An interesting observation, and a question: Nearly six months ago now, on February 24th of this year, Russia began a "special military operation" against the sovereign nation of Ukraine. Since that time, fully three quarters of the member nations of the United Nations voted to condemn this unprovoked military action, and numerous nations in both Europe and all around the world have adopted extreme sanctions against Russia in response it its actions in Ukraine. These sanctions cover the gamut of economically important trade relations, including energy, banking, and high-technology goods. Despite all of the foregoing, I have just checked the archives for this mailing list for the past six months and it appears that in all of these past six months there has not even been so much as a single mention of Russia or the Ukraine War, or the ongoing threats coming out of Russia against NATO nations, EU nations, and European nations generally. Why? Are all members of the Internet community in the RIPE region so reluncant to even mention the word "Russia" because you all hope to just keep doing business as usual, even as Europe is plunged into the most destructive and deadly military conflict since the Second World War? Are all of you so completely focused on your bottom lines that you can turn a blind eye to the daily slaughter of innocent civilians, including children, in Ukraine? To put it another way: What exactly *is* the excuse of the RIPE region membership as it does its level best to pretend that there isn't even a European war going on? The best analogy I can think of is the Swiss during the NAZI era. It appears that, As long as the gold keeps coming in, everybody's happy. Regards, rfg P.S. I fully expect this post will be censored, because apparently nobody in Europe wants to even talk about all of the helpful network interconnections that are being supplied by EU/NATO nations to Russia, even after six months of unprovoked carnage and more than 10,000 Ukrainian's dead and 10 million displaced. That's OK. The European Internet community can continue to pretend that nothing has happened, and go on with business as usual, but the world knows better, and history will not forget the self-serving cowardice of the RIPE community in this time of deadly conflict.