Transmitter Faults The transmitter has reported issues at the moment which is affecting some viewers.
TIMESTAMP STATION STATUS From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 1 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 2 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 3 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 4 Off the air due to a fault
Checks the horizon for incoming landing craft....
That's a terrifying escalation, Trident submarines are programmed to launch automatically if they don't get the shipping forecast.
I'm sure you're joking, but for any of our more panicky posters, in the event of WWIII the commanders are told to try to pick up BBCR4 to see if there is still a functioning UK. IF they can't find evidence of that they open the letter the Prime Minister has written giving them instructions on what to do.
I quite like the idea that Armageddon is triggered by a break in transmission of the Home Service. It demonstrates Britain's place in the world order. I suspect snobs like myself would consider the end of R4 as signalling the end of the World as we know it anyway.
Besides, I can't see a place for R4 in a post apocalyptic Mad Max dystopian nightmare.
Still no FM radio here. But also nothing threatening out to sea, within my visibility range of about 15-17 miles.
Okay this is pretty interesting, Chinese state affiliated media is posting a video of Chinese students in Kyiv asking for peace.
It’s not outright pro Ukrainian, but it definitely does not paint the Russians in the best light...
Again, you have to remember that this was most likely approved by a Chinese state backed editorial board. There is an implicit backing of the message here by the Chinese.
China surely realises that Putin is achieving the opposite of what China wants: a revived, united west, rearming and prepared to fight. Whether it is for Latvia - or Taiwan
Are we rearming?
I'd hope it would be obvious, but when it comes to the budget statement later in the spring, with the political unpopularity of the NI increase, massive interest payments on our debt, the gaping maw of what the NHS requires simply to return to the level of dysfunction it was capable of before Covid, and very many other demands on our finances - is Chancellor Sunak going to set our defence budget on a pathway to funding of 3% of GDP or more?
I don't see it happening. I think there needs to be a big political push to make it happen.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
Alternatively, Russia can't hold the territory, the whole of the rest of the international community insists that it gives up trying, and then the West (Ukraine included) builds a socking great concrete wall all the way along its border with Putin's shitty little empire and leaves it to rot.
We are at the beginning of this conflict, not the end, and the final outcome isn't written.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
In truth, it's highly doubtful that a physical barrier would be put up against Russia (although, frankly, I would welcome it and they deserve it,) but if we're ever going to have a chance of being free of the threat of Putin and the line of despots that the Russians are liable to raise after him, it needs to be made explicit to the Russians that nothing beyond their internationally recognised borders belongs to them.
If the Ukrainians can hold out and somehow force Moscow to the negotiating table then, frankly, we should let them know in no uncertain terms that we expect them to hand back all their stolen territories in Ukraine and to withdraw recognition and backing from their puppet states in Georgia as well, and make it clear that sanctions will remain in place, in full and if necessary indefinitely, until they comply.
Russia has to be beaten and be seen to be beaten at the end of all of this. It is the only way that wretched country will stand any chance of learning its lesson. It's continually letting Putin get away with his bullshit that has allowed things to get this far out of hand in the first place.
Transmitter Faults The transmitter has reported issues at the moment which is affecting some viewers.
TIMESTAMP STATION STATUS From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 1 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 2 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 3 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 4 Off the air due to a fault
Checks the horizon for incoming landing craft....
That's a terrifying escalation, Trident submarines are programmed to launch automatically if they don't get the shipping forecast.
I'm sure you're joking, but for any of our more panicky posters, in the event of WWIII the commanders are told to try to pick up BBCR4 to see if there is still a functioning UK. IF they can't find evidence of that they open the letter the Prime Minister has written giving them instructions on what to do.
I quite like the idea that Armageddon is triggered by a break in transmission of the Home Service. It demonstrates Britain's place in the world order. I suspect snobs like myself would consider the end of R4 as signalling the end of the World as we know it anyway.
Besides, I can't see a place for R4 in a post apocalyptic Mad Max dystopian nightmare.
USSR and China presumably have stables of Lord Haw Haw types whose role is the indefinite output of spoof r4 material until the subs can be tracked down
I get annoyed by heist films where the video in the vault full of diamonds turns out to have been hacked and fed fake footage of nothing happening. You just put in the vault a TV, visible to the camera, showing live CNN or whatever, and that kills that ploy dead
The Modi government's refusal to condemn the Russian invasion shows that we need to be a bit more careful about rushing to embrace India than we have been up to now.
It’s driven by their trade interests.
A bit like Germany’s slow and inadequate response.
But I guess that’s white Europeans are just exercising their democratic rights and you can justify being tougher on India because you don’t like Modi
All countries are keener on taking actions (or, even better, others taking actions) that don't unduly harm their economic interests or trample on any domestic political hot potatoes. Despite the criticism of the Germans - who have greater of both than we do - we've so far been no different.
Indeed I notice that the Swift ban, which was initially trailed as "ban Russia and Russians from Swift", is now being clarified as applying to certain (as yet unspecified) Russian banks only.
Indeed. On gas, I think we have to be a little understanding of countries in colder bits of europe which rely on Russian gas for heat. And in the fact that if they don’t buy it, China probably will, and they’ve just given themselves a logistics nightmare and some dead pensioners with no heating. I can understand their approach. I don’t approve, but I understand.
On the refugee question, some serious thought needs to go in to this beyond the usual irrationality. We must confront the hard reality that there is no housing in the UK for refugees from Ukraine, and what exists in the private sector is of low quality and expensive. It is not a good place to resettle vulnerable people fleeing warzones. For people who have skills and can be self sufficient though, it is a different story.
I think we should look to countries in Eastern Europe. Much of the problems in the EU have been caused by their opposition to taking in refugees from Asia and Africa, on the grounds of cultural differences, resulting in large scale migration of these people to Northern European countries. Isn't this an opportunity for Hungary and Poland to seriously step up and do their bit?
Nominally, the war is about the fate of disputed territory in the East of the Ukraine.
In reality, the war is about the desire of the Ukraine to join the EU/NATO. This is opposed by Russia.
But, does the EU/NATO actually want Ukraine to join them ? Are these organisations going to welcome whatever Ukrainian state remains after Putin's barbarism ?
The fate of the Ukrainian refugees is a critical test of the West in all this.
If Ukraine were to join the EU, there would be large scale migration to the West through freedom of movement. The only other parts of the former USSR to join -- the much smaller Baltic states -- suffered very large drops in their populations (& those countries were comparatively prosperous compared to Ukraine). Hence, the EU has been -- it is fair to say -- rather circumspect about the consequences of the much larger & poorer Ukraine joining.
However, we now have a war that is likely to generate millions of refugees. The longer and bloodier the war, the more refugees. If this turns out to be a prolonged, bloody war of attrition, then ~ 5 million refugees (UN estimate) may well be on the low side.
So, the treatment of these refugees by the West now seems to me to be critical test of our integrity.
War means refugees. You don't get one without the other.
The counter-argument would be that, if we're getting the refugees anyway, the consequences of joining the EU may not be so bad. Similarly with NATO - the fear was that Ukraine joining would bring us into a conflict with Russia. Now the conflict has happened - in the eventuality that Russia is eventually defeated such that Ukraine becomes free and able to join - the consequences aren't so bad; for the foreseeable, we're faced up against Russia already.
Let's see what happens, shall we?
I am happy to take Ukrainian refugees, for avoidance of doubt.
I would place them in the UK in direct proportion to the bellicosity of the posters on pb,com.
Those pretty Cambridgeshire villages, the Wiltshire countryside
But, I expect that is where the refugees will not end up.
You are unfortunately correct.
My former school friends in market town Herefordshire had enough of queueing behind Eastern Europeans at the doctor's surgery last time they were here.
That is not a vote winner. Pictures of Boris handing out weaponry to the RAF to put on flights from Northolt on the other hand cleanses our soul without the inconvenience.
At present, weaponry is of more use to the Ukrainians.
That is undoubtedly true.
I have been triggered because I foolishly don't understand why we needed the photograph.
I have been careful to apportion any criticism of our limited assistance in Ukraine, and our earlier, and to an extent current timidity towards Putin on Western leaders as a collective. The inappropriate photo op, unhinged me. Replace this casually unserious man with someone of gravitas. Tugendhadt is my choice under the circumstances. Although if Elwood was on the card I'd take him
I think Elwood recently argued that NATO should have placed troops in Ukraine to deter Putin. Can anyone confirm if I have this right? Wouldn't that have effectively amounted to Ukraine membership of NATO and risked provoking an even more dangerous situation than is currently the case?
Yes he did, and yes it probably would. My fear is an attack on NATO is on the itinerary anyway.
Elwood has been saying NATO and the EU should have been more proactive for months.
On the refugee question, some serious thought needs to go in to this beyond the usual irrationality. We must confront the hard reality that there is no housing in the UK for refugees from Ukraine, and what exists in the private sector is of low quality and expensive. It is not a good place to resettle vulnerable people fleeing warzones. For people who have skills and can be self sufficient though, it is a different story.
I think we should look to countries in Eastern Europe. Much of the problems in the EU have been caused by their opposition to taking in refugees from Asia and Africa, on the grounds of cultural differences, resulting in large scale migration of these people to Northern European countries. Isn't this an opportunity for Hungary and Poland to seriously step up and do their bit?
Nominally, the war is about the fate of disputed territory in the East of the Ukraine.
In reality, the war is about the desire of the Ukraine to join the EU/NATO. This is opposed by Russia.
But, does the EU/NATO actually want Ukraine to join them ? Are these organisations going to welcome whatever Ukrainian state remains after Putin's barbarism ?
The fate of the Ukrainian refugees is a critical test of the West in all this.
If Ukraine were to join the EU, there would be large scale migration to the West through freedom of movement. The only other parts of the former USSR to join -- the much smaller Baltic states -- suffered very large drops in their populations (& those countries were comparatively prosperous compared to Ukraine). Hence, the EU has been -- it is fair to say -- rather circumspect about the consequences of the much larger & poorer Ukraine joining.
However, we now have a war that is likely to generate millions of refugees. The longer and bloodier the war, the more refugees. If this turns out to be a prolonged, bloody war of attrition, then ~ 5 million refugees (UN estimate) may well be on the low side.
So, the treatment of these refugees by the West now seems to me to be critical test of our integrity.
War means refugees. You don't get one without the other.
The counter-argument would be that, if we're getting the refugees anyway, the consequences of joining the EU may not be so bad. Similarly with NATO - the fear was that Ukraine joining would bring us into a conflict with Russia. Now the conflict has happened - in the eventuality that Russia is eventually defeated such that Ukraine becomes free and able to join - the consequences aren't so bad; for the foreseeable, we're faced up against Russia already.
Let's see what happens, shall we?
I am happy to take Ukrainian refugees, for avoidance of doubt.
I would place them in the UK in direct proportion to the bellicosity of the posters on pb,com.
Those pretty Cambridgeshire villages, the Wiltshire countryside
But, I expect that is where the refugees will not end up.
You are unfortunately correct.
My former school friends in market town Herefordshire had enough of queueing behind Eastern Europeans at the doctor's surgery last time they were here.
That is not a vote winner. Pictures of Boris handing out weaponry to the RAF to put on flights from Northolt on the other hand cleanses our soul without the inconvenience.
At present, weaponry is of more use to the Ukrainians.
That is undoubtedly true.
