I don’t know how anyone got the figures or whether they are even close to being accurate, but according to Thailand Business News online, * more than 200,000 Russians have fled their country to land in Phuket, Thailand. I guess they believe risking life in a land that suffered a giant tsunami is better than risking the travails of war in eastern Ukraine as a Russian conscript, where reportedly at least as many who fled to Thailand have become war casualties. Add to those 200,000 Russians who fled to Phuket additional Russians who have fled to other countries, and you’ll conclude that many Russians feel no loyalty to Putin and his regime.
“Baht” for Grace of God and a Ticket to Paradise, There Go I (to War)
Good news for rental owners in Phuket: Rentals that once went for 12,000 baht per month now go for 40,000 baht or more. “Baht” for the Phuket locals, not all is good news. The influx of Russians will eventually put a strain on employment, as this new diaspora tries to survive when they have less to no access to their credit cards and banks. Keep in mind that Visa and MasterCard shut off services and Russian banks were removed from the SWIFT financial network at the outset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Maybe some of the 200,000-plus Russians would like to get home, but find they are financially incapable of funding their return. **
By the way, 12,000 baht equates to $345, and 40,000 equates to $1,150. Living in paradise is becoming increasingly more expensive. And, of course, there’s always the threat of a tsunami so large that it might kill people from Phuket to India.
The Unintended Consequences of Any War
It’s not unusual in modern times for affluent people to feel participation in a war of dubious justification is not worth the personal risk. Americans also fled the country during the Vietnam War. Since then, affluence has spread across the planet and into Russia, especially after the breakup of the Soviet Union that Vlad seems eager to reinstitute and reconstitute. And I guess it has never been the desire of many affluent people to risk their lives when the less affluent can be drafted. Even during previous wars, the affluent have evaded conscription. In nineteenth century Belgium, men avoided service through "purchasable military commutation.” ***
So, one consequence of unjustifiable and justifiable war is emigration. People simply leave rather than serve. If life is good in the present, why endanger it for a dubious cause? And of course, there are those who just can’t see themselves killing complete strangers toward whom they have no personal animosity, even under the constant assail of propaganda, such as Putin’s claim of Ukrainian Nazis at the Russian doorstep. (Or should I write, “Russian steppe”?)
What will happen to the Russian diaspora? Will they remain as immigrants in foreign lands? Will they return once Vlad is dead (an eventuality since the guy is не первой молодости? **** At age 70, Vlad has to know that his spring is long gone and that he, like all would be conquerers, will succumb to death either by assassination, disease, or old age. Certainly, the 18-35 age group that fled the country realize that time is on their side—as long as they can stay in paradise.
Another unintended consequence of the Ukrainian invasion has been the decimation of both the equipment and the fictitiously vaunted reputation of the Russian military to fight a conventional war. They have resorted to the strategy employed by Falkenhayn during the First World War at Verdun. Falkenhayn lost 377,000 Germans in the “meat grinder” of that long battle. Vlad has lost two-thirds that number according to reports that might be more true than they are Ukrainian propaganda. Certainly, he has lost a great deal of his vaunted tank corps, and lost those tanks to rather cheap and easy to use shoulder-fired rockets and little suicide drones that seem to have changed the nature of tank warfare.
Anyway, the Russians pose a threat of a perceived madman who has soldiers compliant enough to push those nuclear buttons, even though they are aware of the spread of radiation that would decimate their own families and the possibility of an attack on NATO that would initiate a hail of bombs on Russia and its sycophantic Press in Moscow. Seems that little good will come of this invasion, including the hate-in-perpetuity of the Ukrainian people for Russians and the eventual terrorist attacks and guerrilla warfare that will surface in future generations.
So, it seems that hundreds of thousands of Russians have only one message for mad Vlad: “Phuket your war, Vlad.”
