Ghostwriter wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 3:29 am Titles like "one step beyond" from Madness comes to mind.
Currently watching "the last of us" doesn't seem to provide any help.

Alex wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 11:29 am

Doc67 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 9:11 am I'm also surprised Putin let them out. If you are male and under 50 in Ukraine, you aren't going anywhere. Maybe Putin will send out the word to either come home, or never come home.

Plenty of Russian draft dodgers here in Thailand. How much trouble they'll be in if and when they return to Mother Russia is anyone's guess! I'd expect Purin to come down on them like a ton of bricks, eventually.

In Phuket, a popular resort island, Russians are buying off-plan condos with half a million dollars or more to facilitate their relocation or provide a landing pad for a future time when they may feel forced to leave their homeland.

Between November 1, 2022, and January 21, 2023, more than 233,000 Russians arrived in Phuket, according to data from Phuket International Airport, making them the biggest group of visitors by far.

Phuket has long been a favourite escape from the harsh Russian winter but property sales have surged since President Vladimir Putin in September ordered Moscow’s first wartime mobilisation since World War Two, suggesting many arrivals are intent on staying well beyond the length of a typical holiday.

“My clients are mostly young, 30-35… they’re wealthy, high-budget clients,” Sofia Malygaevareal, a real estate agent in Phuket who originally hails from Russia, told Al Jazeera.

“A lot of people have decided to move to Phuket from three to six months… to one year.”

To stay on the idyllic island, Russian arrivals need homes, schools, jobs and visas – which takes time in Thailand, where obtaining long-term residency rights can be difficult to achieve.

For many of the newcomers determined to swap a home on a war footing for a life in the Thai sunshine, money is not a problem. Realtors in Russian-dominated areas of the island say the influx of wealthy visitors, fuelled by the growing realisation the war has no end in sight as it enters its second year, has driven prices up to record levels.

Luxury condos that until recently were available to rent for about $1,000 a month can now go for three times that. Meanwhile, extravagant villas on the market for $6,000 or more are booked out up to a year in advance.