I have been triggered because I foolishly don't understand why we needed the photograph.
I have been careful to apportion any criticism of our limited assistance in Ukraine, and our earlier, and to an extent current timidity towards Putin on Western leaders as a collective. The inappropriate photo op, unhinged me. Replace this casually unserious man with someone of gravitas. Tugendhadt is my choice under the circumstances. Although if Elwood was on the card I'd take him
These “Photo Ops” are going viral in Ukraine. They see that more arms are coming their way. They’re very happy to see them.
I forgot to mention it in earlier post, but Johnson speaking foreign is also on Ukranian TV.
Please everyone, don’t let internal UK politics get in the way of seeing the much bigger picture.
Well said, Sandpit. If we have to wait until this is over to boot out Johnson, so be it.
Sure, we'll deal with our own wretched leader in due course, but first things first.
And yes, I thought it was wonderful to see Johnson talking foreign to the locals. I'm sure it was appreciated and there's no reason why those of us who think he is a grade A tnuc shouldn't recognise that.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
The vast majority of the East wants to be in a free, democratic Ukraine, as a member of the EU. You're simply repeating Russian propaganda.
How long has British intelligence known of this? And the timing? It would explain wait for Sue Gray. And then getting the Police involved if the PM knew all along we'd soon be in this situation.
Okay this is pretty interesting, Chinese state affiliated media is posting a video of Chinese students in Kyiv asking for peace.
It’s not outright pro Ukrainian, but it definitely does not paint the Russians in the best light...
Again, you have to remember that this was most likely approved by a Chinese state backed editorial board. There is an implicit backing of the message here by the Chinese.
China surely realises that Putin is achieving the opposite of what China wants: a revived, united west, rearming and prepared to fight. Whether it is for Latvia - or Taiwan
Are we rearming?
I'd hope it would be obvious, but when it comes to the budget statement later in the spring, with the political unpopularity of the NI increase, massive interest payments on our debt, the gaping maw of what the NHS requires simply to return to the level of dysfunction it was capable of before Covid, and very many other demands on our finances - is Chancellor Sunak going to set our defence budget on a pathway to funding of 3% of GDP or more?
I don't see it happening. I think there needs to be a big political push to make it happen.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).t.
Nearly all of Africa’s boundaries are “impossible” yet the Africans have learned to live with them. Ukraine is where the people who believe themselves to be Ukrainian live - and as we can see are willing to fight for it.
Transmitter Faults The transmitter has reported issues at the moment which is affecting some viewers.
TIMESTAMP STATION STATUS From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 1 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 2 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 3 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 4 Off the air due to a fault
Checks the horizon for incoming landing craft....
That's a terrifying escalation, Trident submarines are programmed to launch automatically if they don't get the shipping forecast.
I'm sure you're joking, but for any of our more panicky posters, in the event of WWIII the commanders are told to try to pick up BBCR4 to see if there is still a functioning UK. IF they can't find evidence of that they open the letter the Prime Minister has written giving them instructions on what to do.
I quite like the idea that Armageddon is triggered by a break in transmission of the Home Service. It demonstrates Britain's place in the world order. I suspect snobs like myself would consider the end of R4 as signalling the end of the World as we know it anyway.
Besides, I can't see a place for R4 in a post apocalyptic Mad Max dystopian nightmare.
After feeling some optimism yesterday, I’ve got a gut punch feeling that Vlad is playing rope a dope. Sending in conscripts as cannon fodder to degrade Ukraine’s professional army, and older tanks as magnets for the NLAWs. Saving up the crack troops and better equipment to mop up in Ukraine / for the fight with NATO.
Are we certain it's actually all out of date equipment and useless conscripts? If my "elite" forces, paratroops, and equipment were failing disastrously I'd probably put it about that this was just the garbage stuff and you should just wait til we send in the real thing.
One reads (albeit that this story was both published in the Mail and derives from a war zone, so considerable caution is advised,) that the Chechen general reportedly killed recently died along with a substantial column of his men - some of Russia's best and most ruthless troops - and that 56 tanks were destroyed in the process. We also spent much of yesterday evening speculating about how much of Russia's theoretically vast conventional strength may actually exist only on paper. ISRC it being suggested that something like 13,000 of the Kremlin's 16,000 tanks are in reserve formations, and it is questionable how many of those actually exist and what fraction of the extant units are operational.
We also have to remember that Russia's armed forces are vastly larger than the UK's, but its defence budget is actually smaller. A lot of this will be accounted for by the fact that the Russian army is full of conscripts serving for miserable pay and conditions, and Russia is self-sufficient in oil, but ultimately you have to ask how far their limited resources are actually stretching, and how much of Russia's strength is unsupported financially and, therefore, exists only on paper?
Anyway, Kyiv still stands this morning but it is reported that the Russians have invaded Kharkiv. The latter may be a valuable indicator: if they are also, hopefully, repulsed there, it would suggest that the invasion is in serious trouble.
That point also occurred to me. The death of the Chechen general indicates that this may not be an army of clumsy conscripts.
It also tends to show that the Russians are overrated, remember they could not handle Afghanistan , fine when you are just bombing people from the sky but different kettle of fish when they are up against determined people on the ground.
To be fair, Malc, the topography of Afghanistan is different to that of Ukraine. Running a guerrilla campaign is, I understand, easier in mountainous areas.
There were partisans in Ukraine during German occupation, enabled by the size of the place and the forests.
The idea you can only fight insurrections in mountainous terrain is bizarre. Tell it to the Viet Cong in the Mekong Delta. Or multiple jihadists in the flat deserts of Syria and Iraq
And, of course, possibly the best places to fight insurrections are big old cities. A single sniper in a tall building can halt an advance for a while. Ukraine has millions of armed men and women apparently willing to fight, street by street
I'm not sure whether this is having any effect on UK politics? According to today's Mail a new poll would see half of the Cabinet lose their seats, including Boris Johnson.
There's always some good news in times of trouble.
That's worth its own thread. The reason why it's different from most current polls is that it's MRP, which takes account of local demographics and to some extent of tactical voting.
MRP only starts to become accurate 7-10 days before polling day.
Otherwise it is simply mapping mid-term polling and not actual VI.
Transmitter Faults The transmitter has reported issues at the moment which is affecting some viewers.
TIMESTAMP STATION STATUS From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 1 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 2 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 3 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 4 Off the air due to a fault
Checks the horizon for incoming landing craft....
That's a terrifying escalation, Trident submarines are programmed to launch automatically if they don't get the shipping forecast.
I'm sure you're joking, but for any of our more panicky posters, in the event of WWIII the commanders are told to try to pick up BBCR4 to see if there is still a functioning UK. IF they can't find evidence of that they open the letter the Prime Minister has written giving them instructions on what to do.
I quite like the idea that Armageddon is triggered by a break in transmission of the Home Service. It demonstrates Britain's place in the world order. I suspect snobs like myself would consider the end of R4 as signalling the end of the World as we know it anyway.
Besides, I can't see a place for R4 in a post apocalyptic Mad Max dystopian nightmare.
USSR and China presumably have stables of Lord Haw Haw types whose role is the indefinite output of spoof r4 material until the subs can be tracked down
I get annoyed by heist films where the video in the vault full of diamonds turns out to have been hacked and fed fake footage of nothing happening. You just put in the vault a TV, visible to the camera, showing live CNN or whatever, and that kills that ploy dead
The trolls they have are quite easy identified.
I'll bet their attempts at "Thought for the Day" would be laughable.
So many smaller geopolitical earthquakes going on amongst the bigger ones. Germany upending not only its entire postwar neutrality but all of its post-cold war policy to Russia, Italy too, the Greeks having just sent off a military plane towards Poland.
History slows down and then speeds up, as someone mentioned yesterday.
On the refugee question, some serious thought needs to go in to this beyond the usual irrationality. We must confront the hard reality that there is no housing in the UK for refugees from Ukraine, and what exists in the private sector is of low quality and expensive. It is not a good place to resettle vulnerable people fleeing warzones. For people who have skills and can be self sufficient though, it is a different story.
I think we should look to countries in Eastern Europe. Much of the problems in the EU have been caused by their opposition to taking in refugees from Asia and Africa, on the grounds of cultural differences, resulting in large scale migration of these people to Northern European countries. Isn't this an opportunity for Hungary and Poland to seriously step up and do their bit?
Nominally, the war is about the fate of disputed territory in the East of the Ukraine.
In reality, the war is about the desire of the Ukraine to join the EU/NATO. This is opposed by Russia.
But, does the EU/NATO actually want Ukraine to join them ? Are these organisations going to welcome whatever Ukrainian state remains after Putin's barbarism ?
The fate of the Ukrainian refugees is a critical test of the West in all this.
If Ukraine were to join the EU, there would be large scale migration to the West through freedom of movement. The only other parts of the former USSR to join -- the much smaller Baltic states -- suffered very large drops in their populations (& those countries were comparatively prosperous compared to Ukraine). Hence, the EU has been -- it is fair to say -- rather circumspect about the consequences of the much larger & poorer Ukraine joining.
However, we now have a war that is likely to generate millions of refugees. The longer and bloodier the war, the more refugees. If this turns out to be a prolonged, bloody war of attrition, then ~ 5 million refugees (UN estimate) may well be on the low side.
So, the treatment of these refugees by the West now seems to me to be critical test of our integrity.
War means refugees. You don't get one without the other.
The counter-argument would be that, if we're getting the refugees anyway, the consequences of joining the EU may not be so bad. Similarly with NATO - the fear was that Ukraine joining would bring us into a conflict with Russia. Now the conflict has happened - in the eventuality that Russia is eventually defeated such that Ukraine becomes free and able to join - the consequences aren't so bad; for the foreseeable, we're faced up against Russia already.
Let's see what happens, shall we?
I am happy to take Ukrainian refugees, for avoidance of doubt.
I would place them in the UK in direct proportion to the bellicosity of the posters on pb,com.
Those pretty Cambridgeshire villages, the Wiltshire countryside
But, I expect that is where the refugees will not end up.
You are unfortunately correct.
My former school friends in market town Herefordshire had enough of queueing behind Eastern Europeans at the doctor's surgery last time they were here.
That is not a vote winner. Pictures of Boris handing out weaponry to the RAF to put on flights from Northolt on the other hand cleanses our soul without the inconvenience.
At present, weaponry is of more use to the Ukrainians.
That is undoubtedly true.
I have been triggered because I foolishly don't understand why we needed the photograph.
I have been careful to apportion any criticism of our limited assistance in Ukraine, and our earlier, and to an extent current timidity towards Putin on Western leaders as a collective. The inappropriate photo op, unhinged me. Replace this casually unserious man with someone of gravitas. Tugendhadt is my choice under the circumstances. Although if Elwood was on the card I'd take him
These “Photo Ops” are going viral in Ukraine. They see that more arms are coming their way. They’re very happy to see them.
I forgot to mention it in earlier post, but Johnson speaking foreign is also on Ukranian TV.
Please everyone, don’t let internal UK politics get in the way of seeing the much bigger picture.
Well said, Sandpit. If we have to wait until this is over to boot out Johnson, so be it.
Johnson is still a self seeking slimeball, I would have him out on his arse, along with his deadbeats like Truss before lunch.
I was pleased to see on MOTD that Gary Lineker basically called out Abramovich's statement as a smokescreen. 'I want to hear what he has to say about Putin' Lineker said. It may not have pleased his bosses, but it needed saying.
