War

[manc_don]

So what are everyone's thoughts on how likely actual breakout of war in Eastern Europe is?  Is this going to be the next flash point to create a regional war or will the West (and the rest) let Putin take Ukraine apart, bit by bit?  Plenty of reasons why Putin is doing it, and he's never made any secret of wanting to bring back the USSR.  Feel awful for the Ukrainians, they deserve their own country and are being used as a pawn by two former super powers.  Hard to see it going to anything but conflict, Putin's ego wouldn't allow it. He's come too far now.  Guess the next question would be, where / how does it stop?

[Jute]

3 hours ago, manc_don said:

So what are everyone's thoughts on how likely actual breakout of war in Eastern Europe is?  Is this going to be the next flash point to create a regional war or will the West (and the rest) let Putin take Ukraine apart, bit by bit?  Plenty of reasons why Putin is doing it, and he's never made any secret of wanting to bring back the USSR.  Feel awful for the Ukrainians, they deserve their own country and are being used as a pawn by two former super powers.  Hard to see it going to anything but conflict, Putin's ego wouldn't allow it. He's come too far now.  Guess the next question would be, where / how does it stop?

Putin doesn’t just want USSR. He wants the return of old imperial Russia. If he takes Ukraine the Baltic states are also fucked. NATO cannot act without US troops and Biden has made it quite clear that US will not provide any military support to Ukraine beyond supplying weapons. Tory party in U.K is kept afloat by donations from Russians and Europe relies heavily on Russian gas. Cannot see how Ukraine as an independent nation survives.

[scotfree]

If you asked me a week ago I would have said that there would be no chance of a war. But now... 

[Jute]

Being reported that Russia has launched military operation against Odessa overnight. 

[RicoS321]

9 hours ago, Jute said:

Putin doesn’t just want USSR. He wants the return of old imperial Russia

Does he? How do you know this? I have no idea like, just intrigued. I'd have thought that annexing the majority Russian speaking and Russian orthodox Crimea and then the Donbas would be slightly less Imperial-ee than, say, invading Afghanistan or Iraq. I'm guessing that the intentions will become a little clearer if Russia moves beyond their newly recognised (by themselves) regions. At 69, there's likely not the time for Putin to slowly annex - state by state - surrounding countries at the current rate. Bottom line is, there are a number of satellite regions that have more in common with, and more goodwill towards, Russia than Europe, so a breakup of these regions isn't unrealistic.

[Jute]

1 hour ago, RicoS321 said:

Does he? How do you know this? I have no idea like, just intrigued. I'd have thought that annexing the majority Russian speaking and Russian orthodox Crimea and then the Donbas would be slightly less Imperial-ee than, say, invading Afghanistan or Iraq. I'm guessing that the intentions will become a little clearer if Russia moves beyond their newly recognised (by themselves) regions. At 69, there's likely not the time for Putin to slowly annex - state by state - surrounding countries at the current rate. Bottom line is, there are a number of satellite regions that have more in common with, and more goodwill towards, Russia than Europe, so a breakup of these regions isn't unrealistic.

Just my take on various things I have read over the years. He has talked in the past about re establishing the glories of Russian Empire. He now has his “peace keepers” in Kazakhstan as well as Ukraine. The ethnic Russian line is dangerously close to one used by another dictator in the 30s. 

[RicoS321]

21 minutes ago, Jute said:

Just my take on various things I have read over the years. He has talked in the past about re establishing the glories of Russian Empire. He now has his “peace keepers” in Kazakhstan as well as Ukraine. The ethnic Russian line is dangerously close to one used by another dictator in the 30s. 

Whether it's close is irrelevant, whether it's true is more pertinent. It's as true in Kazakhstan as it is in Georgia or Ukraine. As the Minsk agreement recognised, the various parts of Ukraine are not homogeneous, neither in language, custom or religion. There's as much argument for parts of Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Georgia to be autonomous as there is Scotland to be independent, or Ireland to be unified. Those decisions aren't Russia's to make of course, and certainly not by force, but it's undeniable that there was an uncomfortable imbalance to the arbitrary borders of Ukraine.

[tom_widdows]

Seems to me the 'west' are happy to let Putin and co do what they like as long as it isnt on their own doorstep and doesn't affect them immediately
The political equivalent of saying 'That's appauling, they should be locked up' while a part of a crowd watching someone getting beaten up on the street.

But as Rico points out, the break up of the USSR is part the long history of trouble caused by countries, continents etc being carved/ broken up to form separate nations.
Africa, USSR, Yugoslavia, Middle East and so on

[Kowalski]

5 hours ago, tom_widdows said:

Seems to me the 'west' are happy to let Putin and co do what they like as long as it isnt on their own doorstep and doesn't affect them immediately
The political equivalent of saying 'That's appauling, they should be locked up' while a part of a crowd watching someone getting beaten up on the street.

So, what are you advocating? Bombing the Russians or putting ground troops into Ukraine?  Both sound like horrific options to me. Who knows what Putin might do if he feels he’s being provoked militarily by the West. 

[BigAl]

I literally have no idea what the answer is here or indeed how this is going to pan out but one thing that can't be denied is that "when good men do nothing, evil triumphs"

Whatever it is, something needs to be done.

[Kowalski]

1 hour ago, BigAl said:

 “when good men do nothing, evil triumphs"

In BoJo we trust

[BigAl]

4 minutes ago, Kowalski said:

In BoJo we trust

My comment was more generic than specific 

[Jute]

They should be refusing to play Russia. Mind you UEFA should be kicking Russia out anyway. 

