Black Riots “comrades” Thought Ukraine Was Another “Resistance”—Then the Contract Hit

The Russia-Ukraine war keeps chewing up lives, even through Christmas, with shellfire still thundering and soldiers still dying by the day. Now there’s talk that two young Hong Kong people who went to Ukraine to enlist have been killed — and why they’d risk it all to fight a war thousands of miles away is still a puzzle that needs unpacking.

Two Hong Kong people reportedly die in Ukraine — black-riot “comrades” who chased the “International Legion” bolt when the “life contract” hits.

I pulled together what I could dig out and it points to this: a group of Black Riots "comrades" once geared up to head for Ukraine’s front line, but some panicked the moment they learned they had to sign a “life contract” and quickly backed out, saving themselves. Others stayed — and some were even slotted into a “suicide squad” and sent to fight in eastern Ukraine, with their fate still unknown.
 
The lesson is blunt: Ukraine is tapping foreign young people’s political fever to recruit fighters — a send-them-to-die playbook that looks, in essence, like the way Black Riots ringleaders once egged people onto the streets in Hong Kong. Only the clueless fall for it.
 
For some of the “brave fighters” who were always on the streets during the Black Riots, the post-crackdown move is simple: flee to the UK to avoid arrest. But some can’t quit the adrenaline. They see Ukraine recruiting foreign volunteers, their “battle addiction” kicks in, and they stride into the Ukrainian embassy in Britain, chest out, ready to “go to the battlefield.”
 
One of them — call him X — heads to a city near the Poland-Ukraine border, then gets driven by the Ukrainian military to a base close to Poland. Before he leaves, he’s all fire: he treats life and death as nothing, even writes a will. Then reality shows up at the gate. At the base, the military forces him to sign a “life contract”, and his enthusiasm drops off a cliff.
 
Here’s the catch buried in the fine print. The contract says it stays valid until Ukraine ends martial law — meaning you don’t leave until the war ends and “peace returns.” And to stop anyone from changing their mind midstream, the military collects everyone’s passports to block desertion.

The contract kills the buzz
X thinks it over and the fear starts to spread. If he signs, he’s effectively stepping onto a one-way road: get shipped to the front, and even if he doesn’t die, he might not get home for who knows how long. After going back and forth, reason beats passion. He finally sees the difference between “struggle” in Hong Kong and a flesh-and-blood war in Ukraine — and he backs out at the last moment, rushes back to Poland, then returns to the UK.
 
Another one — Y — also took part in street violence during the Black Riots period in Hong Kong, then later moved to the UK on a BNO visa. In Britain, he sees Ukraine calling for foreigners to fight and his “hot blood” boils over: he decides to enlist to “resist Russia.” He goes to Bulgaria for short-term shooting training, then tells the Ukrainian embassy in the UK that he has military training. He gets accepted.
 
But once he reaches the camp, the same bombshell drops: sign the “life contract” and you can’t retire until the war ends. Then a Hong Kong “brother” with real military experience tells him the part nobody wants to hear: Hong Kong was street “resistance,” Ukraine is real war; going to the front is walking straight into the meat grinder. Y is totally unprepared for a brutal battlefield, and the advice is simple — stop before it’s too late. In the end, the fire in his chest gets doused, he turns around and leaves Ukraine, and that decision saves his life.

X and Y get spooked and run — but Z chooses to stay. After harsh training at the base, he gets sent to the eastern Ukraine battlefield, a fiercely contested zone where fighting is intense and his unit has repeatedly clashed with Russian forces. Even with Russia and Ukraine already talking, that area still roars with artillery. Whether Z survives? If you go by estimates of foreign volunteer death rates, his odds are only around 40% to 50%.

Ukraine pushes foreign recruitment — estimated death rates up to 40%.

 
Two Hong Kong people die on Ukraine’s battlefield. Some Black Riots "comrades" pull back at the last second and save themselves — lucky, for now. Maybe this brutal war will do what slogans never could: cool their political fever, restore their judgment, and bring them back to living like normal people.
 