Meanwhile Michael Gove calls for a seizing of pro-Putin Russian assets in the UK:
Off topic: Just to confirm (and I am so disappointed) I won't be at the PB do because I am still lying in a hospital bed with 2 broken legs.
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
How long has British intelligence known of this? And the timing? It would explain wait for Sue Gray. And then getting the Police involved if the PM knew all along we'd soon be in this situation.
So many smaller geopolitical earthquakes going on amongst the bigger ones. Germany upending its entire post-cold war policy to Russia, Italy too, the Greeks having just sent off a military plane to Ukraine.
History slows down and then speeds up, as someone mentioned yesterday.
Yep and I'm really worried about this. This is escalating fast.
The ultra hawks on here may be happy to see us pile in but I think we're on the edge of a precipice right now.
How long has British intelligence known of this? And the timing? It would explain wait for Sue Gray. And then getting the Police involved if the PM knew all along we'd soon be in this situation.
They've been repeating this in public, along with the Americans for months.
With all the usual suspect saying it's not going to happen.
Transmitter Faults The transmitter has reported issues at the moment which is affecting some viewers.
TIMESTAMP STATION STATUS From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 1 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 2 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 3 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 4 Off the air due to a fault
Checks the horizon for incoming landing craft....
That's a terrifying escalation, Trident submarines are programmed to launch automatically if they don't get the shipping forecast.
I'm sure you're joking, but for any of our more panicky posters, in the event of WWIII the commanders are told to try to pick up BBCR4 to see if there is still a functioning UK. IF they can't find evidence of that they open the letter the Prime Minister has written giving them instructions on what to do.
I quite like the idea that Armageddon is triggered by a break in transmission of the Home Service. It demonstrates Britain's place in the world order. I suspect snobs like myself would consider the end of R4 as signalling the end of the World as we know it anyway.
Besides, I can't see a place for R4 in a post apocalyptic Mad Max dystopian nightmare.
"And now on Radio 4, it's time for Just A Four Minute Warning."
Okay this is pretty interesting, Chinese state affiliated media is posting a video of Chinese students in Kyiv asking for peace.
It’s not outright pro Ukrainian, but it definitely does not paint the Russians in the best light...
Again, you have to remember that this was most likely approved by a Chinese state backed editorial board. There is an implicit backing of the message here by the Chinese.
China surely realises that Putin is achieving the opposite of what China wants: a revived, united west, rearming and prepared to fight. Whether it is for Latvia - or Taiwan
Are we rearming?
I'd hope it would be obvious, but when it comes to the budget statement later in the spring, with the political unpopularity of the NI increase, massive interest payments on our debt, the gaping maw of what the NHS requires simply to return to the level of dysfunction it was capable of before Covid, and very many other demands on our finances - is Chancellor Sunak going to set our defence budget on a pathway to funding of 3% of GDP or more?
I don't see it happening. I think there needs to be a big political push to make it happen.
According to Liam Fox on QT yesterday it would appear that few NATO countries pay up in full their subscriptions. Apparently Germany are amongst the worst offenders.
Bringing arrears up to date would be a good start.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).t.
Nearly all of Africa’s boundaries are “impossible” yet the Africans have learned to live with them. Ukraine is where the people who believe themselves to be Ukrainian live - and as we can see are willing to fight for it.
Okay this is pretty interesting, Chinese state affiliated media is posting a video of Chinese students in Kyiv asking for peace.
It’s not outright pro Ukrainian, but it definitely does not paint the Russians in the best light...
Again, you have to remember that this was most likely approved by a Chinese state backed editorial board. There is an implicit backing of the message here by the Chinese.
China surely realises that Putin is achieving the opposite of what China wants: a revived, united west, rearming and prepared to fight. Whether it is for Latvia - or Taiwan
Yes, the “they’re not going to invade - don’t be stupid” crew are less likely to be listened to next time, and all their “pre-invasion hot takes” will be there for all to see - however many of them they delete. The internet never forgets.
To be fair it was a reasonable argument to take. No one sensible would be so stupid as to invade Ukraine. Militarily it's one hell of a gamble.
The flaw in that assessment is that Putin has gone doolally, as evidenced by his crazed national broadcast. When you're dealing with a madman it's really difficult to know what's coming.
I am rather concerned, albeit from my quiet little quarter, that Putin will view the increasing militarisation of Ukrainians by western countries as an escalation tantamount to war. Other countries like Belarus are getting sucked in.
There's a real danger now that this is not going to be contained. We're not far away from WWIII.
I hate to say it, but a speedy Putin victory is probably the safest option. That or the removal of Putin by an instantaneous coup, which would obviously be preferable.
Interesting rumours on French speaking Twitter (leaked by Macron’s team?) that Putin is seriously ill
On the refugee question, some serious thought needs to go in to this beyond the usual irrationality. We must confront the hard reality that there is no housing in the UK for refugees from Ukraine, and what exists in the private sector is of low quality and expensive. It is not a good place to resettle vulnerable people fleeing warzones. For people who have skills and can be self sufficient though, it is a different story.
I think we should look to countries in Eastern Europe. Much of the problems in the EU have been caused by their opposition to taking in refugees from Asia and Africa, on the grounds of cultural differences, resulting in large scale migration of these people to Northern European countries. Isn't this an opportunity for Hungary and Poland to seriously step up and do their bit?
Nominally, the war is about the fate of disputed territory in the East of the Ukraine.
In reality, the war is about the desire of the Ukraine to join the EU/NATO. This is opposed by Russia.
But, does the EU/NATO actually want Ukraine to join them ? Are these organisations going to welcome whatever Ukrainian state remains after Putin's barbarism ?
The fate of the Ukrainian refugees is a critical test of the West in all this.
If Ukraine were to join the EU, there would be large scale migration to the West through freedom of movement. The only other parts of the former USSR to join -- the much smaller Baltic states -- suffered very large drops in their populations (& those countries were comparatively prosperous compared to Ukraine). Hence, the EU has been -- it is fair to say -- rather circumspect about the consequences of the much larger & poorer Ukraine joining.
However, we now have a war that is likely to generate millions of refugees. The longer and bloodier the war, the more refugees. If this turns out to be a prolonged, bloody war of attrition, then ~ 5 million refugees (UN estimate) may well be on the low side.
So, the treatment of these refugees by the West now seems to me to be critical test of our integrity.
War means refugees. You don't get one without the other.
The counter-argument would be that, if we're getting the refugees anyway, the consequences of joining the EU may not be so bad. Similarly with NATO - the fear was that Ukraine joining would bring us into a conflict with Russia. Now the conflict has happened - in the eventuality that Russia is eventually defeated such that Ukraine becomes free and able to join - the consequences aren't so bad; for the foreseeable, we're faced up against Russia already.
Let's see what happens, shall we?
I am happy to take Ukrainian refugees, for avoidance of doubt.
I would place them in the UK in direct proportion to the bellicosity of the posters on pb,com.
Those pretty Cambridgeshire villages, the Wiltshire countryside
But, I expect that is where the refugees will not end up.
You are unfortunately correct.
My former school friends in market town Herefordshire had enough of queueing behind Eastern Europeans at the doctor's surgery last time they were here.
That is not a vote winner. Pictures of Boris handing out weaponry to the RAF to put on flights from Northolt on the other hand cleanses our soul without the inconvenience.
At present, weaponry is of more use to the Ukrainians.
That is undoubtedly true.
I have been triggered because I foolishly don't understand why we needed the photograph.
I have been careful to apportion any criticism of our limited assistance in Ukraine, and our earlier, and to an extent current timidity towards Putin on Western leaders as a collective. The inappropriate photo op, unhinged me. Replace this casually unserious man with someone of gravitas. Tugendhadt is my choice under the circumstances. Although if Elwood was on the card I'd take him
These “Photo Ops” are going viral in Ukraine. They see that more arms are coming their way. They’re very happy to see them.
I forgot to mention it in earlier post, but Johnson speaking foreign is also on Ukranian TV.
Please everyone, don’t let internal UK politics get in the way of seeing the much bigger picture.
Well said, Sandpit. If we have to wait until this is over to boot out Johnson, so be it.
Johnson is still a self seeking slimeball, I would have him out on his arse, along with his deadbeats like Truss before lunch.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
Alternatively, Russia can't hold the territory, the whole of the rest of the international community insists that it gives up trying, and then the West (Ukraine included) builds a socking great concrete wall all the way along its border with Putin's shitty little empire and leaves it to rot.
We are at the beginning of this conflict, not the end, and the final outcome isn't written.
These annoying people with their refusal to shut up and join which ever country needs to invade them...
Basically LD levels of support.
I don't think the Lib Dems get 34% support in Russia?
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was doing absolutely fine until Russia invaded it.
I'm not sure why you're adopting fatalism that suits the Kremlin.
Off topic: Just to confirm (and I am so disappointed) I won't be at the PB do because I am still lying in a hospital bed with 2 broken legs.
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
So many smaller geopolitical earthquakes going on amongst the bigger ones. Germany upending its entire post-cold war policy to Russia, Italy too, the Greeks having just sent off a military plane to Ukraine.
History slows down and then speeds up, as someone mentioned yesterday.
Yep and I'm really worried about this. This is escalating fast.
The ultra hawks on here may be happy to see us pile in but I think we're on the edge of a precipice right now.
Where's Sleepy Joe?
I don't think anyone is happy to see us 'pile on'.
Some of us think that our policy of the last two decades - ignoring Russia's misdeeds - have led us to this precipice, and that there is precious little evidence that maintaining that policy will not send us over it.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
Alternatively, Russia can't hold the territory, the whole of the rest of the international community insists that it gives up trying, and then the West (Ukraine included) builds a socking great concrete wall all the way along its border with Putin's shitty little empire and leaves it to rot.
We are at the beginning of this conflict, not the end, and the final outcome isn't written.
These annoying people with their refusal to shut up and join which ever country needs to invade them...
Basically LD levels of support.
When a man with a gun comes, you may decide it prudent to move.
Men with guns have come.
Where the boundary is now drawn will depend on how much territory Putin can take and hold.
On the refugee question, some serious thought needs to go in to this beyond the usual irrationality. We must confront the hard reality that there is no housing in the UK for refugees from Ukraine, and what exists in the private sector is of low quality and expensive. It is not a good place to resettle vulnerable people fleeing warzones. For people who have skills and can be self sufficient though, it is a different story.
I think we should look to countries in Eastern Europe. Much of the problems in the EU have been caused by their opposition to taking in refugees from Asia and Africa, on the grounds of cultural differences, resulting in large scale migration of these people to Northern European countries. Isn't this an opportunity for Hungary and Poland to seriously step up and do their bit?
Nominally, the war is about the fate of disputed territory in the East of the Ukraine.
In reality, the war is about the desire of the Ukraine to join the EU/NATO. This is opposed by Russia.
But, does the EU/NATO actually want Ukraine to join them ? Are these organisations going to welcome whatever Ukrainian state remains after Putin's barbarism ?
The fate of the Ukrainian refugees is a critical test of the West in all this.
If Ukraine were to join the EU, there would be large scale migration to the West through freedom of movement. The only other parts of the former USSR to join -- the much smaller Baltic states -- suffered very large drops in their populations (& those countries were comparatively prosperous compared to Ukraine). Hence, the EU has been -- it is fair to say -- rather circumspect about the consequences of the much larger & poorer Ukraine joining.
