For clarity, that aphorism is not the goat you were referring to just above it. 
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Thank you for sharing, that was extremely interesting!
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That would match what a Russian-speaking friend who is from Eastern part of Ukraine said. She said that linguistic differences were significant enough that Ukrainian was difficult to understand.
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I’ve seen a comment by a Finnish translator and scholar, that while he doesn’t speak Polish, he can understand it pretty well based on his skill in Ukrainian.
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Many Ukrainians speak in a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian.
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This result has more to do with the flexibility of Google Translate to recognize bits of other languages (you can confirm that by feeding the Russian text with the language set to Kinyarwanda or Uyghur - you still get a decent translation, even though the languages are entirely unrelated). A strict Ukrainian translator would recognize only a handful of words from that Russian text, not enough to understand it, although many others could be loosely recognizable due to shared roots.
The ease of communication between Ukrainians and Russians is more a result of widespread bi- or multi-lingualism. According to the 2001 Ukrainian census (couldn’t find anything newer), 87.9% of the population could speak fluent Ukrainian, and 65.7% could speak fluent Russian, so more than half of the population (at least 53.6%, though probably more) could speak both.
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Our decades of racism and imperialism aimed at the global south gives Putin something of an edge, because his whataboutism has weight. It seems like how we “win” the information war there is to admit our years of aggression and imperialism, and seek a new way forward with the global south that isn’t about domination and control, but is instead of seeking to uplift and work together.
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Oh yeah, there’s a lot of overlap between Polish, Ukrainian, and Czech.
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Putin has now destroyed a person and library in one go.
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In the address to Israeli legislators, which took place over Zoom, Mr Zelenskyy called on the country to abandon its neutrality over the war.
“Everybody knows that your missile defence systems are the best… and that you can definitely help our people, save the lives of Ukrainians, of Ukrainian Jews,” he said.
"We can ask why we can’t receive weapons from you, why Israel has not imposed powerful sanctions on Russia or is not putting pressure on Russian business.
“Either way, the choice is yours to make, brothers and sisters, and you must then live with your answer, the people of Israel.”
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“Sergei who? Beseda? Never met him.”
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Russia sets 5am deadline for Mariupol surrender
Russia says it has set a 5am local time (3am GMT / 11pm ET) deadline for Mariupol to surrender.
From Reuters:
“Lay down your arms,” Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, the director of the Russian National Center for Defense Management, said in a briefing distributed by the defence ministry.
“A terrible humanitarian catastrophe has developed,” Mizintsev said. “All who lay down their arms are guaranteed safe passage out of Mariupol.”
Mizintsev said at a briefing today that humanitarian corridors would be opened tomorrow in both the eastern and western directions from Mariupol. “The Mariupol authorities now have the opportunity to make a choice and go over to the side of the people, otherwise the military tribunal that awaits them is just a little that they deserve for their terrible crimes, which the Russian side is very carefully documenting,” he said.
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Translation:
Fixed that for him.
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Mariupol is in Donetsk Oblast, so they probably plan to charge the mayor and council, etc, with treason against the Donetsk People’s Republic, which claims all of Donetsk Oblast as its territory.
ETA: The Russian government has claimed that the Mariupol authorities stopped civilians from leaving the city, so that will be another of the “terrible crimes”.
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I have to ask: when Russian companies are getting paid in foreign currency these days - can they actually use this money? Or is this like a frozen asset?
The main point of sanctions in the banking sector was and is, I think, prevent the Russian government using its stash of Dollars, Euros, Pounds, Kroner, Franken and probably any other currencies which are somewhat usable. So, what about this?
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