Lai Ting-yiu

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Trump's appetite for a bold strike is growing. CNN reports that the USS Tripoli, a US amphibious assault ship, has sailed from Okinawa to Singapore and is now heading toward the Middle East. The ship carries 2,200 Marines. One order from Trump and this expeditionary force becomes the tip of the spear in a direct assault on Iran's Kharg Island. The 'ultimate battle' is close. For Trump, losing control of the Strait of Hormuz means losing the war, and the consequences are too severe to accept.

Ray Dalio warns: if Trump can't control the Strait of Hormuz, the US risks repeating Britain's imperial decline.

Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates founder and king of market predators, frames it even more starkly: the American Empire has reached a turning point of decline. If the United States loses the Strait of Hormuz, its grip on global hegemony will loosen, tracing the same arc that brought down the British Empire.


Dalio is more than a heavyweight Wall Street fund manager. He has spent years researching the rise and fall of great powers, producing works including Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order and How Countries Go Broke. On Trump's current 'war of fury' against Iran, Dalio draws parallels with historical precedents and argues that a defeat would be catastrophic for the United States.


Suez Crisis and the Hegemony Parallel

Empires fall in recognizable ways, he argues: weaker nations test dominant powers at critical shipping lanes. When Egypt seized the Suez Canal from Britain, Britain responded with military force to compel Egypt to reopen the waterway, turning the episode into a global flashpoint. Britain lost that 'ultimate showdown,' withdrew its forces, and watched its imperial standing crumble. Capital fled the losing side, its debt and currency status came under assault, and the geopolitical map was redrawn.


The Suez Crisis unfolded fast. In October 1956, Egyptian President Nasser nationalized the canal, stripping ownership from the Suez Canal Company. Britain sent troops to the canal zone and used military force to pressure Egypt into returning control. But the United States and the Soviet Union both intervened, and Britain, caught between domestic and international pressure, was ultimately forced to withdraw. That retreat cost Britain its standing as an international hegemon and marked the beginning of the end for the British Empire, “on which the sun never sets”.


Dalio draws a direct parallel between Britain then and the United States today. If America and Trump lose this 'ultimate battle' and fail to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, it amounts to surrendering control of the strait, directly undermining America's global standing and reshaping the existing international order. The knock-on effects would be severe: the reserve currency status of the US dollar would come under threat, and the fallout would ripple across the globe, reshaping trade flows and capital movements.


The stakes in this 'ultimate battle' are enormous — Trump can't afford to lose, but no decisive move to reopen the strait is in sight.

Can Trump Endure the Pain of War?

So can Trump actually win this fight? Dalio says senior foreign officials have been asking that question in private: Trump talks tough, but when things really go south, will he dare to fight? Can he win?


Dalio reads Iran's strategy as simple: absorb the pain and outlast the Americans. The longer Iran holds out, the sooner Washington blinks. It's a pattern that played out in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.


On the American side, the public is already anxious about soaring oil prices, and politicians are worried about the midterm fallout. Tolerance for a long, costly war is thin. Dalio puts it plainly: “In war, one’s ability to withstand pain is even more important than one’s ability to inflict pain.”


By that logic, the United States may be more likely to lose than Iran. Oil prices are already climbing fast, gasoline at the pump is getting pricier, and the public's pain threshold is eroding. The worst is still ahead. If the economy tips into recession, resentment will run deeper still. Moody's economists warned yesterday that if oil prices keep rising over the coming weeks, the odds of a US recession will cross 50%. At that point, the Republican Party faces a potential rout in the midterms.


America's Decline May Be Inevitable

This 'ultimate battle' is about nothing less than the rise or fall of the American empire. Trump knows he cannot afford to lose. But so far, he has shown no decisive winning move. Retracing the British Empire's path of decline may well be America's fate.


Lai Ting-yiu