More Ukraine war news - nothing horrific
But I'm going to put anything involving the war under a cut for consideration of friends.
One correction: I think I previously mentioned that Marks & Spencer was shutting down in Russia. It was H&M. Also, most of the high-end fashion world is now closing down: Louis Vuitton, etc.
Russia threatens Wikipedia with a block after Wikipedia continued maintaining a page, in Russian, reporting casualties and other events of the war. “We stand by our mission to deliver free knowledge to the world.”
Interesting things going on regarding internet connections and the war. Ukraine appealed to ICANN, the closest thing to the international regulator regulator to the internet, to completely disconnect Russia from the internet. ICANN refused as there are just too many critical things that rely on international connections with the internet, including diplomacy, medicine, international news. Also, it’s really not technically feasible. Well, an American internet backbone provider, Cogent Communications, is shutting off their feed into Russia. They carry about a QUARTER of internet traffic into Russia, including Rostelecom, the state-owned telecom giant. One of the reasons for Cogent’s decision is to hamper Russia’s war chest by throwing a spanner into the works for their ability to conduct offensive cyber operations.
Oh, speaking of internet, Russia also blocked Twitter in addition to Facebook. Boo and hoo. Of course the Russian ambassador to the USA is still using FB and probably Twitter, I imagine most Russian diplomats are still using both services. Can you imagine the screams if FB and Twitter kicked them off? They are, after all, private companies.
Russian state-controlled news network RT announced it was ‘ceasing production’ and laying off most of its staff after YouTube blocked its channels. Does that mean Russia is going to block Google, or did Google already shut down operations in Russia? I haven’t heard. On Thursday RT had announced it was moving to Rumble, a right-wing version of YouTube, I guess that didn’t work too well.
President Biden asked the Treasury and other U.S. gov’t agencies to look in to preventing Russian billionaires from hiding money in cryptocurrencies to avoid sanctions, this happened pretty much at the start of the war. Some of the crypto exchanges stopped doing trades in Russia, but some are not. Bit of a fraught situation.
Disney and most of the major film studios are stopping film releases in Russia. No Spider-Man or Encanto for you!
Formula One motor racing not only cancelled upcoming races in Russia, apparently they have canceled ALL upcoming races WHILE PUTIN REMAINS IN POWER! They are also requiring all Russian drivers to race with no nationality associated with them. There was only one driver, and his team repainted their cars in Russian flag colors to celebrate his signing. He was just dismissed from the team.
Russia has an answer to Google, a company called Yandex. Well, due to the economic collapse of Russia from sanctions because of the war, Yandex is on the verge of collapse and may not be able to pay its debts. Oops.
Since the 1990s, Russia has supplied the USA with 122 RD-180 rocket engines, mostly used for Atlas rocket launches, 98 have been used. That has come to a temporary end. The remaining 24 engines will no longer have tech support. Gee, if only we didn’t have other launch companies. Dimitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, and also deeply tied to Putin, said on Russian state TV, <“I>In a situation like this we can't supply the United States with our world's best rocket engines. Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don't know what.”
In the world of banking, apparently Russian companies are rushin’ (heh heh) to open bank accounts in China. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out over the long term.
A major conference of mathematicians, the International Congress of Mathematicians, was scheduled for St. Petersburg in July, they’re wrestling with whether or not to hold it. When it was last held in Rio, it attracted 10,000 attendees. The Fields Medal is awarded at the conference, it’s quite the event, and the ICM has already condemned the war.
Ukraine’s “cyber army”, largely of volunteers, now apparently has over 400,000 people! I think it’s safe to say that at least in that one realm, it outnumbers Russia. And they are once again hammering the Belarus railway network and have found another high-value target: GLOSNASS. Russia made a smart move year ago and started developing their own GPS system, which is controlled by the U.S. Military. Well, now it’s under attack by the Ukraine cyber army.
Speaking of cyber attacks, Ukraine may have released personal info on 120,000 Russian soldiers possibly fighting in Ukraine! This massive doxxing was dumped on the internet and contains names, addresses, passport info, unit names, and phone numbers. Some of the information has been verified.
Related to this, I read today that when the Ukrainians are taking Russian POWs, they’re giving the Russian soldiers cell phones to call home. Their parents/loved ones are surprised because they thought their soldiers were in the Donest region and not fighting in Ukraine. I've read nothing specific about how Ukrainian POWs are being treated, sadly.
