I've met a member of the YDB team at a conference in Moscow, a nice polite guy. I doubt they have any say in the company on the compliance of the company with the Russian law (let alone on Putin's antics), they are engineers, not lawyers or political activists.
In my experience, there's a higher percentage of, say, Navalny supporters among Russian programmers than among the general population. Russia's most popular engineering blog, Habr (kind of like Reddit for engineers), is generally distrusting of the government, comments that openly support the government are usually downvoted. One of the trending topics there is relocation outside of Russia. Hate against Russian programmers, in my opinion, is completely misdirected. The project is open source, using it does not sponsor Putin's war machine. I think collaboration is a better strategy in the long term as opposed to isolation and bullying which can turn the last sane Russians away from the West, playing into Putin's hands. We should judge people by their actions, not by their association with a particular ethnic group.
In my experience, there's a higher percentage of, say, Navalny supporters among Russian programmers than among the general population. Russia's most popular engineering blog, Habr (kind of like Reddit for engineers), is generally distrusting of the government, comments that openly support the government are usually downvoted. One of the trending topics there is relocation outside of Russia. Hate against Russian programmers, in my opinion, is completely misdirected. The project is open source, using it does not sponsor Putin's war machine. I think collaboration is a better strategy in the long term as opposed to isolation and bullying which can turn the last sane Russians away from the West, playing into Putin's hands. We should judge people by their actions, not by their association with a particular ethnic group.