However, we now have a war that is likely to generate millions of refugees. The longer and bloodier the war, the more refugees. If this turns out to be a prolonged, bloody war of attrition, then ~ 5 million refugees (UN estimate) may well be on the low side.
So, the treatment of these refugees by the West now seems to me to be critical test of our integrity.
War means refugees. You don't get one without the other.
The counter-argument would be that, if we're getting the refugees anyway, the consequences of joining the EU may not be so bad. Similarly with NATO - the fear was that Ukraine joining would bring us into a conflict with Russia. Now the conflict has happened - in the eventuality that Russia is eventually defeated such that Ukraine becomes free and able to join - the consequences aren't so bad; for the foreseeable, we're faced up against Russia already.
Let's see what happens, shall we?
I am happy to take Ukrainian refugees, for avoidance of doubt.
I would place them in the UK in direct proportion to the bellicosity of the posters on pb,com.
Those pretty Cambridgeshire villages, the Wiltshire countryside
But, I expect that is where the refugees will not end up.
You are unfortunately correct.
My former school friends in market town Herefordshire had enough of queueing behind Eastern Europeans at the doctor's surgery last time they were here.
That is not a vote winner. Pictures of Boris handing out weaponry to the RAF to put on flights from Northolt on the other hand cleanses our soul without the inconvenience.
At present, weaponry is of more use to the Ukrainians.
That is undoubtedly true.
I have been triggered because I foolishly don't understand why we needed the photograph.
I have been careful to apportion any criticism of our limited assistance in Ukraine, and our earlier, and to an extent current timidity towards Putin on Western leaders as a collective. The inappropriate photo op, unhinged me. Replace this casually unserious man with someone of gravitas. Tugendhadt is my choice under the circumstances. Although if Elwood was on the card I'd take him
These “Photo Ops” are going viral in Ukraine. They see that more arms are coming their way. They’re very happy to see them.
I forgot to mention it in earlier post, but Johnson speaking foreign is also on Ukranian TV.
Please everyone, don’t let internal UK politics get in the way of seeing the much bigger picture.
Well said, Sandpit. If we have to wait until this is over to boot out Johnson, so be it.
Sure, we'll deal with our own wretched leader in due course, but first things first.
And yes, I thought it was wonderful to see Johnson talking foreign to the locals. I'm sure it was appreciated and there's no reason why those of us who think he is a grade A tnuc shouldn't recognise that.
Agreed. There’s no reason to get upset when a PM you want to get rid of occasionally does something you approve of.
So many smaller geopolitical earthquakes going on amongst the bigger ones. Germany upending its entire post-cold war policy to Russia, Italy too, the Greeks having just sent off a military plane to Ukraine.
History slows down and then speeds up, as someone mentioned yesterday.
Yep and I'm really worried about this. This is escalating fast.
The ultra hawks on here may be happy to see us pile in but I think we're on the edge of a precipice right now.
Where's Sleepy Joe?
Some of us think that our policy of the last two decades - ignoring Russia's misdeeds - have led us to this precipice, .
I joined a huge crowd in Freedom Square, where President Karis made a speech which was clear and precise. The fear in Tallinn that has been building for months has finally gone. The courage of the Ukrainian fighters has inspired the whole of the Baltic.
So many countries, from Finland to Germany that felt that the Baltic was crying wolf about Russia have now publically admitted their mistakes, and so now Estonia feels that the alliance is stronger and that we are safer.
Things might move slowly or quickly, but the direction of travel is clear. This is Putin´s war, and he must pay the ultimate price. Nevertheless the war is far from over and even though the flow of support to Ukraine is strong, we also know that Putin is a ruthless and now an increasingly desperate man. It may be that some very dark days lie ahead, but now we have the hope of victory, the hope that the Ukrainians have given us.
As an aside it is crystal clear that the five eyes have been incredibly successful at understanding the strategic and the tactical position of Russia. British and American intelligence has been spot on and this has been a significant part of the way that other NATO allies learned the scale of the plot that Putin was launching and of maintaining the cohesion of the alliance. I have little doubt that when the history is written, the quality of Western intelligence will be seen as the decisive advantage. Although it is the Ukrainians that are paying the price, their courage and determination is inspirational. If and when victory is acheived then a full scale Marshall plan should be the least we can do for the country that has stood alone against the tyrant. The gratitude that Estonia feels is certainly very profound.
On the refugee question, some serious thought needs to go in to this beyond the usual irrationality. We must confront the hard reality that there is no housing in the UK for refugees from Ukraine, and what exists in the private sector is of low quality and expensive. It is not a good place to resettle vulnerable people fleeing warzones. For people who have skills and can be self sufficient though, it is a different story.
I think we should look to countries in Eastern Europe. Much of the problems in the EU have been caused by their opposition to taking in refugees from Asia and Africa, on the grounds of cultural differences, resulting in large scale migration of these people to Northern European countries. Isn't this an opportunity for Hungary and Poland to seriously step up and do their bit?
Nominally, the war is about the fate of disputed territory in the East of the Ukraine.
In reality, the war is about the desire of the Ukraine to join the EU/NATO. This is opposed by Russia.
But, does the EU/NATO actually want Ukraine to join them ? Are these organisations going to welcome whatever Ukrainian state remains after Putin's barbarism ?
The fate of the Ukrainian refugees is a critical test of the West in all this.
If Ukraine were to join the EU, there would be large scale migration to the West through freedom of movement. The only other parts of the former USSR to join -- the much smaller Baltic states -- suffered very large drops in their populations (& those countries were comparatively prosperous compared to Ukraine). Hence, the EU has been -- it is fair to say -- rather circumspect about the consequences of the much larger & poorer Ukraine joining.
However, we now have a war that is likely to generate millions of refugees. The longer and bloodier the war, the more refugees. If this turns out to be a prolonged, bloody war of attrition, then ~ 5 million refugees (UN estimate) may well be on the low side.
So, the treatment of these refugees by the West now seems to me to be critical test of our integrity.
War means refugees. You don't get one without the other.
The counter-argument would be that, if we're getting the refugees anyway, the consequences of joining the EU may not be so bad. Similarly with NATO - the fear was that Ukraine joining would bring us into a conflict with Russia. Now the conflict has happened - in the eventuality that Russia is eventually defeated such that Ukraine becomes free and able to join - the consequences aren't so bad; for the foreseeable, we're faced up against Russia already.
Let's see what happens, shall we?
I am happy to take Ukrainian refugees, for avoidance of doubt.
I would place them in the UK in direct proportion to the bellicosity of the posters on pb,com.
Those pretty Cambridgeshire villages, the Wiltshire countryside
But, I expect that is where the refugees will not end up.
You are unfortunately correct.
My former school friends in market town Herefordshire had enough of queueing behind Eastern Europeans at the doctor's surgery last time they were here.
That is not a vote winner. Pictures of Boris handing out weaponry to the RAF to put on flights from Northolt on the other hand cleanses our soul without the inconvenience.
At present, weaponry is of more use to the Ukrainians.
That is undoubtedly true.
I have been triggered because I foolishly don't understand why we needed the photograph.
I have been careful to apportion any criticism of our limited assistance in Ukraine, and our earlier, and to an extent current timidity towards Putin on Western leaders as a collective. The inappropriate photo op, unhinged me. Replace this casually unserious man with someone of gravitas. Tugendhadt is my choice under the circumstances. Although if Elwood was on the card I'd take him
These “Photo Ops” are going viral in Ukraine. They see that more arms are coming their way. They’re very happy to see them.
I forgot to mention it in earlier post, but Johnson speaking foreign is also on Ukranian TV.
Please everyone, don’t let internal UK politics get in the way of seeing the much bigger picture.
If we have to wait until this is over to boot out Johnson, so be it.
I'm not sure whether this is having any effect on UK politics? According to today's Mail a new poll would see half of the Cabinet lose their seats, including Boris Johson.
"The survey, conducted by Theresa May's former pollster James Johnson, puts Labour on 45 per cent of the vote, compared to the Conservatives' 32 per cent.
Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats would pick up five more seats compared to the last election, the poll predicts, giving them a total of 16.
The survey used the MRP model projection, which maps polling results onto every seat in the country."
Looks an out of date poll from a few weeks ago.
None of the latest polls have a Labour lead of more than 10% as this poll does and Opinium last night had Labour just 4% ahead
Okay this is pretty interesting, Chinese state affiliated media is posting a video of Chinese students in Kyiv asking for peace.
It’s not outright pro Ukrainian, but it definitely does not paint the Russians in the best light...
Again, you have to remember that this was most likely approved by a Chinese state backed editorial board. There is an implicit backing of the message here by the Chinese.
China surely realises that Putin is achieving the opposite of what China wants: a revived, united west, rearming and prepared to fight. Whether it is for Latvia - or Taiwan
Are we rearming?
I'd hope it would be obvious, but when it comes to the budget statement later in the spring, with the political unpopularity of the NI increase, massive interest payments on our debt, the gaping maw of what the NHS requires simply to return to the level of dysfunction it was capable of before Covid, and very many other demands on our finances - is Chancellor Sunak going to set our defence budget on a pathway to funding of 3% of GDP or more?
I don't see it happening. I think there needs to be a big political push to make it happen.
According to Liam Fox on QT yesterday it would appear that few NATO countries pay up in full their subscriptions. Apparently Germany are amongst the worst offenders.
Bringing arrears up to date would be a good start.
Not a subscription I think, an expectation (set by trump?) as to how much of gdp gets spent on defence
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Off topic: Just to confirm (and I am so disappointed) I won't be at the PB do because I am still lying in a hospital bed with 2 broken legs.
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
Bored rigid.
Sorry to hear your news, and best wishes for a full recovery.
Transmitter Faults The transmitter has reported issues at the moment which is affecting some viewers.
TIMESTAMP STATION STATUS From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 1 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 2 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 3 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 4 Off the air due to a fault
Checks the horizon for incoming landing craft....
That's a terrifying escalation, Trident submarines are programmed to launch automatically if they don't get the shipping forecast.
I'm sure you're joking, but for any of our more panicky posters, in the event of WWIII the commanders are told to try to pick up BBCR4 to see if there is still a functioning UK. IF they can't find evidence of that they open the letter the Prime Minister has written giving them instructions on what to do.
I quite like the idea that Armageddon is triggered by a break in transmission of the Home Service. It demonstrates Britain's place in the world order. I suspect snobs like myself would consider the end of R4 as signalling the end of the World as we know it anyway.
Besides, I can't see a place for R4 in a post apocalyptic Mad Max dystopian nightmare.
"And now on Radio 4, it's time for Just A Four Minute Warning."
With no deviation, hesitation...nor chance of repitition for millennia.
On the refugee question, some serious thought needs to go in to this beyond the usual irrationality. We must confront the hard reality that there is no housing in the UK for refugees from Ukraine, and what exists in the private sector is of low quality and expensive. It is not a good place to resettle vulnerable people fleeing warzones. For people who have skills and can be self sufficient though, it is a different story.
I think we should look to countries in Eastern Europe. Much of the problems in the EU have been caused by their opposition to taking in refugees from Asia and Africa, on the grounds of cultural differences, resulting in large scale migration of these people to Northern European countries. Isn't this an opportunity for Hungary and Poland to seriously step up and do their bit?
