Russia vs. Ukraine 2024

A Russian court has ruled that Google owes Russian media stations around $20 decillion in fines for blocking their content

$20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Global GDP is around $100 trillion, which is peanuts compared to the prospective fine. :joy:

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Saying their goodbye’s to loved ones before going on a meat assault.

Wow, a 6 tweet long thread with literally no sources or anything worthy of inspection. But let’s assume, for a minute, that he might have those connections.

Let’s check up on our source. Be a proper skeptic, eh? Don’t want to blindly trust anything, but don’t want to rule anything out either.

Ok, so Diana Panchencko. Worked at News One, which was owned by Medvedchuk (a name that should need no explanation to anyone familiar with Ukrainian-russian relations). That’s not a good start…

It might be true, might not be. Not any real evidence of sources in the posts anyhow. It’s not much in the way of journalism, as usually that involves at least an attempt to back it up. Now, there does seem to have been some hullabaloo around this back in 2015, when a protester from the “sextremist” feminist group femen bared her breasts with some words about Klitschko at a polling station during an election like, within a year of Euromaidan, which does arouse suspicion, but oh well. Didn’t find anything else in English about this.

Well hey at least they got to get out and see the world eh :sweat_smile:

Not a high bar to be fair…

Helps eliminate a bit of excess population when considering planning for the next inevitable monoculture famine

[quote=“P007, post:1050, topic:236519”]
But they’ve already sunk lower than teenagers. Meet Voha.

There is some weirdness going on with the face in this video. Check the eyebrows. Now it might just be mp3 burn from being saved and reposted a million times, but I see at least 2-3 moments from the brief part with anything identifiable in it that his eyebrows seem to jump around. Also, very little on screen time for the face, and none for others.

If it were just the jumpy eyebrows I wouldn’t be too skeptical, but there’s a lot of weirdness that adds up here and in the other videos with Voha. Maybe it’s real, but I’m fairly skeptical of it all.

I think the crux of all this bickering still is, simply put, “so what?”

I don’t really get the point of the original post you made, and I comprehend even less the storm of playground argumentation back and forth following it…

Chickenhawk ‘until the last Ukrainian’, Lindsey Graham salivating about the minerals in Crimea.
It’s all about democracy, innit.

A second Taiwanese volunteer was KIA in Ukraine.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/5963960

Wu Zhong-da was 44 and a former Taiwan special forces. He leaves behind 3 children. The youngest of which is just 12 years old.

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This evening I listened to a wide-ranging conversation with Professor Snyder and the CBC. It’s brimming with insights about Ukraine, yes, but also more broadly about the notion and conditions of freedom and how we may have (mis)understood it. This is very interesting with a lot here to learn.

Guy

German response to Trump election

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He should have come home earlier, what was he thinking.

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They want to see who is willing to fight. What happens when they get told to do one?

It was his second tour. He did come home, he just went back in.

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Why anyone would volunteer for this is beyond me.

Every war has volunteers, same in WWI, WW2… people that fight against the oppressor. Nothing different for this war

Still it’s stupid thing to do. That is, to join in a war half way around the world, in a country you seemingly have no connection to.

The connection is after Ukraine, Taiwan could be next. Slowing Putin in Ukraine makes Xi less confident about Taiwan. And this provides actual combat exoerience to that soldier if an invasion does happen.

I suppose if China does invade Taiwan, only dumb suckers from other countries will try to stop it, eh?

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Probably. But it won’t be me, or my family.

I wouldn’t expect any volunteers to come to Taiwan’s aid after the invasion attempt has started. Taiwan’s defense benefit is the Island, but this also puts big difficulties on re-supply of soldiers and weapons.

Of course, some people could arrive before the invasion starts, but people will always hope for negotiations stopping the invasion before it starts

No, probably not

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The US military is all volunteers…

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Years after Wu was discharged from special forces, Wu said to his friends that he doesn’t want to know that his kids might not be able to grow up because of a war. That’s why he joined the International Legion in 2022. So basically, Wu joined the fray for the exact reason @TT gave. He saw the world devolving into further conflict if Putin gets his way in Ukraine, and that will signal to despots around the world to do whatever they want.

This summer, Wu returned to Taiwan to tend to shrapnel wounds to his leg. After he recovered, Wu returned to Ukraine to volunteer in an international special forces team. Before he left, he told his mom if he perishes, just leave him in Ukraine, and don’t look for him.


Wu and Pan gave interviews before they left for Ukraine

Pan Wen-yang, one of Wu’s Taiwanese teammate give an interview, remembering Wu’s loving and fun character, and recalling the moment they came under attack. Pan says Wu always cheered everyone up, loved to cook for his teammates, take care of stray animals, and often shared his rations with the locals in need.

Pan recalled they were guarding a position in the woods in the Avdiivka theater at night on October 31. They received info that Russians were attempting to flank their position, and Wu moved to intercept enemy movements. However, after 10 minutes of intense fire fight, Russians began shelling their positions with mortars. The first one landed 2 meters away from Pan, rendering him unable to hear for a while. Several other team members were injured, including their captain getting hit by a sniper in his hand. As Pan and a medic were evacuating the injured, the second shell landed near Wu, and blown a hole in his abdomen. Pan wasn’t there to see this happen, but Wu told their teammate that he couldn’t walk, and they should leave him. As the fight intensified, they had to pull out and couldn’t retrieve Wu’s body.

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Musk has already pressured Taiwanese suppliers to move elsewhere at the behest of the PRC.
If he ends up as Trump’s advisor, he will end up doing a deal with China on Trump’s behalf, of which Taiwan will be a sweetener.

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