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Dear Neel,
There are many Russians (such as Jetbrains corporation) who have taken the serious personal risk of publically opposing the war, and barring them from our conferences due to their nationality feels wrong to me. It may well be that the financial sanctions regime means that registration payments cannot be accepted, but that is quite different from barring them personally. What do the rest of you think?
I personally think that you are underestimating the magnitude of the drastic events that are happening. I might be biased, because I come originally from Ukraine and I have to watch now in real time how the places where I lived and which I loved are being demolished cruelly and methodically together with the population without any reason whatsoever. And I feel helpless seeing that I cannot do anything about it.
Collective responsibility is always a tricky thing. Normally, you do not want it. Normally. But the present situation is far from normal, far far away from normal.
Is it OK to say, well, we are against a nazi regime, but there are many nice people in there, why should we punish them? Maybe they are indeed nice, but they are serving that bloody regime. Nothing personal. They do empower the regime, by their reputation, by making it look more prestigious, making it look "normal" from the inside and the outside, which can, and (I assure you) will be used by propaganda precisely in this way. If there is a chance to send a signal to the effect "it is not normal" in whatever way, I am sorry, but I would do this by any means, without hesitation.
And it is not about "nationality", it is about "affiliation". Russians in Europe are "European scientists", Russians in Russia are "Putin's scientists" -- that is how it works mentally. In that sense, the formulation by ETAPS is very correct, in my opinion.
Cheers, Sergey