One correction: I think I previously mentioned that Marks & Spencer was shutting down in Russia. It was H&M. Also, most of the high-end fashion world is now closing down: Louis Vuitton, etc.
Russia threatens Wikipedia with a block after Wikipedia continued maintaining a page, in Russian, reporting casualties and other events of the war. “We stand by our mission to deliver free knowledge to the world.”
Interesting things going on regarding internet connections and the war. Ukraine appealed to ICANN, the closest thing to the international regulator regulator to the internet, to completely disconnect Russia from the internet. ICANN refused as there are just too many critical things that rely on international connections with the internet, including diplomacy, medicine, international news. Also, it’s really not technically feasible. Well, an American internet backbone provider, Cogent Communications, is shutting off their feed into Russia. They carry about a QUARTER of internet traffic into Russia, including Rostelecom, the state-owned telecom giant. One of the reasons for Cogent’s decision is to hamper Russia’s war chest by throwing a spanner into the works for their ability to conduct offensive cyber operations.
Oh, speaking of internet, Russia also blocked Twitter in addition to Facebook. Boo and hoo. Of course the Russian ambassador to the USA is still using FB and probably Twitter, I imagine most Russian diplomats are still using both services. Can you imagine the screams if FB and Twitter kicked them off? They are, after all, private companies.
Russian state-controlled news network RT announced it was ‘ceasing production’ and laying off most of its staff after YouTube blocked its channels. Does that mean Russia is going to block Google, or did Google already shut down operations in Russia? I haven’t heard. On Thursday RT had announced it was moving to Rumble, a right-wing version of YouTube, I guess that didn’t work too well.
President Biden asked the Treasury and other U.S. gov’t agencies to look in to preventing Russian billionaires from hiding money in cryptocurrencies to avoid sanctions, this happened pretty much at the start of the war. Some of the crypto exchanges stopped doing trades in Russia, but some are not. Bit of a fraught situation.
Disney and most of the major film studios are stopping film releases in Russia. No Spider-Man or Encanto for you!
Formula One motor racing not only cancelled upcoming races in Russia, apparently they have canceled ALL upcoming races WHILE PUTIN REMAINS IN POWER! They are also requiring all Russian drivers to race with no nationality associated with them. There was only one driver, and his team repainted their cars in Russian flag colors to celebrate his signing. He was just dismissed from the team.
Russia has an answer to Google, a company called Yandex. Well, due to the economic collapse of Russia from sanctions because of the war, Yandex is on the verge of collapse and may not be able to pay its debts. Oops.
Since the 1990s, Russia has supplied the USA with 122 RD-180 rocket engines, mostly used for Atlas rocket launches, 98 have been used. That has come to a temporary end. The remaining 24 engines will no longer have tech support. Gee, if only we didn’t have other launch companies. Dimitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, and also deeply tied to Putin, said on Russian state TV, <“I>In a situation like this we can't supply the United States with our world's best rocket engines. Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don't know what.”
In the world of banking, apparently Russian companies are rushin’ (heh heh) to open bank accounts in China. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out over the long term.
A major conference of mathematicians, the International Congress of Mathematicians, was scheduled for St. Petersburg in July, they’re wrestling with whether or not to hold it. When it was last held in Rio, it attracted 10,000 attendees. The Fields Medal is awarded at the conference, it’s quite the event, and the ICM has already condemned the war.
Ukraine’s “cyber army”, largely of volunteers, now apparently has over 400,000 people! I think it’s safe to say that at least in that one realm, it outnumbers Russia. And they are once again hammering the Belarus railway network and have found another high-value target: GLOSNASS. Russia made a smart move year ago and started developing their own GPS system, which is controlled by the U.S. Military. Well, now it’s under attack by the Ukraine cyber army.
Speaking of cyber attacks, Ukraine may have released personal info on 120,000 Russian soldiers possibly fighting in Ukraine! This massive doxxing was dumped on the internet and contains names, addresses, passport info, unit names, and phone numbers. Some of the information has been verified.
Related to this, I read today that when the Ukrainians are taking Russian POWs, they’re giving the Russian soldiers cell phones to call home. Their parents/loved ones are surprised because they thought their soldiers were in the Donest region and not fighting in Ukraine. I've read nothing specific about how Ukrainian POWs are being treated, sadly.