That is up to them. Brave but they do so at their own risk
I have to say once again I find myself in unlikely agreement. NATO has to be very careful not to cross the line into direct involvement. There's an overwhelming notion around we must "do something" to help Ukraine - perhaps but risking an escalation toward the unthinkable isn't it.
I realise this may be an unpopular view on here tonight but there's a limit to what we can and should do. Help the refugees by all means, offer sanctuary in the UK if we can but we cannot get drawn into this fight - the stakes are simply too high. We can apply economic pressure on Russia (and we should) but we cannot force Putin into a corner where he feels trapped and has no option but to escalate.
We need to be tirelessly pushing for a negotiated ceasefire - we need to use any back channel we have to tell the Russian Government this is a disastrous course of action and try to persuade the Chinese or any one else to press Putin into ending this sooner rather than later.
Ye. Lots of brave keyboard warriors who have no clue about geopolitics.
Reminds me of my first year seminars during my international relations undergrad. Almost everyone was a liberal internationalist. By the third year, pretty much everyone was a realist.
Agreed...how many on here would be prepared to fight street to Street...let us pray for the ukrainian people and hope they don't pay a heavy price for their resistance
Why would a Putin shill want to waste their time posting Putin propaganda on PB?
OGH should be buffing his nails on account of the Kremlin taking his blog so seriously.
To be fair, given it’s ability to swiftly aggregate news and deliver elections results at pace, I’d think this blog is read by a lot of intelligence agencies to speed up their homework.
And that’s before we discuss the value of the cricket betting tips.
Yes, we've had Russian sockpuppets in the past.
There was a run of antivaxxers with very suspiciously written English last year too, who always seemed like they were probably Russian.
Given that Russia has apparently suspected Twitter, and severely limited Facebook, perhaps PB is now their only source of news and commentary….
God help them.
Russia is funding its war effort by correctly predicting election results in obscure US districts. You heard it here first. As ever.
Not to forget the Thursday night local council by-elections.
Why publicise? The Russians will now be looking out for it to shoot it down. Putin will try and use it as a warning shot to NATO to stay out
You are really not very you good at this
Russia shooting down a UK aircraft would be an act of war against a NATO country
Putin has already warned NATO to stay out of Ukraine. He has the biggest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world.
Even if it is shot down, while he remains Russian President what are we going to realistically do beyond economic sanctions? We will in theory defend NATO nations but that is it.
As far as Ukraine goes we have given them all the supplies and weapons we could before the invasion and should now stay out of it
The plane is flying to Poland not Ukraine
Well I assume the supplies it is carrying are still going to Ukraine based on the tweet.
So Putin's warning to NATO to stay out still applies, the Russians could bomb truck convoys of supplies entering Ukraine as much as shoot down planes carrying them
He doesn’t control the borders yet. That’s rather the point….
He will soon control most of Ukraine airspace and has warned NATO to stay out. Any NATO nation continuing to get involved in the Ukraine, still a non NATO nation, is therefore also taking a risk
And as we’ve told you, we’re not flying into Ukrainian airspace. We will send what we can while there are open borders. And to be fair, with the troops numbers Russia has, there’s always going to be an open border.
Not even Putin is mad enough to attack us for keeping the weapons flowing, and if he does then, well NATO will hold the line. I accept we can’t sent troops into Ukraine but I’d rather die in a nuclear exchange than refuse to even arm them.
If we don’t stand up to bullies then we aren’t Britain any more.
You are well named, I must say. I see and feel the obligation but I can't say with total honesty that I would rather die in a nuclear exchange than fail to back Ukraine to the hilt.
None of us would. But that's not the choice being offered. It's not that we should do what we can to stop aggressive countries invading their neighbours because of the abstract principle of the thing - though the principle of the thing is important - it is that if we do not do what we can then the baddies get a step closer to us. And then another step. And another, until we finally stop them. Do we stop them in Ukraine, or in the Baltics, or in Scandinavia, or the North Sea, or in the UK? If they're going to chuck bombs at us, they'll do so at some point in the process. It's not immediately obvious that we lessen our chances of avoiding a nuclear attack on the UK by leaving Ukraine to go it alone.
Yes, we all need to collectively realise that this is real. That sounds flippant, but we need to REALLY understand that the world just changed abs the west must wake up abs reunify.
It is interesting if we do have a russian troll amongst us. Instead of banning them, I would suggest using the opportunity to ask questions about their situation.