Nominally, the war is about the fate of disputed territory in the East of the Ukraine.
In reality, the war is about the desire of the Ukraine to join the EU/NATO. This is opposed by Russia.
But, does the EU/NATO actually want Ukraine to join them ? Are these organisations going to welcome whatever Ukrainian state remains after Putin's barbarism ?
The fate of the Ukrainian refugees is a critical test of the West in all this.
If Ukraine were to join the EU, there would be large scale migration to the West through freedom of movement. The only other parts of the former USSR to join -- the much smaller Baltic states -- suffered very large drops in their populations (& those countries were comparatively prosperous compared to Ukraine). Hence, the EU has been -- it is fair to say -- rather circumspect about the consequences of the much larger & poorer Ukraine joining.
However, we now have a war that is likely to generate millions of refugees. The longer and bloodier the war, the more refugees. If this turns out to be a prolonged, bloody war of attrition, then ~ 5 million refugees (UN estimate) may well be on the low side.
So, the treatment of these refugees by the West now seems to me to be critical test of our integrity.
War means refugees. You don't get one without the other.
The counter-argument would be that, if we're getting the refugees anyway, the consequences of joining the EU may not be so bad. Similarly with NATO - the fear was that Ukraine joining would bring us into a conflict with Russia. Now the conflict has happened - in the eventuality that Russia is eventually defeated such that Ukraine becomes free and able to join - the consequences aren't so bad; for the foreseeable, we're faced up against Russia already.
Let's see what happens, shall we?
I am happy to take Ukrainian refugees, for avoidance of doubt.
I would place them in the UK in direct proportion to the bellicosity of the posters on pb,com.
Those pretty Cambridgeshire villages, the Wiltshire countryside
But, I expect that is where the refugees will not end up.
You are unfortunately correct.
My former school friends in market town Herefordshire had enough of queueing behind Eastern Europeans at the doctor's surgery last time they were here.
That is not a vote winner. Pictures of Boris handing out weaponry to the RAF to put on flights from Northolt on the other hand cleanses our soul without the inconvenience.
At present, weaponry is of more use to the Ukrainians.
That is undoubtedly true.
I have been triggered because I foolishly don't understand why we needed the photograph.
I have been careful to apportion any criticism of our limited assistance in Ukraine, and our earlier, and to an extent current timidity towards Putin on Western leaders as a collective. The inappropriate photo op, unhinged me. Replace this casually unserious man with someone of gravitas. Tugendhadt is my choice under the circumstances. Although if Elwood was on the card I'd take him
These “Photo Ops” are going viral in Ukraine. They see that more arms are coming their way. They’re very happy to see them.
I forgot to mention it in earlier post, but Johnson speaking foreign is also on Ukranian TV.
Please everyone, don’t let internal UK politics get in the way of seeing the much bigger picture.
Edit: there’s some very interesting planes flying in Poland this morning.
A fair point Sandpit.
If it helps, fair enough. I am so cynical based on prior experience and the previous lack of Mr Johnson's altruism, that I am unsure of his primary motivation. However, if it is working in a positive way, it is working in a positive way and hats off to him.
If you don't mind, I will remain the cynic, but best wishes for your family.
Off topic: Just to confirm (and I am so disappointed) I won't be at the PB do because I am still lying in a hospital bed with 2 broken legs.
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
Bored rigid.
Hope you feel better soon; it sounds horrible.
I too shall be missing the meet; I've got a little 'un who'll need looking after.
Off topic: Just to confirm (and I am so disappointed) I won't be at the PB do because I am still lying in a hospital bed with 2 broken legs.
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
Side note: I absolutely love how vicious the comments get on here. A source of real entertainment, and when someone confused my motives a few days ago and called me an "Isis lunatic commander" it brought a smile to my face.
But I think a poster referred to someone with a homophobic slur last night? (possible was edited by the responder in the block quotes). I think we should go after each other for the content of our posts, and occasionally our assumed motivations, nothing more.
Absolutely wrong. That was me, the reference was to the movie Predator, and it is not in context a slur of any kind.
A basic knowledge of the Schwarzenegger corpus is assumed, along of course with aliens
You're just a drunken edgelord who gets off on posting racial and homophobic slurs.
Speculation - a few videos online suggest those Turkish drones are, yet again, doing the business against these armoured columns.
Are we overplaying the impact of the weaponry we have supplied?
No - they all have different functions. Infantry with NLAW slows down armoured attacks. Drones are useful when they are in the open. We are also providing the intelligence that potentiates the drones
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
Alternatively, Russia can't hold the territory, the whole of the rest of the international community insists that it gives up trying, and then the West (Ukraine included) builds a socking great concrete wall all the way along its border with Putin's shitty little empire and leaves it to rot.
We are at the beginning of this conflict, not the end, and the final outcome isn't written.
These annoying people with their refusal to shut up and join which ever country needs to invade them...
Basically LD levels of support.
I don't think the Lib Dems get 34% support in Russia?
Indeed, at the last Russian legislative election last year, Putin's United Russia got 49% and the Communist Party got 18%.
No other party got more than 10%. There is a party called the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia but it is a rightwing populist party led by Vladimir Zhrinovsky.
Off topic: Just to confirm (and I am so disappointed) I won't be at the PB do because I am still lying in a hospital bed with 2 broken legs.
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
Bored rigid.
Best wishes. I would echo the point made about physio after the event. I didn't do it properly and still feel the effects, after breaking my leg 10 years ago.
I know very little that is accurate about military affairs, but I recall that in the weeks leading up to Russia's invasion a retort to people asking for a stronger British response was along the lines of, ".. and put a British armoured division into Ukraine?!?" with the implication that this was absurd, and the British army was not strong enough to stand against Russia.
Given what we have seen with Ukrainian resistance to the invasion, is it possible that the British armed forces fighting alongside the Ukrainians would have been sufficient to defeat the Russians?
The Russians look a lot weaker than everyone thought, but maybe this is wishful thinking?
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
Alternatively, Russia can't hold the territory, the whole of the rest of the international community insists that it gives up trying, and then the West (Ukraine included) builds a socking great concrete wall all the way along its border with Putin's shitty little empire and leaves it to rot.
We are at the beginning of this conflict, not the end, and the final outcome isn't written.
These annoying people with their refusal to shut up and join which ever country needs to invade them...
Basically LD levels of support.
I don't think the Lib Dems get 34% support in Russia?
Winning here! This bar chart clearly shows only the LD's can defeat Putin! We'll immediately fill in the potholes on the Nizhny Novgorod ring road. And clear up the dog mess which blights the lives of the citizens of Omsk.
Side note: I absolutely love how vicious the comments get on here. A source of real entertainment, and when someone confused my motives a few days ago and called me an "Isis lunatic commander" it brought a smile to my face.
But I think a poster referred to someone with a homophobic slur last night? (possible was edited by the responder in the block quotes). I think we should go after each other for the content of our posts, and occasionally our assumed motivations, nothing more.
Absolutely wrong. That was me, the reference was to the movie Predator, and it is not in context a slur of any kind.
A basic knowledge of the Schwarzenegger corpus is assumed, along of course with aliens
You're just a drunken edgelord who gets off on posting racial and homophobic slurs.
So many smaller geopolitical earthquakes going on amongst the bigger ones. Germany upending its entire post-cold war policy to Russia, Italy too, the Greeks having just sent off a military plane to Ukraine.
History slows down and then speeds up, as someone mentioned yesterday.
Yep and I'm really worried about this. This is escalating fast.
The ultra hawks on here may be happy to see us pile in but I think we're on the edge of a precipice right now.
Where's Sleepy Joe?
Although like all of us I want to see Putin gone as quickly as possible, in another way I also agree with this. We're not ourselves at war - yet - so there shouldn't be war levels of censorship. There should be a lot of public momentum against Putin, as there is, but there should also be analysis of where, if and who any de-escalation might most likely come from, other than Putin's own removing.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).t.
Nearly all of Africa’s boundaries are “impossible” yet the Africans have learned to live with them. Ukraine is where the people who believe themselves to be Ukrainian live - and as we can see are willing to fight for it.
And @YBarddCwsc ’s point about Stalin is hardly an argument in favour of having its boundaries redrawn by another madman.
Without Putin’s meddling, Ukraine would have been a stable state for three decades. The Orange Revolution, and the Euromaidan protests made it abundantly clear long before this war that Ukraine does not want Putin’s meddling.
Okay this is pretty interesting, Chinese state affiliated media is posting a video of Chinese students in Kyiv asking for peace.
It’s not outright pro Ukrainian, but it definitely does not paint the Russians in the best light...
Again, you have to remember that this was most likely approved by a Chinese state backed editorial board. There is an implicit backing of the message here by the Chinese.
China surely realises that Putin is achieving the opposite of what China wants: a revived, united west, rearming and prepared to fight. Whether it is for Latvia - or Taiwan
Are we rearming?
I'd hope it would be obvious, but when it comes to the budget statement later in the spring, with the political unpopularity of the NI increase, massive interest payments on our debt, the gaping maw of what the NHS requires simply to return to the level of dysfunction it was capable of before Covid, and very many other demands on our finances - is Chancellor Sunak going to set our defence budget on a pathway to funding of 3% of GDP or more?
I don't see it happening. I think there needs to be a big political push to make it happen.
According to Liam Fox on QT yesterday it would appear that few NATO countries pay up in full their subscriptions. Apparently Germany are amongst the worst offenders.
Bringing arrears up to date would be a good start.
Now is not the time for finger-pointing. It's a time for action.
So many smaller geopolitical earthquakes going on amongst the bigger ones. Germany upending its entire post-cold war policy to Russia, Italy too, the Greeks having just sent off a military plane to Ukraine.
History slows down and then speeds up, as someone mentioned yesterday.
Yep and I'm really worried about this. This is escalating fast.
The ultra hawks on here may be happy to see us pile in but I think we're on the edge of a precipice right now.
Where's Sleepy Joe?
I don't think anyone is happy to see us 'pile on'.
Some of us think that our policy of the last two decades - ignoring Russia's misdeeds - have led us to this precipice, and that there is precious little evidence that maintaining that policy will not send us over it.
Indeed. If Looney Tunes is allowed his way over Ukraine, he'll interpret that as just another sign of weakness and keep on pushing Westwards. He'll start claiming that oppressed Russian minorities in the Baltic States need rescuing next, or that Russia has the right to a land corridor to Kaliningrad. And then how do we respond?
I am very scared of what this dangerous and evil man might resort to, but trying to stop him in his tracks before, rather than after, he makes a direct assault on NATO has to be the less risky option?
I have always guarded against optimism in relation to anything to do with Putin, because he always seems to win. This winning will ultimately come to an end at some point, but it is too early to make that call in relation to the current situation in Ukraine.
The war's only been going for two fucking days. There are many, many dark days ahead when those that have the resolve to do so must play their part by witlessly speculating on made up shit they've seen on Twitter.
It'll all be over by (Orthodox) Christmas.
I so want Ukraine to win. I have to keep telling myself that I'm viewing the news with that hope in mind, skewing my perceptions - and through a media that generally wants Ukraine to win as well.
I'd feel much better about saying how the war was going if we knew what Russia's strategy was at the beginning. It's perfectly possible that it is all going well to some plan. It's also possible that they've hit large problems and are having to change strategy.
