In the months after Vladimir Putin announced the invasion of Ukraine, Russia saw a mass exodus of IT workers. According to government figures, about 100,000 IT specialists left Russia in 2022, or some 10% of the tech workforce--a number that is likely an underestimate. It has now been over a year since the invasion began. The tech workers who left everything behind to flee Russia warn that the country is well on its way to becoming a village: cut off from the global tech industry, research, funding, scientific exchanges, and critical components. It's an accelerating trend that started well before the war. AI language models are the shiniest, most exciting thing in tech right now.