> standing at the doorstep of their ancient capital

Moscow was neither "ancient capital" nor current capital of Russia in 1812.

My apologies, I think I was misremembering a quote from War and Peace.

I actually went and found the passage that confused me: https://literaturepage.com/read/warandpeace-1228.html

Thank you for correcting me! Tolstoy meant it philosophically/culturally, not literally.

> usually, capturing the enemies capital equals victory and Napoleon did capture Moscow.

Too bad the capital was Saint Petersburg at that time.

That's why you should never trust a time traveler. They probably know as much about your time as you about theirs.

As my scientific advisor used to say: "Markov has nothing to lose but his chains!"

"The cake is a lie"

The cake has a Li-ion

The cake is on fire!

Let them not eat cake

The cake is a spy

Better that you had said, “This is a triumph”

Exactly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_chain_strategy

Мехмат отзывает 500 000 своих выпускников. Причина отзыва: во втором томе Фихтенгольца на странице 187 в формуле XVIII.56 отсутствует нормирующий оператор.

I wonder - when was the last time you were in Russia to speak so decisively about the country and Russians?

Hmm Military Watch Magazine places China into "TIER ONE MILITARY POWERS" list https://militarywatchmagazine.com/forceapp/countries/

Do you have any source saying that China's military is not as strong as it appears to be?

Right behind Russia. Who would be defeated in Ukraine with a hand full decommissioned f-16s and a-10s.

Where do people from NY go to?

Back to the country. It's the cycle of life.

Where this myth about "shipping gas across Siberia is impossible" comes from? Projects like Yamal LNG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamal_LNG are already operational. On top of that Chinese gas consumers are not dramatically further away than consumers in western Europe - it's only matter of 2-3 years to build a pipeline to connect them.