That is up to them. Brave but they do so at their own risk
I have to say once again I find myself in unlikely agreement. NATO has to be very careful not to cross the line into direct involvement. There's an overwhelming notion around we must "do something" to help Ukraine - perhaps but risking an escalation toward the unthinkable isn't it.
I realise this may be an unpopular view on here tonight but there's a limit to what we can and should do. Help the refugees by all means, offer sanctuary in the UK if we can but we cannot get drawn into this fight - the stakes are simply too high. We can apply economic pressure on Russia (and we should) but we cannot force Putin into a corner where he feels trapped and has no option but to escalate.
We need to be tirelessly pushing for a negotiated ceasefire - we need to use any back channel we have to tell the Russian Government this is a disastrous course of action and try to persuade the Chinese or any one else to press Putin into ending this sooner rather than later.
Ye. Lots of brave keyboard warriors who have no clue about geopolitics.
Reminds me of my first year seminars during my international relations undergrad. Almost everyone was a liberal internationalist. By the third year, pretty much everyone was a realist.
Agreed...how many on here would be prepared to fight street to Street...let us pray for the ukrainian people and hope they don't pay a heavy price for their resistance
Why would a Putin shill want to waste their time posting Putin propaganda on PB?
OGH should be buffing his nails on account of the Kremlin taking his blog so seriously.
To be fair, given it’s ability to swiftly aggregate news and deliver elections results at pace, I’d think this blog is read by a lot of intelligence agencies to speed up their homework.
And that’s before we discuss the value of the cricket betting tips.
Yes, we've had Russian sockpuppets in the past.
There was a run of antivaxxers with very suspiciously written English last year too, who always seemed like they were probably Russian.
Were they strongly pro masks and lockdowns as well?
It is interesting if we do have a russian troll amongst us. Instead of banning them, I would suggest using the opportunity to ask questions about their situation.
Leave it to me, I’ll communicate with him.
Comrade! In winter, the first swallows fly to the west.
Adam Tooze @adam_tooze · 1h We are in truly dangerous spiral: Brave Ukrainian resistance frustrates Russian attack -> Kiev refuses humiliating negotiations. Russia about to ramp up destructiveness of attack NATO members rushing weapons to Ukraine EU/US announce major sanctions. What is Russia’s next move?
This is the worry ignored by many on here...this situation could spiral in unpredictable ways to the detriment of the west....
..and to your own side.
Does anyone seriously think that this couldn't spiral unpredictably (apart from Mad Vlad of course)?
This is the most dangerous time most of us have ever lived through. That was clear from the moment Vlad ordered his conscripts in.
Yes. Since 1962, at least.
Possibly. 1983 was also very frightening, albeit at the time it wasn't well known (basically, the Stanislav Petrov incident in September 1983 and then Able Archer in October both could've gone nuclear but the general public didn't really know it at the time).
It is too early to be thinking about how to get Putin to back-track.
Our job right now is to strain every sinew to assist Ukraine to avoid decapitation.
If Ukraine and Zelensky can hold on another week, two weeks, then we’ll need to think about it.
The status quo ante is probably not acceptable. We want Russia (or Russian proxies) out of the Donbas full stop. However we should we willing to “trade” Crimea, and Ukranian neutrality.
Adam Tooze @adam_tooze · 1h We are in truly dangerous spiral: Brave Ukrainian resistance frustrates Russian attack -> Kiev refuses humiliating negotiations. Russia about to ramp up destructiveness of attack NATO members rushing weapons to Ukraine EU/US announce major sanctions. What is Russia’s next move?
This is the worry ignored by many on here...this situation could spiral in unpredictable ways to the detriment of the west....
The bear has to be confronted at some point. If not now, when?
Yes. It has to be now. Here and now. That much has become obvious
Because if we don’t at least try and stop this, then this frothing wolverine of a puffy old man will come for NATO and that means outright nuclear war or pathetic subjugation for all of us
"The statesman's task is to hear God's footsteps marching through history, and to try and catch on to His coattails as He marches past."
It is too early to be thinking about how to get Putin to back-track.
Our job right now is to strain every sinew to assist Ukraine to avoid decapitation.
If Ukraine and Zelensky can hold on another week, two weeks, then we’ll need to think about it.
The status quo ante is probably not acceptable. We want Russia (or Russian proxies) out of the Donbas full stop. However we should we willing to “trade” Crimea, and Ukranian neutrality.