Any plan that the Russians had went out of the window on day one as is the case in most wars. Nobody knows what the fuck is going on as is also the case in most wars. Least of all those blowing the shit out each other on the front line.
A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends, as Father Lenin said.
A fine quotation. The best commentary I have read so far. There is something uniquely ugly at this time in history seeing a bunch of young people on both sides disgorging each other as proxy for leaders who wish to fulfill their ambitions.
It's even uglier reading commentators from the sidelines cheering their sides on while taking no active part. This is 2022. If there aren't other ways of resolving this then we should be living in caves
Hang on a minute. In the case of Ukraine, what evil 'ambition' does Zelenskyy have aside from keeping his country free?
Don't equate Ukraine and Russia in this.
I can't see a lot of difference between a young Russian conscript in a tank being shot to pieces or another young Russian/Ukrainian conscript being shot to pieces. Neither are making decisions and neither can do anything about the situation they find themselves in.
What happened to the Gandhi method? See what the Russians can do with 50,000,000 citizens engaging in civil disobedience with the rest of the world giving them every support other than military
Whilst I dont go fully with what Roger is saying , it is getting tedious on here listening to many glorifying killing and posting (sometimes fakes) reports from twitter about it. Also the armchair generals who based on nothing are talking as if the collective PB was in charge of the Russian operation it would be over by now . All points to a secret love of war sadly which may be a human condition more prevalent in politicos . We even have had somebody this morning calling post WW2 UK and US troops pussies for not loving bayoneting people.
I wish PB was in charge of the Russian war operation, for the very good reason it would never have started if we were.
If you look at the Kharkiv local council seat to the west of the river you can clear see that there is more support… we should target them in the first instance and redraw the boundaries
If PB was running Ukraine, they would have been nuclear armed for a start, if I had anything to do with it.
"Put not your trust in Princes"
I seem to recall you suggesting that a well trained and skilful Boys AT rifle operator could take out a Panther. Pretty sure I’m not going to put my trust in General Malms either.
Okay this is pretty interesting, Chinese state affiliated media is posting a video of Chinese students in Kyiv asking for peace.
It’s not outright pro Ukrainian, but it definitely does not paint the Russians in the best light...
Again, you have to remember that this was most likely approved by a Chinese state backed editorial board. There is an implicit backing of the message here by the Chinese.
China surely realises that Putin is achieving the opposite of what China wants: a revived, united west, rearming and prepared to fight. Whether it is for Latvia - or Taiwan
Yes, the “they’re not going to invade - don’t be stupid” crew are less likely to be listened to next time, and all their “pre-invasion hot takes” will be there for all to see - however many of them they delete. The internet never forgets.
To be fair it was a reasonable argument to take. No one sensible would be so stupid as to invade Ukraine. Militarily it's one hell of a gamble.
The flaw in that assessment is that Putin has gone doolally, as evidenced by his crazed national broadcast. When you're dealing with a madman it's really difficult to know what's coming.
I am rather concerned, albeit from my quiet little quarter, that Putin will view the increasing militarisation of Ukrainians by western countries as an escalation tantamount to war. Other countries like Belarus are getting sucked in.
There's a real danger now that this is not going to be contained. We're not far away from WWIII.
I hate to say it, but a speedy Putin victory is probably the safest option. That or the removal of Putin by an instantaneous coup, which would obviously be preferable.
No it's not. It is and will be horrible which ever way it goes.
You castigated me for my hyperbole, for suggesting give Putin an inch and he would be knocking on the door at Calais. You implied "he only wants Eastern Ukraine, let him have it". Clearly he doesn't.
This man has an agenda, he doesn't give a **** for the niceties of the Geneva Convention. I am a dove like you, but in Putin's case capitulation shows weakness and he punishes weakness.
I joined a huge crowd in Freedom Square, where President Karis made a speech which was clear and precise. The fear in Tallinn that has been building for months has finally gone. The courage of the Ukrainian fighters has inspired the whole of the Baltic.
So many countries, from Finland to Germany that felt that the Baltic was crying wolf about Russia have now publically admitted their mistakes, and so now Estonia feels that the alliance is stronger and that we are safer.
Things might move slowly or quickly, but the direction of travel is clear. This is Putin´s war, and he must pay the ultimate price. Nevertheless the war is far from over and even though the flow of support to Ukraine is strong, we also know that Putin is a ruthless and now an increasingly desperate man. It may be that some very dark days lie ahead, but now we have the hope of victory, the hope that the Ukrainians have given us.
As an aside it is crystal clear that the five eyes have been incredibly successful at understanding the strategic and the tactical position of Russia. British and American intelligence has been spot on and this has been a significant part of the way that other NATO allies learned the scale of the plot that Putin was launching and of maintaining the cohesion of the alliance. I have little doubt that when the history is written, the quality of Western intelligence will be seen as the decisive advantage. Although it is the Ukrainians that are paying the price, their courage and determination is inspirational. If and when victory is acheived then a full scale Marshall plan should be the least we can do for the country that has stood alone against the tyrant. The gratitude that Estonia feels is certainly very profound.
Best wishes and thanks for the update.
I think that Finland has been completely stunned by what has happened, and more attention should be given to this.
Arguably they are now in a more vulnerable position than the Baltic states - with a massive (1300km) land border, strategic positioning, and no NATO protection. They are going along with the rest of the EU and the former policy of assertive neutrality is falling apart. Will they be the next Ukraine?
While it is true that voters overall believe the UK should offer asylum to Ukranian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion by 50% to 32% that is not true of Conservative voters.
47% of Conservative voters do not believe the government should offer asylum to Ukrainian refugees to 38% who do.
There are therefore limits on how many Ukrainian refugees this Conservative government will be able to take without losing its core voters to the likes of RefUK.
Even amongst the general population there are also limits on generosity, while 17% will welcome a few thousand for example only 9% will welcome hundreds of thousands of refugees
Perhaps the government should show leadership rather than rely on opinion polls and fear of losing votes to a party who can't come up with a better acronym than REF**K.
You lead yes but you also cannot ignore what your core voters want if you want to be re elected.
The poll also shows that even amongst all voters who would accept the resettlement of Ukrainian refugees to the UK, while 34% would accept up to a few thousand and 22% a few tens of thousands, only 15% would accept hundreds of thousands
One notable change, experts told the Times, is Putin's demeanor after two years of the global pandemic. After Putin's long-term dedication to self-isolating, he "appeared to become more aggrieved and more emotional, and increasingly spoke about his mission in stark historical terms." Political scientist Gleb O. Pavlovsky, who was once a close adviser to Putin, said "he's become an isolated man, more isolated than Stalin was," and described being stunned by Putin's "dark description of Ukraine as a dire threat to Russia," per the Times.
Another political analyst, Tatiana Stanovaya, agreed Putin has "become less pragmatic, and more emotional." After years of projecting calm strength, she and much of the "ruling elite around" Putin were astounded by the "shift" away from pragmatic strategy. Stanovaya said even Putin's inner circle did not realize Russia was actually hurtling toward war until it was too late.
Perhaps Roger's Gandhi suggestion is not far off target. Question is would the tanks have stopped 30 years ago after checking for TV news crews, and can they win this sort of war if they feel obliged to stop now
No white Z markings though on the tank. Suspect until proven otherwise.
The letters are different for different thrusts of the invasion forces and it has been suggested they relate to the targeted destination/objective. Z appears to be Kyiv.
Transmitter Faults The transmitter has reported issues at the moment which is affecting some viewers.
TIMESTAMP STATION STATUS From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 1 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 2 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 3 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 4 Off the air due to a fault
Checks the horizon for incoming landing craft....
That's a terrifying escalation, Trident submarines are programmed to launch automatically if they don't get the shipping forecast.
I'm sure you're joking, but for any of our more panicky posters, in the event of WWIII the commanders are told to try to pick up BBCR4 to see if there is still a functioning UK. IF they can't find evidence of that they open the letter the Prime Minister has written giving them instructions on what to do.
I quite like the idea that Armageddon is triggered by a break in transmission of the Home Service. It demonstrates Britain's place in the world order. I suspect snobs like myself would consider the end of R4 as signalling the end of the World as we know it anyway.
Besides, I can't see a place for R4 in a post apocalyptic Mad Max dystopian nightmare.
USSR and China presumably have stables of Lord Haw Haw types whose role is the indefinite output of spoof r4 material until the subs can be tracked down
They'd probably get the obsequious tone of our state broadcaster informing us that Wills and Kate have the people of Ukraine in their hearts down to a tee. Even better, sub contract it to the absolute pros in this area North Korea.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).t.
Nearly all of Africa’s boundaries are “impossible” yet the Africans have learned to live with them. Ukraine is where the people who believe themselves to be Ukrainian live - and as we can see are willing to fight for it.
Really? I must have imagined all these ongoing wars in Africa.
The concept of a homeland of a people is straightforward in principle, difficult to implement in practise.
Very clearly, there are a peoples who think of themselves as Ukrainian, who have a distinct language, history and culture.
They deserve a homeland of their own, a free and independent Ukraine.
I am all in favour of that. It is simply the boundaries of the homeland that is at issue.
Note Ireland or Cyprus are actually much simpler cases.
It is clear that the homeland of the Irish people is all of the island of Ireland. Or the homeland of the Cypriot people is the whole of the island of Cyprus. The boundaries are not (or should not be) squiggles on a map, but the sea.
That has not prevented even these cases being the cause of enormous bloodshed.
Off topic: Just to confirm (and I am so disappointed) I won't be at the PB do because I am still lying in a hospital bed with 2 broken legs.
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
Bored rigid.
Ugh, that's awful. All the very best for steady recovery.
Great header. Taking people in is harder for us than doing sanctions and supplying weapons and supportive rhetoric. Why? Because public opinion is against it. And especially against it are the voters who decided GE19 and will decide GE24 - people with no history of voting Con who did so because of Brexit and Johnson. Note how it's not just the government holding back on this. Labour are too. They all know the score.
Anyone watching CNN right now? German Chancellor announcing significant increased investment in armed forces. Doesn't sound like everyone in Parliament is happy...
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Yes, strange that a plebiscite is the way to settle an issue, and yet the votes in 1991 can be ignored if doing so further's Russian interests.
Off topic: Just to confirm (and I am so disappointed) I won't be at the PB do because I am still lying in a hospital bed with 2 broken legs.
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
Bored rigid.
Shit sorry to hear. Cycling accident?
No inability to put one leg in front of the other.
Transmitter Faults The transmitter has reported issues at the moment which is affecting some viewers.
TIMESTAMP STATION STATUS From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 1 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 2 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 3 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 4 Off the air due to a fault
Checks the horizon for incoming landing craft....
That's a terrifying escalation, Trident submarines are programmed to launch automatically if they don't get the shipping forecast.
I'm sure you're joking, but for any of our more panicky posters, in the event of WWIII the commanders are told to try to pick up BBCR4 to see if there is still a functioning UK. IF they can't find evidence of that they open the letter the Prime Minister has written giving them instructions on what to do.
I quite like the idea that Armageddon is triggered by a break in transmission of the Home Service. It demonstrates Britain's place in the world order. I suspect snobs like myself would consider the end of R4 as signalling the end of the World as we know it anyway.
Besides, I can't see a place for R4 in a post apocalyptic Mad Max dystopian nightmare.
Still no FM radio here. But also nothing threatening out to sea, within my visibility range of about 15-17 miles.
