It is now 2024, and governments are still not particularly interested in Bitcoin and other decentralized cryptocurrencies. And it is unlikely that anything will change in this regard in the future. States will only use currencies they can control. It is easier for them to create and work with their own CBDCs than with cryptocurrency. But they will use blockchain technology wherever they can apply it. But everything in this world is changing. Perhaps something will change in the relationship between the state and cryptocurrency.

Another warship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet sank. At dawn on February 14, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked the large Russian landing ship Caesar Kunikov with five Magura V5 naval drones. The ship, which was carrying ammunition, received critical damage to its port side, after which it listed and sank near Alupka, a few kilometers from the coast of the occupied Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. According to Ukrainian intelligence, most of the crew members were killed.

The successful attack on the ship "Caesar Kunikov" was made possible thanks to the coordinated and refined "pack tactics". And the occupiers countered this only with sailors with machine guns.

The first naval drone aimed at the ship in the bow. There is a bow ramp - a vulnerable spot. Therefore, the first hole appeared in the main hold. The second drone attacked the compartment with the power plant from the left side, that is, the last third of the hull. And the third hit the same spot, only increasing the defeat.

Experts also emphasize that there were two 57-mm twin AK-725 automatic cannons on board the Caesar Kunikov. But in the video you can’t hear their work, but only the occupiers are visible, running chaotically and trying to hit the drones with machine guns.

Since the beginning of a full-scale war, Ukraine has already eliminated four Russian large landing craft. Russia still has five of them in service, and four more are under repair. At this rate, by the end of the year, the Russian Black Sea Fleet may cease to exist. Ukraine is successfully addressing issues of global shipping safety in the Black Sea.

Life expectancy has increased substantially throughout the world over the past few decades.
The average person born in 1960 (from this year the UN began collecting data on the entire planet) could reach the age of 52.5 years. Today, the average life expectancy is 72 years.
But the maximum human lifespan has not changed much - if at all. Life expectancy is increasing as more and more people live to old age. Medical capabilities are growing, but services in the field of increasing life expectancy are very expensive, so they are available only to the elite.
Scientists say that thanks to the development of science and medicine, people will soon be able to live to be 120 years old. But this is the limit, since the human body is programmed in such a way that with age, mechanisms are activated that lead to its death.

Every person needs to eat regularly and have a balanced diet for good health. And there are big problems with this, since the climate on our planet is changing dramatically due to human activity. The ambient temperature is rising quite quickly, glaciers are melting and will lead to the flooding of many areas in different parts of our planet, in others the temperature will rise so much that it will be uninhabitable. All this will significantly reduce the remaining land area processed for agriculture. Consequently, the cost of food will increase sharply.

People in the near future will look for additional opportunities to create artificial food, for example, by properly processing oil and gas, instead of wastefully burning them as fuel. Therefore, the role of food and agriculture will increase.

Finance itself is not the answer to every problem. They themselves do not create material wealth, but only redistribute the flow of money. An entire generation cannot engage in finance and investing. Because there won't be anything to eat. In this regard, I do not think that the younger generation will dramatically change anything in the employment structure of the population.

Even if the Republicans win the US elections, Trump will not necessarily win. Nikki Haley also has some chances from the Republican Party, and they have been growing lately. But even if Trump wins, it is not necessary that he will fulfill his campaign promises. In addition, he will not decide on assistance to Ukraine himself. He may be forced to do so by Congress or other forces.
And it’s not only the United States that provides assistance to Ukraine. Now Europe is increasing the production of military equipment and ammunition and, first of all, the needs of Ukraine will be met. So Russia cannot seize Ukraine. Don't even dream.

Not everything is as good in Russia as the Russian State Statistics Service portrays at the request of the Kremlin. First let's look at Wikipedia. It states that only three population censuses were conducted in the Russian Federation - in 2002, 2010 and 2021. According to the 2002 census, the number of Russian citizens was 145.2 million people (98% of the country's inhabitants compared to 1989). The second census registered a further decline in Russia's population - 142,905,200 people. Since the 2002 census, Russia has moved from 7th to 8th place in population in the world.

The last Russian population census took place from October 15 to November 14, 2021. Its peculiarity was that it was a “digital” population census, in which the organizers chose the “State Services” portal as the main way to collect information, and census takers walked around residents with electronic tablets and entered the survey results into an electronic database. However, as a result, a record low number of residents participated in the census - only 57%, and most of the data was obtained from administrative sources. Such administrative data is significantly incomplete in comparison with survey data or self-filled questionnaires on the State Services portal. But according to the results of such a census, 147,182,123 Russians were indicated.
https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%B8_%D0%BD %D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%B2_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1 %81%D0%B8%D0%B8
It is obvious that with the general trend towards a decrease in the population of Russia, its explosive growth during the incomplete census of 2021 is indicated to please Putin’s eye.