I wouldn’t. For me it’s simple - Putin doesn’t get to decide which bits are and aren’t Ukraine or whether Ukraine is neutral, and neither do we. It’s for the Ukrainians and them alone.
It is too early to be thinking about how to get Putin to back-track.
Our job right now is to strain every sinew to assist Ukraine to avoid decapitation.
If Ukraine and Zelensky can hold on another week, two weeks, then we’ll need to think about it.
The status quo ante is probably not acceptable. We want Russia (or Russian proxies) out of the Donbas full stop. However we should we willing to “trade” Crimea, and Ukranian neutrality.
I wouldn’t. For me it’s simple - Putin doesn’t get to decide which bits are and aren’t Ukraine or whether Ukraine is neutral, and neither do we. It’s for the Ukrainians and them alone.
What does that mean. Ukraine can’t, for example, have a unilateral right to join NATO.
It is too early to be thinking about how to get Putin to back-track.
Our job right now is to strain every sinew to assist Ukraine to avoid decapitation.
If Ukraine and Zelensky can hold on another week, two weeks, then we’ll need to think about it.
The status quo ante is probably not acceptable. We want Russia (or Russian proxies) out of the Donbas full stop. However we should we willing to “trade” Crimea, and Ukranian neutrality.
I wouldn’t. For me it’s simple - Putin doesn’t get to decide which bits are and aren’t Ukraine or whether Ukraine is neutral, and neither do we. It’s for the Ukrainians and them alone.
What does that mean. Ukraine can’t, for example, have a unilateral right to join NATO.
No, but that’s not the same thing as us having a view on whether or not it’s neutral.
It is too early to be thinking about how to get Putin to back-track.
Our job right now is to strain every sinew to assist Ukraine to avoid decapitation.
If Ukraine and Zelensky can hold on another week, two weeks, then we’ll need to think about it.
The status quo ante is probably not acceptable. We want Russia (or Russian proxies) out of the Donbas full stop. However we should we willing to “trade” Crimea, and Ukranian neutrality.
I wouldn’t. For me it’s simple - Putin doesn’t get to decide which bits are and aren’t Ukraine or whether Ukraine is neutral, and neither do we. It’s for the Ukrainians and them alone.
What does that mean. Ukraine can’t, for example, have a unilateral right to join NATO.
No, but that’s not the same thing as us having a view on whether or not it’s neutral.
We already did, implicitly. We didn’t allow Ukraine into NATO before, it just that we were not vocal about it.
It is too early to be thinking about how to get Putin to back-track.
Our job right now is to strain every sinew to assist Ukraine to avoid decapitation.
If Ukraine and Zelensky can hold on another week, two weeks, then we’ll need to think about it.
The status quo ante is probably not acceptable. We want Russia (or Russian proxies) out of the Donbas full stop. However we should we willing to “trade” Crimea, and Ukranian neutrality.
I wouldn’t. For me it’s simple - Putin doesn’t get to decide which bits are and aren’t Ukraine or whether Ukraine is neutral, and neither do we. It’s for the Ukrainians and them alone.
What does that mean. Ukraine can’t, for example, have a unilateral right to join NATO.
No, but that’s not the same thing as us having a view on whether or not it’s neutral.
We already did, implicitly. We didn’t allow Ukraine into NATO before, it just that we were not vocal about it.
Another reason the demand to be explicit are bogus
I hope someone clever in NATO leadership is figuring out the various endgames. A damaged or humiliated Putin would be hugely dangerous.
Crimea and Donbass back to Ukraine, Kaliningrad back to Poland, Karelia back to Finland, maybe an independent North Caucasus state to cut them off from the Black Sea. They can keep St. Petersburg if they cooperate.
I think you may be a little ahead of yourself here.
If you are right- fantastic!
Anyway, Kaliningrad used to be part of East Prussia (Germany) not Poland.
Comments
Comrade! In winter, the first swallows fly to the west.
Our job right now is to strain every sinew to assist Ukraine to avoid decapitation.
If Ukraine and Zelensky can hold on another week, two weeks, then we’ll need to think about it.
The status quo ante is probably not acceptable. We want Russia (or Russian proxies) out of the Donbas full stop. However we should we willing to “trade” Crimea, and Ukranian neutrality.
‘How World War III became possible’
https://twitter.com/naebd/status/1497709932094894087?s=21
Otto Von Bismarck.
We didn’t allow Ukraine into NATO before, it just that we were not vocal about it.