I used to feel sorry in the beginning but after seeing people who support the war on social media and write Z on their cars I no longer do. Russians are being brainwashed and they even say that they're planning to endure this like they always do. They will never rebel, they blame the West. It's a tragedy for both countries but Russians are to blame for everything that is going on.
I'm actually happy they were disqualified, especially after the following:

The behavior of an unhealthy person was very well demonstrated by Marina Ulyankina, coach of the Russian national gymnastics team. She commented on the sanctions on the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in competitions.

Instead of influencing her regime, the coach resorted to intimidation. This time she turned to Japan.
We must remind Watanabe – Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
– Ulyankina wrote on social networks.
Morinari Watanabe is a Japanese businessman who is the president of the International Gymnastics Federation.

https://thetimeshub.in/we-must-remind-watanabe-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-the-russian-coach-scares-japan-with-nuclear-weapons

Phone apps? I've never seen them demand to unlock a phone for them. This is an invasion of privacy. Anyway, spotting a crypto wallet is close to impossible because you can have a thumb drive or a memory card with you and they'd have to spend hours searching through it all to find if you have a wallet installed or not. You could also have a simple text file with your private key with a changed extension, so that it looks like a system library or something.

The only way for people to start losing their stuff is if the border guards would start simply stealing all electronics: phones, memory cards, cameras, smart watches... Then there's always a way to smuggle files on a sim card, put it inside your shoe or something. In extreme situations you can always send a password protected file to someone you know in the country to which you're trying to flee, or put it in the cloud. If you know they're going to strip search you and take everything, cloud actually looks safer.

I've seen some of you talk about currency exchange. You won't even be able to exchange anything. I've heard that Ukrainians who moved to Poland have trouble exchanging their fiat because local exchanges don't want to accept it anymore in fear of the government collapse in Ukraine. They don't want to be stuck with extremely volatile UAH or RUB.

I thought that having cash is pretty safe, but it appears that you need to have "safe" cash like USD, GBP, CHF, or similar. If you hold on to your Lebanese or Sudanese pounds, you may end up holding a bunch of paper one day.

"We have not attacked Ukraine and we are not planning to attack other countries" said Lavrov today after another round of negotiations.
They did not come to terms and are not going to as long as Russians keep living in their bubble.

When a Russian talks about having sex he means rape, when he talks about visiting you he means breaking in, when he talks about helping you he really wants to kill you.

When evacuation started you could pay the border guards to go first and those who had no money had to wait in lines. Ukrainians aren't saints but what point is there to make? Does anybody believe that there's less corruption in Russia? My father, who visited Russia a few times in the 90s, told me that when the police stopped a foreign car they asked for smokes and food if you had any. They'd be nice to you if offered chocolate, coca cola, cigarettes and alcohol.
Corruption is a normal thing in poor countries. It's present in Mexico, all throughout South America and in many parts of Africa. All the drug cartels wouldn't be able to thrive without politicians and military on their payrolls.

Bottom line is, we have a lot of corrupt countries, we have far right groups, we have countries that are small and weak and countries that are young, but nothing justifies what Russians are doing right now.
They are literally murdering unarmed people in broad daylight. A few days ago they shot a whole family on their way to a train station to leave the war zone. Parents and 2 children shot in the street. I saw a small child being resuscitated after a gunshot wound. Doctors were crying because they couldn't do anything. Russians targeted schools, hospitals, trucks of the red cross that carried aid, they shot and robbed a Swiss reporter, raped and killed a teenage girl. They're fucking animals.
There's a story told by a young Russian soldier who saw civilians being shot at and rushed with to help them take cover. He and the woman he was trying to protect were shot. He got wounded but survived, she did not. The woman's daughter saw it and got him help. He's now a POW, but at least will be able to look his family in the eye.

Not all of these people are bad, but this war isn't much different from the Balkans. Maybe some of you remember how the Serbs were singing songs about war criminals and murder. You can find those songs on youtube. How was that different from all those Russians with Z (zoophiles?) in their social profiles?

We can make a great cheat sheet out of the shit happening in Russia and learn how to protect our money. It appears the state can literally do anything to you.
They blocked currency exchange.
They blocked withdrawals - you can withdraw equivalent of 10k EUR and the rest is frozen until September. If they choose to they'll prolong the ban to the end of the year and then indefinitely, stealing people's money.
If you earn money abroad you have to exchange it to rubles.
ATMs are empty, banks will not give you cash anymore. Makes me think how people are supposed to withdraw that 10k if they don't have bank notes anymore.

