Since the end of the Middle Ages, settling battles via single combat has fallen out of favor, but may it make a comeback in 2022? In an apparent attempt to stop the invasion of Ukraine, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has challenged Vladimir Putin to single combat. Musk confronted Putin on Twitter, a Russian-banned social media platform. He wrote Putin’s name and Ukraine in Russian to prove he was serious.
He tagged the “President of Russia” account in a follow-up tweet, asking, “Do you consent to this fight?” While Musk may have a better chance of winning given Putin’s recent loss of his black belt in Taekwondo (assuming this also means he loses all of his abilities), Ukraine may not be happy with being “stakes” in a single combat between Musk and Putin.
Musk has also given a truckload of Starlink satellite dishes to Ukraine, in case the Ukrainian communications infrastructure is attacked and backup Internet is required. This isn’t as exciting as stopping the invasion of Ukraine by sending a random billionaire to defeat him in a fight, but it may be a better job for a tech billionaire with only a smattering of martial arts experience.
Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, responded by quoting A. S. Pushkin’s fairytale The Tale of the Pope and His Worker Balda. “You are still young, little demon; compete with me weak; it would be a waste of time.” First, go ahead of my brother.”
Musk, as usual, couldn’t simply stop there. Rather than responding with a fable, Musk opted to respond with a meme showing him defeating Vladimir Putin riding a bear with a flamethrower. Since the invasion of Ukraine, the chairman of Roscosmos’ Twitter account has been increasingly unpredictable, sending weird memes and even homophobic jokes against French President Emmanuel Macron. “Elon, get off the toilet, then we’ll chat,” he replied in response to Musk.
The Russian state-run news agency Novosti has released a weird and ominous video depicting the Russian component of the International Space Station (ISS) breaking off from the rest of the station. The International Space Station (ISS) is one of the outstanding instances of post-Cold War international collaboration. Following their mutual desire to build their own permanent Earth-orbiting stations, the United States and the Soviet Union (and later, Russia) agreed to collaborate to build the space station, which would include modules for Russian and American cosmonauts and astronauts, as well as Japan, Europe, and Canada.