Next, let's look at the information from The Economist. According to this publication, Russia reached its population peak in 1994 - 149 million people. Since then, the overall population has declined in a zigzag manner. Even according to the Russian State Statistics Service, in 2020 and 2021, the country's population decreased by 1.3 million people, and the number of deaths exceeded the number of births by 1.7 million. The largest reduction occurred among ethnic Russians, whose numbers, according to the 2021 census, have decreased by 5.4 million in 2010-21. Their share of the population fell from 78% to 72%.

According to Western estimates, cited by The Economist, 175,000-200,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded last year. Between 500,000 and 1 million, mostly young people, fled abroad to escape the meat grinder.

If we add deaths from the pandemic to those of war and flight from mobilization, Russia lost between 1.9 and 2.8 million people in 2020-23, in addition to its usual demographic deterioration. This would be even worse than the disastrous early 2000s, when the population fell by about half a million a year.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2023/03/5/7392036/

It should also be mentioned here that according to the latest report that was presented to Patrushev and the content of which is provided by the Russian telegram channel "General SVR", Russia's irretrievable losses in the war against Ukraine amount to 472,491 people (396,299 military personnel and 76,192 from the Wagner PMC) .

No one knows exactly how much of the population is in the Russian Federation now. But there are definitely not even 140 million people there.

When internal contradictions intensify in a country with a totalitarian regime of government, often the authoritarian leaders of such countries try to divert the attention of their citizens to external problems, and often this situation leads to a search for external enemies and military actions against other countries. There appears to be an additional threat looming over Taiwan. Moreover, Xi Jinping has already given the command to prepare for war and the Chinese armed forces are now rearming, taking into account the experience of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Of course, the situation is constantly changing, but overall tension in the world is growing due to Putin's military ambitions and a growing sense of impunity for attacks on other states.

No one can prohibit Ukraine from striking Russian territory with its own weapons. Therefore, Ukraine continues to destroy military facilities on Russian territory, and has also begun to destroy dual-use facilities, which are oil refineries and fuel tanks on Russian territory, which contribute to increasing Russia’s military power.

Just since the beginning of 2024, Ukrainian drones have attacked a dozen oil refineries in the Russian Federation. Thus, on January 9, in the Russian city of Orel, drones attacked a fuel and energy complex.

On the night of January 18, Ukrainian drones attacked an oil terminal in St. Petersburg.

On January 19, oil tanks caught fire at an oil depot in the city of Klintsy, Bryansk region.
On January 20, loud explosions were heard again at the same oil depot. The oil depot burned for two days in a row.

On the night of January 21, the Novatek fuel plant was closed due to a Ukrainian drone attack on the sea terminal in Ust-Luga, Leningrad region. This plant processed fuel for the Russian Armed Forces. After the SBU attack, all tankers located at the terminal went far out to sea.

After a fire on January 25, the largest oil refinery in Tuapse, a city in the Krasnodar region and a major port on the Black Sea coast, was paralyzed due to a Ukrainian drone strike. This plant annually processes up to 9 million tons of raw materials and is one of the ten largest in the Russian Federation.

On January 30, Ukrainian drones hit the Kaluganefteprodukt oil depot in the Kaluga region.

On January 31, explosions occurred at an oil refinery in St. Petersburg. The Nevsky Mazut oil refinery was hit by drones.

On the night of February 3, an attack was carried out on the Lukoil oil refinery in the Volgograd region. The drone struck a primary oil refinery plant producing ELOU-AVT-5 fuel.

On the night of February 9, a fire broke out at the Ilsky oil refinery in the Seversky district of the Krasnodar Territory. A primary processing plant with a capacity of 3.6 million tons per year was hit. Without it, Russians will not be able to produce diesel fuel for military needs. The price of such an installation is about $50 million.

In addition, on the night of February 9, explosions occurred at the Afipsky oil refinery, which is also located in the Krasnodar Territory. Both objects are located about 20 km from each other.
https://24tv.ua/ru/ilskij-npz-gorit-posle-vzryvov-rossijane-zajavili-o-bpla_n2490930

I cited only cases of attacks by Ukrainian drones on oil refineries in Russia over the past month and a half. In this regard, only in the first month of 2024, Russian oil companies reduced gasoline exports abroad by 37%. Sales of diesel fuel, the largest export of petroleum products, fell 23%.