*https://www.thailand-business-news.com/russia/96723-russians-to-thailand-as-a-refuge
*https://www.voanews.com/a/thousands-of-russians-flee-to-thailand-to-escape-war-/6979011.html
***Duxbury, Neil (2002). Random Justice: On Lotteries and Legal Decision-Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 154–155 (citing 19th century Belgium and France, as well as America during the Civil War). ISBN 978-0-19-925353-1.
****”No spring chicken”
“Baht” for Grace of God and a Ticket to Paradise, There Go I (to War)
Good news for rental owners in Phuket: Rentals that once went for 12,000 baht per month now go for 40,000 baht or more. “Baht” for the Phuket locals, not all is good news. The influx of Russians will eventually put a strain on employment, as this new diaspora tries to survive when they have less to no access to their credit cards and banks. Keep in mind that Visa and MasterCard shut off services and Russian banks were removed from the SWIFT financial network at the outset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Maybe some of the 200,000-plus Russians would like to get home, but find they are financially incapable of funding their return. **
By the way, 12,000 baht equates to $345, and 40,000 equates to $1,150. Living in paradise is becoming increasingly more expensive. And, of course, there’s always the threat of a tsunami so large that it might kill people from Phuket to India.
The Unintended Consequences of Any War
It’s not unusual in modern times for affluent people to feel participation in a war of dubious justification is not worth the personal risk. Americans also fled the country during the Vietnam War. Since then, affluence has spread across the planet and into Russia, especially after the breakup of the Soviet Union that Vlad seems eager to reinstitute and reconstitute. And I guess it has never been the desire of many affluent people to risk their lives when the less affluent can be drafted. Even during previous wars, the affluent have evaded conscription. In nineteenth century Belgium, men avoided service through "purchasable military commutation.” ***
So, one consequence of unjustifiable and justifiable war is emigration. People simply leave rather than serve. If life is good in the present, why endanger it for a dubious cause? And of course, there are those who just can’t see themselves killing complete strangers toward whom they have no personal animosity, even under the constant assail of propaganda, such as Putin’s claim of Ukrainian Nazis at the Russian doorstep. (Or should I write, “Russian steppe”?)
What will happen to the Russian diaspora? Will they remain as immigrants in foreign lands? Will they return once Vlad is dead (an eventuality since the guy is не первой молодости? **** At age 70, Vlad has to know that his spring is long gone and that he, like all would be conquerers, will succumb to death either by assassination, disease, or old age. Certainly, the 18-35 age group that fled the country realize that time is on their side—as long as they can stay in paradise.
Another unintended consequence of the Ukrainian invasion has been the decimation of both the equipment and the fictitiously vaunted reputation of the Russian military to fight a conventional war. They have resorted to the strategy employed by Falkenhayn during the First World War at Verdun. Falkenhayn lost 377,000 Germans in the “meat grinder” of that long battle. Vlad has lost two-thirds that number according to reports that might be more true than they are Ukrainian propaganda. Certainly, he has lost a great deal of his vaunted tank corps, and lost those tanks to rather cheap and easy to use shoulder-fired rockets and little suicide drones that seem to have changed the nature of tank warfare.
Anyway, the Russians pose a threat of a perceived madman who has soldiers compliant enough to push those nuclear buttons, even though they are aware of the spread of radiation that would decimate their own families and the possibility of an attack on NATO that would initiate a hail of bombs on Russia and its sycophantic Press in Moscow. Seems that little good will come of this invasion, including the hate-in-perpetuity of the Ukrainian people for Russians and the eventual terrorist attacks and guerrilla warfare that will surface in future generations.
So, it seems that hundreds of thousands of Russians have only one message for mad Vlad: “Phuket your war, Vlad.”
*https://www.thailand-business-news.com/russia/96723-russians-to-thailand-as-a-refuge
*https://www.voanews.com/a/thousands-of-russians-flee-to-thailand-to-escape-war-/6979011.html
***Duxbury, Neil (2002). Random Justice: On Lotteries and Legal Decision-Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 154–155 (citing 19th century Belgium and France, as well as America during the Civil War). ISBN 978-0-19-925353-1.
****”No spring chicken”
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