this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2026
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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 95 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 41 points 1 month ago (4 children)

That Leo guy is especially dumb. It felt good to read the end of his story. Scammed of money, devorced, and alone.

[–] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 30 points 1 month ago

That dude literally walked through life like a rube on the boardwalk holding a balloon and wearing a propeller beanie. Easiest mark in the world.

[–] baines@lemmy.cafe 10 points 1 month ago

lost his wife and kids and still is inhaling the copium

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 month ago

At least his wife grew a few braincells

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[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 73 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I wonder if he'll be drafted

Within weeks of arriving, Leo says they were defrauded of 5 million roubles – about £52,000 ($66,000) – by a contact they trusted, leaving them homeless.

Although he is committed to staying in Russia out of a sense of "destiny", he now says he misses the freedoms that have shaped the American personality.

"[In] Russia you don't have these human rights values."

[–] inari@piefed.zip 38 points 1 month ago
[–] egrets@lemmy.world 25 points 1 month ago (2 children)

he is committed to staying in Russia out of a sense of "destiny"

More like "density".

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[–] rustydrd@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Human rights? I thought that was "woke" /s

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[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 59 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Imagine being dumb enough to think Texas isn't conservative enough for you

[–] 0x0@infosec.pub 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ive heard afghanistan is a great alternative for repubes

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[–] krashmo@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

I don't think I can

[–] tal@lemmy.today 56 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Leo is a devout Christian who had become increasingly disillusioned with...the rise of the LGBTQ movement.

Although he is committed to staying in Russia out of a sense of "destiny", he now says he misses the freedoms that have shaped the American personality.

"[In] Russia you don't have these human rights values."

I mean...

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 32 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I hate gays more than I love human rights

hope the guy gets sent to the front and barely survives just so he can share his message with all the other idiots.

bet he'll see dudes blowing dudes for socks or boots on the front lines.

[–] rozodru@piefed.world 12 points 1 month ago

I hate gays more than not being homeless.

Imagine hating a group of people SO much you'd rather be homeless in Russia of all god damn places.

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[–] Jiral@lemmy.world 26 points 1 month ago (2 children)

In some unmentioned corners of lemmy, they'd tell you without a hint of irony, that this is Western Propaganda and Russians are enjoy much more freedom than people in lets say Germany, where oppression has reached unheard of levels. ...

or something like that.

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[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 9 points 1 month ago

these human rights values

LOL, that's just FAFO with a chef's kiss. Kudos for honesty though. I hope he becomes reformed and much more skeptical of bullshit narratives; although the article does not read like it. More like he's comfortable with a 50/50 divide in his mind. Christianity, I guess.

[–] MrSulu@lemmy.ml 46 points 1 month ago (2 children)
  1. Not really very different to the promises of great new lives made to people joining ISIS
  2. Oh the irony of becoming a migrant elsewhere whilst complaining about migrants at home.
[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 34 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Nonono, he is not an immigrant, he is an expat. HUGE difference! Just ask the British pensioners in Spain and southern France!

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[–] lennybird@lemmy.world 45 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I guess credit to them for following through but now they're in the Find Out phase.

Conservatives, tankies should really be careful for what they wish for.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 month ago

Conservatives, tankies should really be careful for what they wish for.

It's kinda like when you see a dog barking behind a window, and it immediately calms down when you open it.

Russia is the greatest country in the entire world... Until they have to live there.

[–] baines@lemmy.cafe 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

nope please tankies live your best life, move to mother russia today

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[–] volley3744@lemmy.world 37 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Ilja Belobragin, general managing partner at Move To Russia, a company which helps foreigners relocate to Russia, says something he frequently hears from his clients is that they "don't recognise the community around me anymore".

Some prospective migrants complain about high immigration in their own countries or what they see as declining living standards, he says.

Let's break this down: The people say they "don't recognise the community around [them] anymore" because of "high immigration", so they decide to become an immigrant surrounded by people of a different nationality than them.

As I see it, this is for one specific reason only: I don't believe it's the different cultural values from immigration that bothers them (they are literally moving into a wholly foreign culture; although I'm sure the Orthodox church gives some perverse appeal), but I believe they are bothered by ethnicity/skin colour. I believe these people are racists more than they are xenophobes.

I believe, for these people, Russia is a better alternative only because they have a certain perception of white-skinned Russians. I don't think these people are aware of places like Tuva, or Yakutia, or Chechnya - and I don't think they would ever visit those places. To say their quiet part out loud, I think these "conservatives" are just people who are white supremacists, moving because it's a "white country" in their eyes, and thinking all white people have some shared essence. This is how they can justify to themselves being a foreigner in a foreign land. How else could they justify it to themselves?

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago (4 children)

From what I've read in the past, a lot of them are just really homophobic.

[–] Comet79@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

Russia's been running a massive propaganda campaign in Europe and the US for more than a decade. Including slandering the LGBT and trying to associate them with illegal activities, promoting Christian orthodoxy over atheism, depicting Europe as degenerate and failing, demonizing immigrants and trying to frame them as criminals etc.

The people who move to Russia thinking they are upgrading their lives are few according to this article, but I'm still surprised by how these people completely ignored how authoritarian and destitute that country is. Germans moving to Russia thinking it's the better place to be is a huge propaganda victory for the latter.

[–] feetandballs@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

"Certainly this will get rid of my urge to hump butt"

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[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 32 points 1 month ago (1 children)

These people construct a dream world in which all their problems are the result of “woke”, and in which Russia is a bastion of Conservative values. It’s delusional, and sad, but there’s a lot of influencers talking convincingly about how awful our life is. Sometimes people believe them.