Stores are becoming empty, people are buying everything because their fiat can lose another 20% in value next month.
When first news came about the inflation and bans people who had cash at hand were buying jewelry and watches just to get rid of it, but then luxury brands closed their stores.

Another thing worth noting is the ban on alcohol in Ukraine and the request from the Turkish government to donate their gold so that country's reserves can be replenished.

What becomes important in a crisis is physical things. A tank full of gas, gold, alcohol, some cash, cryptocurrencies. A million in the bank is going to be nothing more than a good party talk.

Trump had some sports investments in the past when he was running USFL and fucked it up like most of his investments. The fact is that Trump was putting money everywhere he could and mostly did some noise here and there and lost the passion just to move on to something else. When you have a lot of money you can also lose a lot of money.

Fortunately, he's not buying it alone. Maybe Johnson knows more about hot a club should work.

IMO trump is getting more self-centered and ignorant with age. If he is to just give money to someone who runs the club it could work but if he is to make al decisions he's going to turn it upside down and make everyone hate him.

That would mean a million more people on welfare, at least!

All the freelancers like journalists, coders, translators, all youtubers, streamers, content creators of various types, moderators, game designers, small online stores, everything would go to shit. That would mean serious drop in taxes and gigantic unemployment and migration. Sure, he can do it, but that's going to be the last nail in his coffin.

You don't need that much natural gas. My parents and grandparents barely ever used gas at the house. We became more dependent on it because Russia was selling cheap and we took it for granted.
In the 70s and 80s many homes (especially in the South and south-east of Europe) relied on electricity and wood/coal for heating. Each home either had a coal/wood kitchen oven used for heating and cooking and this was supplied by an electric water boiler and an electric oven for use during warm months, when you didn't need to heat the house.

I'm not saying we have to completely resign from gas, but cutting the supply by half wouldn't be a problem in many regions of the EU. If the governments managed to divert the money spent on buying gas from Russia into building power plants and decreasing the cost of energy, people would start to switch to electric heating by themselves because it's safer, cleaner, easier to install and manage. Gas furnaces need to be inspected and cleaned every year. You don't have to do that with electric heaters.

Same here, my AV blocks the link, but there are other sources if you want to read about the executive order.

I feel like this is good because they again aren't trying to ban it nor restrict access. They see it as innovation and want to ensure it keeps growing and the US remains involved in this research and growth.
The bad side is that they're still pushing for this useless CBDC which IMO is a waste of time and resources. It's going to be just another centralized payment system, but under government's control. Like a state owned paypal.

It's funny but just a few months ago people were being forced to wear masks and show their certificates and now you see all those refugees without masks and certificates crossing borders into the EU and nobody cares if they were vaccinated or not. You see pictures of people sitting in bunkers and no masks on, nobody cares. Does that mean there's no COVID anymore? I don't see Russian soldiers in Ukraine wearing masks. Maybe they are immune because of all that alcohol in their body? 

They are not going to surrender and IMO that's a good decision.
They are getting satellite intelligence from the US and know how much enemy hardware is left fighting. Those numbers look really good for Ukraine as Russia has mobilized all of the forces it had at hand before the invasion. It can send more but the numbers that were prepared were supposed to win and yet they did not even take Kiev, not to mention Lviv. Russian army is giving up and running away because the plan was to lie to the soldiers. Conscripts were told they're going on training near the border and officers were told that there's a fascist movement in Ukraine that is killing Russian natives. Time is working for Ukrainians because Russian economy is in shambles and experts say that Russia can maybe keep this war going until May and then it will go bankrupt.

There's also the feeling that they're fighting a wrongdoer. Russia is the attacker here. Russians are killing women and children, not Ukrainians. It's the Russians who are bombing schools and hospitals, stealing, shooting the press, attacking nuclear power plants and humanitarian corridors during evacuation. They are not going to give up after seeing all those acts of inhumane violence.

Can't you google it? Are you new to the Internet?
Right now it's 21:24 UTC, which is 16:24 EST. Do the math.

Guess what, 140 USD per RUB! The weakest ruble ever, and it's going to get worse since Putin wants to cut the Internet. If that happens they'll be like North Korea. I said that in one of my previous posts a couple days ago, Russia is going to become isolated and abandoned and there was time to act and there were options to stop it, but instead of looking for a peaceful resolution Putin demanded that Ukraine simply gives up and stops resisting. I hope he goes to where the ruble is going.