No naval activity here either.
Like the idea of Trident launching automatically. Do they just target indiscrimately?
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
Alternatively, Russia can't hold the territory, the whole of the rest of the international community insists that it gives up trying, and then the West (Ukraine included) builds a socking great concrete wall all the way along its border with Putin's shitty little empire and leaves it to rot.
We are at the beginning of this conflict, not the end, and the final outcome isn't written.
These annoying people with their refusal to shut up and join which ever country needs to invade them...
Basically LD levels of support.
I don't think the Lib Dems get 34% support in Russia?
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).t.
Nearly all of Africa’s boundaries are “impossible” yet the Africans have learned to live with them. Ukraine is where the people who believe themselves to be Ukrainian live - and as we can see are willing to fight for it.
The Kenya UN Ambassador speech on national boundaries the other day was a clear statement about national boundaries, and communities divided.
I agree. The idea that we should only live in monoethnic states is a rather archaic one, and the way to live peaceably is through international cooperation.
Off topic: Just to confirm (and I am so disappointed) I won't be at the PB do because I am still lying in a hospital bed with 2 broken legs.
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
So many smaller geopolitical earthquakes going on amongst the bigger ones. Germany upending not only its entire postwar neutrality but all of its post-cold war policy to Russia, Italy too, the Greeks having just sent off a military plane towards Poland.
History slows down and then speeds up, as someone mentioned yesterday.
In some decades nothing happens, and in some years decades happen.
I joined a huge crowd in Freedom Square, where President Karis made a speech which was clear and precise. The fear in Tallinn that has been building for months has finally gone. The courage of the Ukrainian fighters has inspired the whole of the Baltic.
So many countries, from Finland to Germany that felt that the Baltic was crying wolf about Russia have now publically admitted their mistakes, and so now Estonia feels that the alliance is stronger and that we are safer.
Things might move slowly or quickly, but the direction of travel is clear. This is Putin´s war, and he must pay the ultimate price. Nevertheless the war is far from over and even though the flow of support to Ukraine is strong, we also know that Putin is a ruthless and now an increasingly desperate man. It may be that some very dark days lie ahead, but now we have the hope of victory, the hope that the Ukrainians have given us.
As an aside it is crystal clear that the five eyes have been incredibly successful at understanding the strategic and the tactical position of Russia. British and American intelligence has been spot on and this has been a significant part of the way that other NATO allies learned the scale of the plot that Putin was launching and of maintaining the cohesion of the alliance. I have little doubt that when the history is written, the quality of Western intelligence will be seen as the decisive advantage. Although it is the Ukrainians that are paying the price, their courage and determination is inspirational. If and when victory is acheived then a full scale Marshall plan should be the least we can do for the country that has stood alone against the tyrant. The gratitude that Estonia feels is certainly very profound.
Best wishes and thanks for the update.
I think that Finland has been completely stunned by what has happened, and more attention should be given to this.
Arguably they are now in a more vulnerable position than the Baltic states - with a massive (1300km) land border, strategic positioning, and no NATO protection. They are going along with the rest of the EU and the former policy of assertive neutrality is falling apart. Will they be the next Ukraine?
I believe this morning they joined the airspace ban on Russian aircraft?
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is asked foreign citizens around the world to join in the war against Russia.
by Decree of the President of Ukraine #248 of June 10, 2016, foreigners have the right to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine for military service under Contract of a voluntary basis to be included in the Territorial Defence Forces of the Armed Forced of Ukraine.
A separate subdivision is being formed of foreigners entitled the International Legion for the Territorial Defence of Ukraine. There is no greater contribution which you can make for the sake of peace.”
A better idea in this situation, in my view, than the Gandhi method.
Perhaps. Although I have read Orwell's Homage and his experience gave him an education in Spanish revolutionary politics but was otherwise utterly futile.
You don't need much imagination to envisage various ways in which a ragtag of European youth pitching up in Ukraine and being handed guns might end rather badly.
Personally, I am rather surprised that the madder elements of the American Conservatism are not heading to Ukraine in droves. Guns, flags, fighting for freedom... it sounds like a 2nd Amendment wet dream.
Belgium, Denmark and Ireland have closed their airspace to Russia.
Life is getting seriously complicated for Aeroflot - I do love twitter posts on such closures where half way down some #FBPE moans that it’s a disgrace the UK hasn’t done the same…
JUST IN: #Anonymous takes down more than 300+ #Russian government, state media & banks websites in the last 48 hrs, with most of them currently offline. #OpRussia #FckPutin #FreeUkraine
I joined a huge crowd in Freedom Square, where President Karis made a speech which was clear and precise. The fear in Tallinn that has been building for months has finally gone. The courage of the Ukrainian fighters has inspired the whole of the Baltic.
So many countries, from Finland to Germany that felt that the Baltic was crying wolf about Russia have now publically admitted their mistakes, and so now Estonia feels that the alliance is stronger and that we are safer.
Things might move slowly or quickly, but the direction of travel is clear. This is Putin´s war, and he must pay the ultimate price. Nevertheless the war is far from over and even though the flow of support to Ukraine is strong, we also know that Putin is a ruthless and now an increasingly desperate man. It may be that some very dark days lie ahead, but now we have the hope of victory, the hope that the Ukrainians have given us.
As an aside it is crystal clear that the five eyes have been incredibly successful at understanding the strategic and the tactical position of Russia. British and American intelligence has been spot on and this has been a significant part of the way that other NATO allies learned the scale of the plot that Putin was launching and of maintaining the cohesion of the alliance. I have little doubt that when the history is written, the quality of Western intelligence will be seen as the decisive advantage. Although it is the Ukrainians that are paying the price, their courage and determination is inspirational. If and when victory is acheived then a full scale Marshall plan should be the least we can do for the country that has stood alone against the tyrant. The gratitude that Estonia feels is certainly very profound.
Best wishes and thanks for the update.
I think that Finland has been completely stunned by what has happened, and more attention should be given to this.
Arguably they are now in a more vulnerable position than the Baltic states - with a massive (1300km) land border, strategic positioning, and no NATO protection. They are going along with the rest of the EU and the former policy of assertive neutrality is falling apart. Will they be the next Ukraine?
The Finns could prohibit Russians owning fixed property in Finland. Quite a few Russians below the oligarch level have secured their assets in that way. Often a pleasant drive from St Petersburg to a lakeside cottage or a pied-a-terre in Helsinki.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).t.
Nearly all of Africa’s boundaries are “impossible” yet the Africans have learned to live with them. Ukraine is where the people who believe themselves to be Ukrainian live - and as we can see are willing to fight for it.
And @YBarddCwsc ’s point about Stalin is hardly an argument in favour of having its boundaries redrawn by another madman.
Without Putin’s meddling, Ukraine would have been a stable state for three decades. The Orange Revolution, and the Euromaidan protests made it abundantly clear long before this war that Ukraine does not want Putin’s meddling.
I doubt it. Without Putin, I think Ukraine would have split into two independent states. There has always been great tension between the Russified East and the very Ukrainian West.
In fact, Putin has probably ensured greater cohesion of the two bits. Fear of Putin has acted as a kind of glue.
Note that I have never said that the boundaries should be redrawn by a madman.
I said there should be UN organised plebiscites in disputed areas, and if necessary splitting regions (as happened in Silesia or Schleswig). I was told this was impossible (it wasn't).
And now we are all (including the Ukrainians) far worse off.
Wow - Chancellor Scholz has just announced that Germany will be spending 2% plus of its GDP on defence every year from now on. That is huge news. It means that the German defence budget becomes the biggest in Europe in purely monetary terms.
Anyone watching CNN right now? German Chancellor announcing significant increased investment in armed forces. Doesn't sound like everyone in Parliament is happy...
The AfD is pro-Putin, of course.
That aside, I imagine that German society contains much the same pressures as ours. Sheltering under the American shield is so much easier than rearming yourself. Every pound/euro spent on armaments is one that cannot be spent on hospitals, schools and pensions, after all.
Okay this is pretty interesting, Chinese state affiliated media is posting a video of Chinese students in Kyiv asking for peace.
It’s not outright pro Ukrainian, but it definitely does not paint the Russians in the best light...
Again, you have to remember that this was most likely approved by a Chinese state backed editorial board. There is an implicit backing of the message here by the Chinese.
I think a realisation setting in that Chinese nationals in Ukraine could become hostages.
One thing is now clear, the Chinese embassy in Kiev was not tipped-off by the Russians, as speculated here. The Chinese ambassador in Kiev has issued a somewhat defensive message to fellow citizens in Ukraine.
I’ve been in the Midlands this weekend and I am currently at Meadowhall in Sheffield. Its interesting how mask usage seems to be less and less common the more north you go
Transmitter Faults The transmitter has reported issues at the moment which is affecting some viewers.
TIMESTAMP STATION STATUS From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 1 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 2 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 3 Off the air due to a fault From 12:44am on 27th Feb 2022 BBC Radio 4 Off the air due to a fault
Checks the horizon for incoming landing craft....
That's a terrifying escalation, Trident submarines are programmed to launch automatically if they don't get the shipping forecast.
I'm sure you're joking, but for any of our more panicky posters, in the event of WWIII the commanders are told to try to pick up BBCR4 to see if there is still a functioning UK. IF they can't find evidence of that they open the letter the Prime Minister has written giving them instructions on what to do.
I quite like the idea that Armageddon is triggered by a break in transmission of the Home Service. It demonstrates Britain's place in the world order. I suspect snobs like myself would consider the end of R4 as signalling the end of the World as we know it anyway.
Besides, I can't see a place for R4 in a post apocalyptic Mad Max dystopian nightmare.
Still no FM radio here. But also nothing threatening out to sea, within my visibility range of about 15-17 miles.
No naval activity here either.
Like the idea of Trident launching automatically. Do they just target indiscrimately?
No idea. But as it is such a sunny day I'll take the dog up the hill from where there's about 30-35 miles' visibility to the horizon.
Wow - Chancellor Scholz has just announced that Germany will be spending 2% plus of its GDP on defence every year from now on. That is huge news. It means that the German defence budget becomes the biggest in Europe in purely monetary terms.
Off topic: Just to confirm (and I am so disappointed) I won't be at the PB do because I am still lying in a hospital bed with 2 broken legs.
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
Bored rigid.
Unlike your legs.
Get well soon!
Thanks. Bizarrely re rigidity not true because my right leg is plastered to the groin so definitely rigid. The left foot only has a small break so I have a boot for that and a zimmer frame as long as I don't put my right leg down. It is really weird not to be able to bend your knee.
Wow - Chancellor Scholz has just announced that Germany will be spending 2% plus of its GDP on defence every year from now on. That is huge news. It means that the German defence budget becomes the biggest in Europe in purely monetary terms.
Yep just mentioned this above - was watching on CNN.
(Sounded like there was some dissent - I guess from the Greens?). Of course, given the history, not unabashed good news necessarily. But i think given what is going on in America i think on balance EU increased spending on military has to be welcomed - i'm not confident that they can be relied upon in future unless something massive changes in the Republican Party.
Okay this is pretty interesting, Chinese state affiliated media is posting a video of Chinese students in Kyiv asking for peace.
It’s not outright pro Ukrainian, but it definitely does not paint the Russians in the best light...
Again, you have to remember that this was most likely approved by a Chinese state backed editorial board. There is an implicit backing of the message here by the Chinese.
