And one might think twice, or more, about flying out:
U.S. Embassy personnel are generally not permitted to travel on Russian air carriers due to safety concerns. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgraded the air safety rating for Russia from Category 1 to Category 2 on April 21, 2022, due to Russia’s Federal Agency for Air Transport noncompliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) safety standards.
Seems risk avoidance is going to be difficult at best.
For now. Although the way the Putin regime has been attempting to re-write history in its attempt to justify its illegal invasion, that attitude may change.
Well, but isn’t Putin wanting to make these connections to the pre-Soviet Russian empire? Not having the correction interpretation might piss him off… Often regimes look to spin even older history in particular ways to put themselves in the best light.
I guess it depends on what you’re working on and what part of history a particular regime is looking to spin for their own advantage. Being an African American historian in FL right now probably isn’t too comfortable if you are doing anything that challenges the “America has always been great” narrative…
And what did dear old Nikita say about historians?
He seems like a former leader that Putin would not like, but I’m sure he agrees with this comment.
Warning travellers is only part of what those advisories do. They also create an official record that you can refer to in case you have to convince your employer, customer, insurance or whomever that getting out of Russia was indeed the only reasonable thing to do.
While there are citizens that may be there that may get caught up in this that deserve negotiations for release (journalists, historians, etc.), if one of these idiots that went over to support the Putin regime gets taken as a meat shield, we really should just leave them there. FAFO.
AND they reduce the amount of political pressure for the State Dept. to ransom you out if you are taken hostage by the regime. :“We TOLD them to get out. If they didn’t, it isn’t OUR fault.”
I feel like any US citizen who remains in Russia after this last year is somewhere down the spectrum of batshit insanity and completely lacking in any sense of self-preservation.
One thing that makes me sad is that my wife studied there in the 80s, and will likely never be able to visit again. I went in 1999, and she regrets not going with me, that was a brief window where I think it would have been safe. Then the terrorism and Chechnya happened, and as her appearance had her often mistaken there for being from the Caucasus and we thought it better to wait but it’s only gotten worse and now this.