Ukraine is also simultaneously attacking Russian factories that produce military products. This list is also impressive even in recent months.

And which member of the US Congress declared that the United States would fight the Russians to the last Ukrainian? Can you refer to any media information about this?

No Western officials, of course, have ever said anything like this. The first instance of the use of the formula “war to the last Ukrainian” was found in a column by veteran American politician Ron Paul, published on his own website on March 14, 2022. Paul has not held any public office for almost 10 years.

But such statements are used by Russian propagandists and presented almost as the official position of the United States. The goal is simple - to “replace” the enemy: they say that Russia is not fighting with Ukraine, but with the entire “collective West”. This makes it easier to explain the obvious failures: the failure of the operation to quickly capture Kyiv in February-March, the September counter-offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kharkov region, the surrender of Kherson in November 2022.

A similar statement was also made by retired American diplomat Chas Freeman in his article for the information portal The Gray Zone, who is not a current US official and expressed only his personal opinion.
Freeman was once the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia. But his reputation has long been hopelessly damaged: for example, he said that the Chinese authorities were too lenient with the “extras” of protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989 (then, according to various estimates, from several hundred to several thousand people died).
https://m.gazeta.ru/army/news/2022/03/28/17485021.shtml
https://m.gazeta.ru/army/news/2022/03/28/17485021.shtml

Only Putin spoke about this from state officials: “Ukraine’s mobilization reserve is not limitless; it seems that Western countries are ready to fight to the last Ukrainian,” Putin briefly noted.
https://news.obozrevatel.com/russia/do-poslednego-ukraintsa-putin-sdelal-tsinichnoe-zayavlenie-o-vojne-obviniv-vo-vsem-zapad.htm

In addition, the melting of glaciers adds another big problem to humanity. The ice melts and exposes the continental land, which has been in a state of permafrost for many centuries and even millennia. All frozen bacteria are now awakening and will inevitably enter the human environment. Among them will be the causative agents of various deadly and previously unknown or long-gone diseases. Therefore, to all the predicted misfortunes, this big problem will also be added.

Putin's Russia is now speculating on the topic of world war and the use of nuclear weapons. Having attacked Ukraine and trying to seize its territory, the Kremlin constantly threatens any state that tries to help Ukraine defend its freedom and independence. Putin and his entourage want no one to stop them from committing genocide in Ukraine, robbing and killing the civilian population of this country. But as the international criminal Putin and his accomplices want, it won’t happen. The world has already seen that to give in to Putin once, and then you will have to give in indefinitely, since he regards any concessions as a sign of weakness and therefore his appetite only increases from this.
Therefore, it is logical that the confrontation will reach some high point and then either defuse in some way or develop into a big war comparable to a world war.

Indeed, Putin’s propaganda for resolving territorial issues by military means has reached its maximum levels. At the same time, the word “war” itself is banned there and you can end up in prison for pronouncing it. But propaganda has worked very well so far.
According to the results of a survey of Russians in January 2024, the majority of respondents (77%) support the war against Ukraine, 16% of respondents do not support it, and another 8% find it difficult to answer. About 64% of Russians do not think that the country made a mistake by starting the war; about 22% of respondents consider the start of the war against Ukraine a mistake.
https://nv.ua/world/countries/skolko-rossiyan-podderzhivayut-voynu-protiv-ukrainy-procent-novosti-rossii-50390654.html#:~:text=%.

Of course, some Russians are afraid to openly express their opinions for fear of persecution. Thus, the share of those who openly express disagreement with the “special operation” fluctuated slightly and in the February wave of surveys amounted to 11%. But the fact that there is practically no freedom of speech in Russia is the fault of Russian citizens themselves. Other countries have no right to interfere in these internal processes of Russia.

For now, we must assume that the majority of the Russian population wants to continue bombing and shelling civilian settlements in Ukraine and turning them into ruins, as well as killing women and children in Ukraine. Therefore, they deserve that sanctions continue to be strengthened to include them, and that Ukraine intensifies attacks on military and dual-use installations on Russian territory.

If the BRICS countries decide to create their own currency, it will definitely not be Bitcoin or another decentralized cryptocurrency. Governments will never use a currency that they do not control. For this reason, the currency of the BRICS countries will not affect Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies in any way.