[tom_widdows]

2 hours ago, Kowalski said:

So, what are you advocating? Bombing the Russians or putting ground troops into Ukraine?  Both sound like horrific options to me. Who knows what Putin might do if he feels he’s being provoked militarily by the West. 

I'm advocating doing something more than standing up in your respective parliaments and saying ' i condemn this' or worse 'we are leading the way in condeming this'
Hindsight is the word politicians like to throw about but foresight is a skill that needs to be brought in. Seems the priks who hold all the money and power in the UK have plenty of foresight when it comes to disaster capitalism and hedge funds but not one of them sat down one day and thought ' hang on a minute, we as a nation are awfully reliant on two or three nations on the world for our way of life (gas form russia, Oil from the middle east, manufacturing from china etc), doesnt this leave is in a pretty precarious position , particularly given how these countries operate?
Perhaps ending reliance on fossil fuels isnt just a great move for the environment but also a smart move in terms of protecting our nations,
Perhaps shutting down all our industries and/or allowing our smallish companies to be aggressively bought out by large foreign conglomorets isnt a thing to be celebrated.
Lets change our ways right now.

If everyone stopped using gas, Russia is in big trouble
If everyone stopped using oil, Saudi, UAE, Qatar, Iran etc are in big trouble
If everyone western company started making their products in their own countries, China is in big trouble

I suspect the western governments will sit back and continue to talk about sanctions but essentially let Putin take the entire Ukraine.
Putin knows fine well the Brits wont do anything with the tories in power,
He appears to have the germans over a barrel with their reliance on russian gas
The french wont to anything without the germans and brits backing them up
The Americans don't want anything to do with the situation for fear of pissing off China who appear to be backing Putin.

And selfisly while the Ukranian people suffer, the tories will be loving the distraction. As with the pandemic, they will see it as 'an opportunity.

 

[sheepheid]

So what is it that you are advocating? 

[RicoS321]

16 hours ago, tom_widdows said:

I'm advocating doing something more than standing up in your respective parliaments and saying ' i condemn this' or worse 'we are leading the way in condeming this'
Hindsight is the word politicians like to throw about but foresight is a skill that needs to be brought in. Seems the priks who hold all the money and power in the UK have plenty of foresight when it comes to disaster capitalism and hedge funds but not one of them sat down one day and thought ' hang on a minute, we as a nation are awfully reliant on two or three nations on the world for our way of life (gas form russia, Oil from the middle east, manufacturing from china etc), doesnt this leave is in a pretty precarious position , particularly given how these countries operate?
Perhaps ending reliance on fossil fuels isnt just a great move for the environment but also a smart move in terms of protecting our nations,
Perhaps shutting down all our industries and/or allowing our smallish companies to be aggressively bought out by large foreign conglomorets isnt a thing to be celebrated.
Lets change our ways right now.

If everyone stopped using gas, Russia is in big trouble
If everyone stopped using oil, Saudi, UAE, Qatar, Iran etc are in big trouble
If everyone western company started making their products in their own countries, China is in big trouble

I suspect the western governments will sit back and continue to talk about sanctions but essentially let Putin take the entire Ukraine.
Putin knows fine well the Brits wont do anything with the tories in power,
He appears to have the germans over a barrel with their reliance on russian gas
The french wont to anything without the germans and brits backing them up
The Americans don't want anything to do with the situation for fear of pissing off China who appear to be backing Putin.

And selfisly while the Ukranian people suffer, the tories will be loving the distraction. As with the pandemic, they will see it as 'an opportunity.

 

I don't think it's anything to do with the Tories. What you're getting at here is antithetical to our entire system. It's anti globalisation. Voting the Tories out won't change that, just as SNP haven't. There is no political path within our economic system that brings about what you suggest. Replacing fossil fuels isn't the answer. Removing the requirement to use that volume of energy is. Very few renewables are going to result in zero fossil fuel use in their production and transportation. There is little difference between buying Russia's oil and China's solar panels. I'm fairly sympathetic to your suggestion of producing more, and it should have been clear to everyone rushing to the supermarket upon first lockdown that we have zero contingency if something happens to our just in time supply chain. We'll be (the UK) in the absolute shit if Putin goes further than Ukraine and we're forced to defend a NATO country. We haven't got the infrastructure or resilience for war. So it's imperative that we sit on our hands and shout from the sidelines for now.

[scotfree]

What's Bono up to these days?

[Jute]

Fallout from Russian invasion continues with Abramovich sanctioned. Nicely it may fuck Chelsea. 
 

 

[RicoS321]

45 minutes ago, Jute said:

Fallout from Russian invasion continues with Abramovich sanctioned. Nicely it may fuck Chelsea

Meh. It seems that they're going to bend over backwards to ensure as little disruption to the beautiful English game as possible. I think it'll be too much to expect the UK population to wake up and realise that this is what the game is. Lickspittling your way to success, bowing to money. Hopefully the Huns in Newcastle and Manchester are enjoying their Arab coin laughing at Chelsea because they're billionaire has been caught and ours hasn't. Nobody is exempt in that league, Abramovich is just a useful illustration. The EPL is a money laundering, image-purchasing, anti-sport, corrupt cesspit of obsequious scum. It doesn't start and end with Abramovich, it's the entire setup. 

[tom_widdows]

Leadser of the Wagner group seemingly dead in a plane crash.

Slightly less subtle than falling out of a window
 

[RicoS321]

2 hours ago, tom_widdows said:

Leadser of the Wagner group seemingly dead in a plane crash.

Slightly less subtle than falling out of a window
 

Planes are always falling out of the sky. Could have happened to anyone. Nothing to see.