too bad you no longer have great choices of clothing for your newborn

but I must save my sympathy for those dead newborns, children and mothers in Ukraine. Instead of complaining perhaps you shouldbe grateful that you have your children and that your children have their parents.

[Irish_Dem]

7. Yep. She was not bombed while trying to deliver her baby.

Many Ukrainian women and babies are no longer alive.

[kimbutgar]

3. I get these cruise brochures all the time for a cruise line I have been on a couple of times

Last year they highlighted cruise stops in St. Petersburg in Russia. I knew I would never go on that cruise there but they updated the stops in recent brochures and those ports are now gone. All that money not coming into that city!

[sinkingfeeling]

4. I also thought Moscow was a modern, cosmopolitan city when I

visited in 2018. US and European chains in huge shopping malls, a beautiful subway, and gorgeous boulevards.

[lindysalsagal]

5. I found her a nice shopping mall a little bit west:

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[lindysalsagal]

6. "In a glaring admission of the country's struggles to replace products, Andrei Klishas, a senator

from Putin’s ruling United Russia party, said this week that the country’s import substitution programme “has failed completely”.

Aw, gee, shucks. Sucks to be you. Complain to Vlad.