At the same time, if we talk about the currency of the BRICS countries, first of all we need to look at what kind of currency it will be. So far I have not seen any information on this topic. Therefore, there is no possibility of discussing a non-existent currency.

It seems to me that I have completely answered your questions. Regarding the fact that Russia will not attack anyone after Ukraine, I gave a number of examples from the statements of the top officials of this state - Putin, Peskov and Lavrov that before the attack on Ukraine they also blatantly lied that they were not going to attack her. True, they lied and are lying not only about this. That is, there is no faith in the Russian leadership, they are complete liars. Therefore, what they continue to invent about the purpose of attacking Ukraine does not matter at all, since it is still a lie.

  In this regard, in response to your request to report on the reasons for Russia’s attack on Ukraine from the words of Russian officials, I wrote on January 28: “As for why Russia attacked Ukraine, the reasons and goals of this attack still change periodically. From the “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine in the first days of the terrorist attack to the statement by the governor of St. Petersburg that the motive for such an attack was the fight against mythical gender-neutral toilets in Ukraine. https://24tv.ua/ru/rossijskaja-propaganda -gubernator-petersburga-zajavil-chto-rossija_n2472841".

But if you want to talk more about it, let's talk. So, in Wikipedia it is written about this: As one of the justifications for the invasion, Vladimir Putin used the untrue representation of Ukraine as a neo-Nazi state leading genocide in the Donbass."
https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B5%D1%87%D1%8C_%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8 %D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%9F%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%BE_%D0%BD%D0 %B0%D1%87%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B5_%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8 %D1%8F_%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%A3%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%83

In the same place, in the section “Content of the appeal” it is written: “Putin called the purpose of the invasion of Ukraine “the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years,” and in order to prevent the alleged bullying and genocide, Russia needs to “demilitarize and denazify Ukraine”[1].

That is, according to Putin, the Russians attacked Ukraine to protect Russian-speaking people in Donbass. Protected. Some previously prosperous settlements turned into complete ruins due to the scorched earth tactics of the invasion, with virtually no male population left. Those who survived the Russian artillery were mobilized for the war and at the front they were forced to attack in the front ranks, and behind them there were loading detachments that killed the retreating ones. The population of Donbass is being disposed of, and in their place, hundreds of thousands of Russians - Kazakhs, Buryats, Chechens and other nationalities - are being resettled from the depths of Russia, so that in the future the conquered territory will be more obedient to the Kremlin.

As for the “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine declared by Putin, a significant part of the Russian population not only does not understand the meaning of these words, but also cannot pronounce them. In fact, they mean the destruction of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as the destruction of Ukraine as a state and Ukrainians as a nation.

Then other reasons for the attack on Ukraine appeared, but if you want, more on that later.

If Bitcoin spot ETFs have already been approved for spot ETFs, then a similar decision regarding Ethereum will be made quite quickly. So if this event is expected in May, then this time is enough. Along with Bitcoin halving, this will give a noticeable impetus to price growth in the cryptocurrency market. Of course, this will not happen immediately, with periodic corrections, but in general, this year and even the first half of the next will certainly be good for participants in this market.

It should be expected that gradually all cryptocurrency exchanges will fall under the control of states and their governments. Otherwise, their activities on the territory of these states will be limited or simply impossible. Coins with a high level of anonymity and confidentiality come to the attention of states first. Apparently, after a certain time they will either simply disappear, or their circulation will be illegal, bypassing official crypto exchanges and exchangers. In this case, the Binance exchange simply yields to pressure from government authorities.

In Russia, any neighboring state that refuses to fall under its direct influence and that tries to conduct independent foreign policy activities is considered hostile. Russia has consistently adhered to this policy for many centuries, so wars of aggression have become the norm for it, and now it includes many nations and nationalities, which the Kremlin continues to ruthlessly exploit, sucking oil, gas and other natural resources from their territories.

Therefore, those neighboring states that join any defensive alliances that do not include or dominate Russia pose a particular danger to Russia. Therefore, it does not matter whether it will be NATO or another military alliance. The danger for Russia is the very difficulty of continuing further violent influence on them.

Any explanations for aggression on the part of Russia have no meaning. These reasons will change depending on changes in the situation, as happens in explaining the reasons for the attack on Ukraine. There is only one reason: Ukraine allowed itself the impudence to leave Russia’s zone of influence. And fairy tales about NATO’s hostility remain fairy tales only for the domestic audience; the world community has long understood the parasitic essence of the Kremlin. Therefore, evil must be eradicated; it is useless to negotiate with it.

