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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   26186 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 18, 2024

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If you’d just killed hundred of Russian civilians, where would you go?

Finland? If we're limited to countries sharing land borders with Russia

Aside from the border being closed, I would assume that Finland takes a dim attitude towards mass murderers, even if they're mass murderers of Russians. Ukraine, on the other hand, is a barely-functional society for which "hating Russia" is a number one priority, and trying to lay low in Ukraine for long enough to figure out how to get to IS controlled territory in some shithole in the caucuses or central asia is a plan that's at least a plausible level of dumb.

Aside from the border being closed, I would assume that Finland takes a dim attitude towards mass murderers, even if they're mass murderers of Russians.

Finland has one of the largest unmonitored borders in the region, as only the SE-most is actually populated and monitored. You could literally walk across most of it and the only thing to notice would be if your vehicle was obviously abandoned near the road. The first the Finns would really be aware of is if you walked into their cities... which might get you turned over, or maybe not, but if you can stage the weapons and such to conduct a major terrorist attack, you can stash the hiking gear and supplies to go cross-country.

Ukraine, on the other hand, is a barely-functional society for which "hating Russia" is a number one priority, and trying to lay low in Ukraine for long enough to figure out how to get to IS controlled territory in some shithole in the caucuses or central asia is a plan that's at least a plausible level of dumb.

To get to Ukraine from Russia, you have to go through mutliple no-civilian zones, drive through a papers-please occupational region, and go through two generally parallel trench systems with a minefield inbetween.

The far, far simpler option than either of these is, of course, to go through the caucuses or central asia, or just hide in rural russia for awhile.

The far, far simpler option than either of these is, of course, to go through the caucuses or central asia, or just hide in rural russia for awhile.

Yeah but a lot of those countries are on pretty good terms with Russia and would actively aid in a manhunt if pressured. I imagine Finland would if they knew you were in their country, but I picked Finland because if you keep your head down and avoid notice you can easily slip away to anywhere else in the EU.

That the country governments are on good terms with Russia and would actively aid in a manhunt is less relevant than the fact that those countries- and borders- have less state capacity to launch an effective manhunt in a time-relevant manner.

If you're willing to walk for a few days, most borders in the world remain largely unmonitored and easy to bypass. Border crossings are (relatively) heavily monitored, but going 10 miles away where there are no roads will generally be lucky to have a fence, if that. After that, basic identity-tied document swap faciltiation (new IDs, credit cards, cell phones, and someone with a truck waiting for you) and you can generally drop off the net more effectively than in Europe.

The Finnish-Russian land border is completely closed at the moment.

The border crossings are completely closed. The border is a completely different question, especially for the sort of people who might not want to go through the publicly monitored entrance/exit.

Well, yes, if you're motivated enough then you can go just about anywhere, I guess, but the border closure makes Finland a particularly pointless choice.

Actually, the Finnish government might have considered such an attempt a jackpot, since it would have meant that their plan for formalizing pushbacks as policy would have received a major boost and it would have been very difficult for the opposition to block it from being passed in expedited bill processing.

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