I'd buy one of those tiger transporters the special forces use. If any Russian soldiers are reading this I'd be willing to pay $1k for one. That's more than you guys earn in a month of service under fire. Like what are the chances of you guys getting hit by a drone missile or a javelin in one of those things? Pretty high, right? You won't survive a month, and with $1k you'd be able to buy yourselves a nice ticket out and spend the summer sunbathing in Greece, drinking ice cold vodka.

Jokes aside, you can make a lot of money if you're a Russian soldier in Ukraine.
They offer 5 million rubles ($40k) and amnesty if you surrender voluntarily. Then they also offer money for captured tanks and equipment. Say you're a tank battalion commander. You give an order and all your soldiers give up and also drive your tanks to enemy base, waving white flag. Each of you gets more money than they'd earn in a year and you as a commander will probably get the bounty for vehicles. That's better than dying in someone else's war.

Because he's a nutjob and he doesn't care. Most Russians don't care either because they don't watch the news and don't use the Internet. They work all day in shitty jobs earning minimum wages of less than $200 a month. It's like a third world out there. People will feel sanctions but they will still blame the West, not Putin.
Businesses that feel pressure should move out of Russia and register somewhere else, but in the current situation many countries won't even allow them to do it.

When a totalitarian regime threatens its citizens it's in their own interest to rebel.
I know that they are afraid of being arrested, but how many can they actually arrest and hold in jails? 5000? 10000? What If there's 1 million people protesting? Are they going to start killing them like the Chinese did in 89 or Poles in 81?

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Apparently some Russians afraid of conscription are already running to Finland. The beginning of the end of this fake superpower.

This is much worse than covid 19. Covid wasn't really threatening people who are fit, like boxers. If they were rescheduling fights it was only due to stupid government restrictions, restrictions that people around the world were protesting against. Canada is a good example of that.
In this case young, fit people who survived covid and would live for decades are being murdered over nothing. Relly there's nothing to win from this stupid war. It only brings destruction and in the end both countries involved will lose.

I'd love the fight to happen, but I fully support the decision of making it happen outside Russia. People wouldn't be able to go there anyway because it's a no fly zone.

It's incredible especially in squat. For instance Licis weighs 160 kg and manages to squat more than 2.5 times his own weight! This is playing with fire because when you put 1x your weight on your shoulders you're already straining your joints. 2x your weight is usually like 50/50 chance of injury as you never know what joint or tendon is going to give up. It's beyond your own control and I've seen people's muscles rip and fail while lifting.

I guess this sport is not as popular as for instance MMA because most federations modify the disciplines a bit. In one you may end up carrying rough stones, in the other polished stone balls. In one event you press a wooden log and in another it's a barbell. It's not as standardized as a typical olympic sport and it's not as strict towards doping.

Nuclear weapons are a double edged sword. You can use them but then you'll also be dead. Russians know it and it's not like Putin can press a button and we all die. It has to go through the chain of command and according to various sources within Russia the army does not and will not support the use of nuclear weapons. It would be suicide and the longer the war takes the more suicidal it's going to be for Russia because NATO is planning to set up a patriot missile defense perimeter along the border with Ukraine and Belarus. Best case scenario Russia can hope for after that is that they're able to sneak out a submarine somewhere around the North Pole and hit Britain and France from up there. If this fails any launch from their territory will be a death sentence to millions of Russians.

At this point Russian economy is dead. It will hurt the West because a war is draining all economies, but it's draining Russia 5 times faster. In the end Russia is going to be like North Korea with people surviving by eating grass and walking in patched clothes, driving old, rusty cars and acting like it's all good because it's the West's fault. China won't help them because weak Russia is going to be much easier to handle. The big winners in the long run will be countries like China and India that are staying away from the conflict and may even profit from weak Russia. If Ukraine survives, the EU and NATO will also become stronger. NATO will get Finland and the EU Ukraine.

The good old "they did it so can we" argument. Imagine this being used in a murder defense. Your honor, I killed my wife, but so did Pistorius!
They have nukes so they can do what they want. Really? The UK and France also have nukes, does that mean they have the right to kill civilians in neighboring countries? I don't think so.
Don't try to justify this genocide with weak arguments.


You're comparing the simple right of choice that Zelensky is exercising with the right to murder. Don't you see the difference? It's like killing someone because he chose to be friends with a group of junkies or gays, or skinheads, or change his faith. You can comment on his actions, condemn them, cut ties with him, remove your embassy, stop trading, whatever, but you have no right to kill over this.