For the second month in a row, Yemen's Houthis attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea in response to Israel's operation in the Gaza Strip. The United States and its allies are trying to protect shipping and are striking back.

Tensions in the region have already led to a 42% drop in trade over the strategically important Suez Canal.
Despite promises to only target ships associated with Israel and its allies, the attacks quickly became a low-stakes effort. A recent example is the defeat on January 28 of the tanker Marlin Luanda under the flag of the Marshall Islands with Russian oil. After this, oil prices rose by $2, but on January 29 they fell back to less than $77 per barrel.

Since mid-December, the United States, along with nine partner countries, began to respond: shooting down missiles, drones and conducting airstrikes against the Houthis. But so far this has not brought results. Trade through the Suez Canal has dropped by 42% in two months. Container ship traffic fell the most – by 67% on a weekly basis. The transit of bulk carriers and tankers is also being reduced.

The Red Sea is the main route from Asia to Europe, accounting for 12–15% of global trade. The crisis there is forcing shipowners to take an alternative route through the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. This is a plus of 10–14 days for logistics and increased transportation costs.

Some may think that this is a lesson for those who support Israel. But for now, the losers are countries that derive income from shipping. First of all, Egypt, which lost at least 40% of the fees for passage of the Suez Canal.

https://forbes.ua/ru/svit/dzhin-viyshov-z-plyashki-khusiti-drugiy-misyats-atakuyut-chervone-more-kritichniy-marshrut-dlya-eksportu-ta-importu-z-ukraini-yak- podolati-krizu-31012024-18875

Humanity, if desired, is able to overcome any energy crisis and there are many ways to produce cheap and environmentally friendly energy.

In Ukraine, for example, an ordinary schoolboy proposed a project called “Generating electricity from the atmosphere.” The inventor proposes to extract electricity from the air, or more precisely from the atmosphere using an artificial ionized cloud due to the strong electric field that will be emitted by the ionizing tower. Samuel's invention involves the extraction of not only electricity, but also water. The estimated cost of one kilowatt of energy in this case will cost approximately one cent.
At the Olympics of Geniuses, held in Oswego (New York, USA), he won bronze among two thousand young inventors from all over the world.
And how many more similar inventions can be proposed in our time of rapid development of science and technology.

Source:
https://building-tech.org/%D0%AD%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B8%D1%8F/ukraynskyy-shkolnyk-sozdal-ustanovku-dlya-poluchenyya -elektroenergyy-yz-atmosferi---1-kylovatt-za-3-kopeyky

If you mean how many foreign citizens are participating in the war on the side of Ukraine, then it is known that after the full-scale invasion of the Russian army into Ukraine in February 2022, about 20 thousand citizens from 55 countries joined the International Legion under the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the beginning of this war. How many foreigners are still fighting in Ukraine a year later is a question to which hardly anyone today can give a definite answer. Some experts put the figure at 3 thousand people, others - even less. This is due to the fact that when such volunteers got to the front, and the situation there was very different from what they had seen before, it brought more problems than good. Since then, the Ukrainian authorities have tightened the rules for admitting foreigners.

In general, foreign fighters appeared in Ukraine long before the start of full-scale Russian aggression. Some people from neighboring countries joined the fight against pro-Russian separatists at the beginning of the war in Donbass in 2014. Among them were many Georgians who formed the Georgian National Legion. Now this is the largest foreign unit in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

In 2014, Belarusians also appeared in Donbass. Now two units are fighting for Ukraine at once - the Pagonya regiment and the Kastus Kalinovsky regiment. The commander of the Kalinovsky regiment says that without a free Ukraine there will be no free Belarus - from the Lukashenko regime.

Another large international structure is the “Freedom of Russia” legion, which was initially formed by officers and soldiers of the Russian army who went over to the side of Ukraine. According to the command, the number of this unit is constantly growing.

Other foreign volunteer units within the Armed Forces of Ukraine are the battalions named after Khamzat Gelayev, Dzhokhar Dudayev, Sheikh Mansur and the Ministry of Defense of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (formed by anti-Putin and anti-Kadyrov Chechens), the Normandy Brigade (consisting of Canadian retired military personnel), the Canadian-Ukrainian battalion (uniting representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada) and a number of others.

https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8 %D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0 %BE%D0%BD_%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%BB %D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9_%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%8B_%D0%A3%D0 %BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8B

https://www.golosameriki.com/a/ukraine-army-foreigners/6973501.html