>Ukrainians and Russians typically have Western Europe as cultural beacon and thus are uninterested in living in the US

Souce? Because H1B was created specifically for them, post-USSR collapse, so that the US industry would absorb all the now unemployed skilled mathematicians, physicists, electrical engineers that were previously working in the Soviet defense industry, so that their skills now benefit the US private sector economy (SV) instead of some rogue element post-USSR collapse. And many, MANY, emigrated there in the last 35+ years, at least when emigration to the US was still easy.

Also, "cultural beacon" is such a vague BS theater-kid term that fits no argument. Knowing many of them personally, they more identify to the individualist capitalist "big house with lawn and big car" mindset of the Americans, than the socialist/communist "solidarity via let's tax the hard working high-earners and give to the lazy low-earners so we all live in concrete shoebox apartments" mindset of Europeans.

They come to western Europe instead of the US now, because western Europe is closer, cheaper, easier to get to thanks to open borders, and provides most welfare aids to refugees than US, not because the US is not a "cultural beacon" or whatever.

>while it's full of them (software engineers) in Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Austria, Netherlands, etc...

Bullshit. I live in Austria and it's not "full of them" (programmers I mean) because they earn less in Austria than back home. Maybe Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland because there's more US big-tech there with high earning potential, but definitely not Austria, which for me was the indicator that you don't know what you're talking about, and is making stuff up.

Într-adevăr, un porc ce ştie să vorbească, ba chiar şi să scrie.