Eat the rich, don’t move to Russia.

[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 8 points 1 month ago

dream world in which (...) Russia is a bastion of Conservative values

According to the article Russia is actively creating that image, and the special visa to go with it, for numbskulls like Leo.

[–] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 27 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Many of the would-be migrants are attracted by Russia's Shared Values visa, sometimes called the "anti-woke" visa (...)

Introduced by President Vladimir Putin in 2024, the visa offers temporary residency for up to three years to citizens of 47 countries Russia considers "unfriendly".

There is no limit to the number of people who can apply and applicants do not need to pass the usual Russian language, history or law tests.

Instead, they must declare that they share Russia's traditional spiritual and moral values and reject what the Russian government describes as the "destructive neoliberal ideology" of their home countries.

Imagine no alarm bells going off as you read that 🤦

Also, the USA is one of those 47 countries! Remember that the next time Trump boasts about his good relations with Russia and/or Putin being his buddy.

The whole article - Leo's story - is worth the read.

Following their move to Russia, Leo's family became one of the most visible examples of Western migration.

Russian state media filmed their asylum ceremony and Leo publicly thanked President Putin for welcoming them. At the time, Leo believed he was helping to pioneer what he calls "an unprecedented piece of immigration legislation".

But the reality proved more difficult than he'd anticipated.

Within weeks of arriving, Leo says they were defrauded of 5 million roubles – about £52,000 ($66,000) – by a contact they trusted, leaving them homeless.

When I spoke to Leo earlier this year, he was living separately from his wife in the city of Ivanovo, and his older children had returned to the United States.

Asked whether Russia had lived up to his expectations, Leo describes the last two years as the best and worst of his life.

Something in the article reminded me of the Anastasia movement, one of those esoteric cults you need to look a little closer at to see the fascism.

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[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Some prospective migrants complain about high immigration in their own countries or what they see as declining living standards, he says.

Worried about immigration and poor living standards? Become an immigrant in Russia! Conservatives aren't great at thinking things through.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)
[–] 0x0@infosec.pub 7 points 1 month ago

~~at thinking~~_

[–] Nautalax@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago (4 children)

This article inspired me to check and Teddy Boy Greg (the disgruntled white power barber with a ton of ridiculous facial tattoos who moved to Russia to get away from what he called “degenerates”) has recently died in Ukraine

[–] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

White supremacist died fighting Russia's war against... checks notes... alleged neo-Nazis? Dude wasn't blessed with an overabundance of critical thinking.

[–] antonim@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

checks notes… alleged neo-Nazis

Allow me to present this handy guide:

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[–] Nautalax@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago

One of the interesting things about their propaganda style (which unfortunately is spreading elsewhere…) is that they will spin up entirely different conflicting narratives and even have people arguing between them on their platforms. This is because if they stick to just one kind of narrative, it can only find purchase with the particular sort of audience it’s geared to and will probably fail elsewhere. But if they spin up a ton of different narratives from various mouthpieces geared to many different audiences and blast them unceasingly, then there are still plenty of other hooks to potentially catch a listener even if some are definitely flubs. And if there’s mass confusion in what you actually stand for with all sorts of contradictory statements constantly in the churn of being advanced or withdrawn and defended or blasted, then past a certain point people just kind of give up in the face of the background noise and believe whatever they want rather than if everyone were more closely keeping track of the same smaller and simpler narrative. Part of the reason why they have numerous controlled opposition parties.

So to people who hate nazis they indeed target a constant barrage of “WE ARE FIGHTING UKRONAZIS” content as justification. This guy however was part of a different stream pulled in by the presentation of Russia as a stern conservative defender of traditional values against the wokeness of the decadent west.

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[–] lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com 22 points 1 month ago (5 children)

At the time, he believed Russia offered an attractive alternative: a society built on Christian faith and family values

As the bible says: Give birth to as many children as possible, so that your corrupt leader can send them to war.

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[–] CoolSouthpaw@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Whenever these morons move to Russia, they improve the average IQs of both countries.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 month ago

Russians are no stupider, on average, than anyone else. They just have shittier luck regarding the system they've been born into.

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 19 points 1 month ago (6 children)

You can't fix stupid, but you can laugh when it moves to Russia.

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[–] Akasazh@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

My schadenfreude is through the roof

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[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 16 points 1 month ago

I'm entirely in favor of a program that promotes the voluntary exit of xenophobic reactionary cunts from the US, as long as we can come up with some way to not let them return after it inevitably all goes to shit for them.

[–] UndergroundParking@lemmy.cafe 16 points 1 month ago (3 children)

One of the few good things russia has done. Voluntarily pulling dumbasses into their own borders.

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[–] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Russia is the perfect country for the MAGA fucknuts. I'm surprised Ben is not serving as canon fodder on the front. 224 idiot Germans moved to Russia, WTF! Stay there and do not return.

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[–] rozodru@piefed.world 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)

it just constantly boggles my mind how mentally ill people (Leo clearly has some form of mental illness) and truly idiotic people (again, applies to Leo) always seem to have enough money to just blow away like this. Meanwhile intelligent and sane individuals are barely scraping by.

I mean i'm comfortable in life, more than comfortable, but i don't have "move to another country simply because I hate a particular thing in society" money.

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[–] sns@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 month ago

Good riddance.

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