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.

I feel like they shouldn't block them simply because Bitcoin is above any conflicts. It should remain apolitical and everybody (which includes the murderer Putin) should have access to it. That said if centralized exchanges like Binance are banning people for breach of TOS, they can as well add Russians to their TOS and ban them. In the end it's their platform and if they are restricting people's access anyway, which means they don't feel like Bitcoin is for everybody, they could show their support of Ukraine. They are not doing it because of principles. It's about the money.

International monetary fund is a puppet of big banks and nothing more but a fiat pusher. If you've ever heard that big banks oppose bitcoin because it cuts their profits and shows people that there can be an alternative where you are your own bank, the monetary fund is like a whale among them. They'd like to regulate bitcoin into non-existence, but since they can't they'll try to make our lives harder.
The wanted to make the president of El Salvador drop Bitcoin support, but that didn't work, so they'll now try to scare other countries away.

It's a way of showing solidarity, that the world is not going to accept what's happening and that it's going to keep making Russian lives harder. I know it may not be the best course of action but it is better than being passive and better than escalating to a world war. Strong club, it's a shame they won't play, but Dynamo probably won't play too, so I guess that's fair.
Also, it's Spartak, not Spartack

What about the stigma Ukrainian athletes will bear, like for instance the feeling of losing their whole family or losing a home. One one hand we could sympathize with Russian players and say that they're facing hard times, but in comparison we have football players in Ukraine who are literally being shot at and killed. What's worse?
The bans will be lifted, but you can't bring people back to life and wipe their heads of traumatic memories.

Yes, they have VK (VKontakte) and probably their most popular communicator is Telegram. That doesn't mean they don't use FB, twitter or tiktok. There's also many youtubers and twitch streamers in Russia. All these people got blocked from making money because these companies rely on SWIFT.


A lot of Russians don't use the Internet, don't watch the news besides maybe government channels that spread lies and brainwash them. There are videos made by people who tried to show pictures from Ukraine to Russian citizens and most of them did not even know that there is war, or they thought that it's just a small military operation against some oppressors who are discriminating Russians living in Ukraine.

Everyone who invests in oil can become richer. We don't know Putin's personal portfolio, but with all that's happening I wouldn't be counting my money if I were him but rather think if I'll ever be able to spend all of it. If he is sentenced as a war criminal it's all for nothing and this is where things are going.

I wonder if these oil prices will end up destroying weaker fiat currencies in the EU. We all know what was happening to the lira and now more countries are facing extreme inflation and businesses that operate on tight margins and rely on road transport, like food delivery, will face bankruptcy due to gas prices going 2x. Bankruptcies will only speed up inflation and we'll all get stock market crashes similar to the one in Russia.