[aebtebeten]

There was a soviet era joke: optimists practise their english, pessimists practise their chinese, and realists practise stripping their Kalashnikovs.

Four decades later: I guess some fraction of the optimists have emigrated; the pessimists might be finding their language skills freshly in demand; and the realists teach their grandchildren: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE3UUbBKDS8

[troad]

> There was a soviet era joke: optimists practise their english, pessimists practise their chinese, and realists practise stripping their Kalashnikovs.

Hah, that joke is more widespread than I realised. The Czech version is that optimists learn English, pessimists learn Russian, and realists learn marksmanship.

[rvba]

The "joke" really fits current Russia.

- hundreds of thousands run away after the Ukraine invasion to not get drafted (learning English was probably very useful for that, lingua franca of business and generally of the world)

-China is looking to make Russia their puppet state / due to embargo Russians cannot buy stuff from the West, so they try to get stuff via China (on a side note, they also get embargoed there to some degree + this comes at a cost)

-the poor are conscripted to die charging with their Kalashnikov against artillery. What's the expected life of them? 1 day?

[holoduke]

Without picking sides, but Russia does not have forced conscription. Ukraine does on the other hand force people via the notorious TCC. Russia is not a puppet state of China. Their relation isnt very strong. Naturally they dont get along with each other. But they are both forced to stick together and form a block against the west. Did you know that most Russians learn english on school?