Since I see a lot of speculation, a few reliable informations :
- Cryptos are really hard to cash out in Russia, so it's not a solution (like most arguments for cryptos by the way)
- As of Tuesday Western Union with payment in cash (I can't say anything about card or bank account transfer) was still working well. On April 1st they are only stopping to do in-Russia money transfer, because almost no one do that anymore. But they don't give you the best exchange rate and it's not obvious if it's going to work for long.
-Last week I know that some people could still get money using banks not included in sanctions. I don't know how well it works now.
-soon, schemes using another country as bridge will certainly start to become common. Will the sanctions keep up with that? I have some doubts.
-On chaturbate it's always possible to send the tokens to someone outside Russia if they have a verified account (and doesn't work in a studio)
-Streamate has locked out Russian models. they can't even try to get their money.
-In this thread someone as said something about "price not going up overnight", quite the contrary in fact. the day after the enactment of sanctions some food stuff have seen their price doubled. Since two weeks ago price of food has roughly increased five fold in certain place, and that's when the shelfs aren't empty. Other things have increased a lot too. Russian renting their apartment do it almost always informally so there isn't any guarantee that rent won't increase. One thing which is guaranteed to not increase though is wage...
About the ethics of sending money to Russia. like most people I think that what Putin is doing is undefendable (it would be nice if he ended like Stalin). Though everything isn't good on the Ukraine side either, it's always like that in a war. Putin is mixing reality with fiction, that's what makes the best lies, but it's true that there are far right and neo-nazis in Ukraine, some have been integrated in the army after 2014 (Azove regiment for exemple). But to see how the Russian propaganda is bullshit just look at the guy heading the Wagner mercenaries that Putin has sent to kill Zelensky: he has some nice tattoos (his Wikipedia photo is fine: Dmitry Utkin). Speaking of propaganda. People in Russia have really been brainwashed for years, a good sign of that is the quality of the propaganda directed towards Russian people (I'm not speaking internationally), it is really awful, if you are not already convinced then it really looks ridiculous. Quantity over quality, it's really a tsunami of shit. But since it's the only message you get there.... Censorship wasn't so strong until recently but you still could not speak of everything openly. It's not comparable to China, if you read English, go outside of websites based in Russia or just willing to search a bit, you can find easily contradictory viewpoints, but it requires some efforts and it's always risky to say them openly if not anonymous. A funny thing is that even very patriotic Russian have very low confidence in their institutions and medias, everyone know well the level of corruption and that they are lied to, but strangely when it becomes something like "Russia vs rest of the world" it seems a lot of people loose their critical thinking (honestly it happens in a lot of other countries too). knowing that you begin to understand why Putin like to regularly do some wars since he is in powe, but this time it seems it didn't go as he wished. About sanctions, they definitely works (just looks how angry Putin is, or the number of ex-billionaire/new millionaire), thought they could be better targeted and with less loopholes (for sure some are intentional). But is it a reason to let people live in the streets and starve? especially if you know them and can help them? Some of this money will certainly end in the hands of the ruling class but a lot less than what they get from oil/gaz, that's really where their money is. Anything that can decrease their consumption and lower their price will be much more effective (like using less oil and gaz, even if they don't come from Russia.It's strange how money saving, international politic and polluting less can somewhat align for once).
And to be realistic, a successful popular revolt is unlikely (people don't have weapons and are afraid, state security is strong and means, popular opinion isn't one sided, there is no structured and popular opposition) but a coup coming from inside isn't impossible. Though it would certainly be chaotic, since Putin is an adept of rule by divide there is obviously no opposition but there is no real successor either.
If you read until here sorry for the bad English
cheese. And through these holes everything legal, semi legal and illegal runs through and fro in peacetime. With that being said, you can bet your sweet ass it’s busy during war and embargo times.