China surely realises that Putin is achieving the opposite of what China wants: a revived, united west, rearming and prepared to fight. Whether it is for Latvia - or Taiwan
Are we rearming?
I'd hope it would be obvious, but when it comes to the budget statement later in the spring, with the political unpopularity of the NI increase, massive interest payments on our debt, the gaping maw of what the NHS requires simply to return to the level of dysfunction it was capable of before Covid, and very many other demands on our finances - is Chancellor Sunak going to set our defence budget on a pathway to funding of 3% of GDP or more?
I don't see it happening. I think there needs to be a big political push to make it happen.
According to Liam Fox on QT yesterday it would appear that few NATO countries pay up in full their subscriptions. Apparently Germany are amongst the worst offenders.
Bringing arrears up to date would be a good start.
Not a subscription I think, an expectation (set by trump?) as to how much of gdp gets spent on defence
There’s two bits. An expectation that you spend 2% of your budget on defence (which most don’t) and contribute to NATO formations (which all do), and a tiny subscription to pay for the HQ etc. As you say, Trump either deliberately conflated the two or was too stupid to know the difference.
So many smaller geopolitical earthquakes going on amongst the bigger ones. Germany upending not only its entire postwar neutrality but all of its post-cold war policy to Russia, Italy too, the Greeks having just sent off a military plane towards Poland.
History slows down and then speeds up, as someone mentioned yesterday.
In some decades nothing happens, and in some years decades happen.
Golly, it's Lenin Day on PB.
here's one for our own parochial politics and Comrade BJ.
'The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.'
Off topic: Just to confirm (and I am so disappointed) I won't be at the PB do because I am still lying in a hospital bed with 2 broken legs.
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
Bored rigid.
Unlike your legs.
Get well soon!
Thanks. Bizarrely re rigidity not true because my right leg is plastered to the groin so definitely rigid. The left foot only has a small break so I have a boot for that and a zimmer frame as long as I don't put my right leg down. It is really weird not to be able to bend your knee.
Being denied the opportunity to show solidarity with the racially oppressed is a small, temporary price to pay.
Off topic: Just to confirm (and I am so disappointed) I won't be at the PB do because I am still lying in a hospital bed with 2 broken legs.
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
Bored rigid.
What have you been up to? Nonetheless, get well soon
Interesting. Aren’t these the same Turkish tank-killing drones that enabled the Azeris to whack the Armenians?
Drones like this are game-changers. So much cheaper than jet fighters. No pilot required. Devastatingly lethal. Can be launched from a backyard, basically
Wow - Chancellor Scholz has just announced that Germany will be spending 2% plus of its GDP on defence every year from now on. That is huge news. It means that the German defence budget becomes the biggest in Europe in purely monetary terms.
With a glance to history, not all will be pleased. Though in the short term, France's arms factories might look forward to some overtime.
Anyone watching CNN right now? German Chancellor announcing significant increased investment in armed forces. Doesn't sound like everyone in Parliament is happy...
It's almost as if they've got a completely new government. With different policies. Who'd have imagined that?
Comments
No naval activity here either.
I'd hope it would be obvious, but when it comes to the budget statement later in the spring, with the political unpopularity of the NI increase, massive interest payments on our debt, the gaping maw of what the NHS requires simply to return to the level of dysfunction it was capable of before Covid, and very many other demands on our finances - is Chancellor Sunak going to set our defence budget on a pathway to funding of 3% of GDP or more?
I don't see it happening. I think there needs to be a big political push to make it happen.
If the Ukrainians can hold out and somehow force Moscow to the negotiating table then, frankly, we should let them know in no uncertain terms that we expect them to hand back all their stolen territories in Ukraine and to withdraw recognition and backing from their puppet states in Georgia as well, and make it clear that sanctions will remain in place, in full and if necessary indefinitely, until they comply.
Russia has to be beaten and be seen to be beaten at the end of all of this. It is the only way that wretched country will stand any chance of learning its lesson. It's continually letting Putin get away with his bullshit that has allowed things to get this far out of hand in the first place.
spoof r4 material until the subs can be tracked down
I get annoyed by heist films where the video in the vault full of diamonds turns out to have been hacked and fed fake footage of nothing happening. You just put in the vault a TV, visible to the camera, showing live CNN or whatever, and that kills that ploy dead
Elwood has been saying NATO and the EU should have been more proactive for months.
And yes, I thought it was wonderful to see Johnson talking foreign to the locals. I'm sure it was appreciated and there's no reason why those of us who think he is a grade A tnuc shouldn't recognise that.
Shame on you.
It would explain wait for Sue Gray. And then getting the Police involved if the PM knew all along we'd soon be in this situation.
And, of course, possibly the best places to fight insurrections are big old cities. A single sniper in a tall building can halt an advance for a while. Ukraine has millions of armed men and women apparently willing to fight, street by street
Otherwise it is simply mapping mid-term polling and not actual VI.
I'll bet their attempts at "Thought for the Day" would be laughable.
History slows down and then speeds up, as someone mentioned yesterday.
Meanwhile Michael Gove calls for a seizing of pro-Putin Russian assets in the UK:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/26/michael-gove-calls-seizure-pre-kremlin-oligarchs-lavish-uk-homes/
So pissed off. Broke on Wednesday. X-ray shows 4 breaks. Op scheduled for next day but want CT first which didn't happen. Now scheduled for next week so was being sent home Having seen scan now won't let me leave.
Bored rigid.
The ultra hawks on here may be happy to see us pile in but I think we're on the edge of a precipice right now.
Where's Sleepy Joe?
With all the usual suspect saying it's not going to happen.
Bringing arrears up to date would be a good start.
I'm not sure why you're adopting fatalism that suits the Kremlin.
Some of us think that our policy of the last two decades - ignoring Russia's misdeeds - have led us to this precipice, and that there is precious little evidence that maintaining that policy will not send us over it.
Men with guns have come.
Where the boundary is now drawn will depend on how much territory Putin can take and hold.
It won't depend on a CNN poll.
There’s no reason to get upset when a PM you want to get rid of occasionally does something you approve of.
I joined a huge crowd in Freedom Square, where President Karis made a speech which was clear and precise. The fear in Tallinn that has been building for months has finally gone. The courage of the Ukrainian fighters has inspired the whole of the Baltic.
So many countries, from Finland to Germany that felt that the Baltic was crying wolf about Russia have now publically admitted their mistakes, and so now Estonia feels that the alliance is stronger and that we are safer.
Things might move slowly or quickly, but the direction of travel is clear. This is Putin´s war, and he must pay the ultimate price. Nevertheless the war is far from over and even though the flow of support to Ukraine is strong, we also know that Putin is a ruthless and now an increasingly desperate man. It may be that some very dark days lie ahead, but now we have the hope of victory, the hope that the Ukrainians have given us.
As an aside it is crystal clear that the five eyes have been incredibly successful at understanding the strategic and the tactical position of Russia. British and American intelligence has been spot on and this has been a significant part of the way that other NATO allies learned the scale of the plot that Putin was launching and of maintaining the cohesion of the alliance. I have little doubt that when the history is written, the quality of Western intelligence will be seen as the decisive advantage. Although it is the Ukrainians that are paying the price, their courage and determination is inspirational. If and when victory is acheived then a full scale Marshall plan should be the least we can do for the country that has stood alone against the tyrant. The gratitude that Estonia feels is certainly very profound.
None of the latest polls have a Labour lead of more than 10% as this poll does and Opinium last night had Labour just 4% ahead
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
If it helps, fair enough. I am so cynical based on prior experience and the previous lack of Mr Johnson's altruism, that I am unsure of his primary motivation. However, if it is working in a positive way, it is working in a positive way and hats off to him.
If you don't mind, I will remain the cynic, but best wishes for your family.
I too shall be missing the meet; I've got a little 'un who'll need looking after.
No other party got more than 10%. There is a party called the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia but it is a rightwing populist party led by Vladimir Zhrinovsky.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Russian_legislative_election
I would echo the point made about physio after the event. I didn't do it properly and still feel the effects, after breaking my leg 10 years ago.
Given what we have seen with Ukrainian resistance to the invasion, is it possible that the British armed forces fighting alongside the Ukrainians would have been sufficient to defeat the Russians?
The Russians look a lot weaker than everyone thought, but maybe this is wishful thinking?
This bar chart clearly shows only the LD's can defeat Putin!
We'll immediately fill in the potholes on the Nizhny Novgorod ring road. And clear up the dog mess which blights the lives of the citizens of Omsk.
Without Putin’s meddling, Ukraine would have been a stable state for three decades. The Orange Revolution, and the Euromaidan protests made it abundantly clear long before this war that Ukraine does not want Putin’s meddling.
I am very scared of what this dangerous and evil man might resort to, but trying to stop him in his tracks before, rather than after, he makes a direct assault on NATO has to be the less risky option?
You castigated me for my hyperbole, for suggesting give Putin an inch and he would be knocking on the door at Calais. You implied "he only wants Eastern Ukraine, let him have it". Clearly he doesn't.
This man has an agenda, he doesn't give a **** for the niceties of the Geneva Convention. I am a dove like you, but in Putin's case capitulation shows weakness and he punishes weakness.
I think that Finland has been completely stunned by what has happened, and more attention should be given to this.
Arguably they are now in a more vulnerable position than the Baltic states - with a massive (1300km) land border, strategic positioning, and no NATO protection. They are going along with the rest of the EU and the former policy of assertive neutrality is falling apart. Will they be the next Ukraine?
The poll also shows that even amongst all voters who would accept the resettlement of Ukrainian refugees to the UK, while 34% would accept up to a few thousand and 22% a few tens of thousands, only 15% would accept hundreds of thousands
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/v1h2v1hczq/YouGov - Ukraine invasion refugees.pdf
Another political analyst, Tatiana Stanovaya, agreed Putin has "become less pragmatic, and more emotional." After years of projecting calm strength, she and much of the "ruling elite around" Putin were astounded by the "shift" away from pragmatic strategy. Stanovaya said even Putin's inner circle did not realize Russia was actually hurtling toward war until it was too late.
https://theweek.com/russo-ukrainian-war/1010586/putins-inner-circle-reportedly-seemed-to-think-his-military-buildup-was
The concept of a homeland of a people is straightforward in principle, difficult to implement in practise.
Very clearly, there are a peoples who think of themselves as Ukrainian, who have a distinct language, history and culture.
They deserve a homeland of their own, a free and independent Ukraine.
I am all in favour of that. It is simply the boundaries of the homeland that is at issue.
Note Ireland or Cyprus are actually much simpler cases.
It is clear that the homeland of the Irish people is all of the island of Ireland. Or the homeland of the Cypriot people is the whole of the island of Cyprus. The boundaries are not (or should not be) squiggles on a map, but the sea.
That has not prevented even these cases being the cause of enormous bloodshed.
The attack from Turkish-made drone came on the 2nd anniversary of the Russian Baylun attack in Syria that killed 34 Turkish soldiers
https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1497866949338050560
https://twitter.com/OxfordDiplomat/status/1496093460079812608?t=CRDeOKEsBsXj8Bqq60ghJQ&s=19
I agree. The idea that we should only live in monoethnic states is a rather archaic one, and the way to live peaceably is through international cooperation.
Get well soon!
Kira Rudik
@kiraincongress
·
6m
4th day of #war, over 4000 #Russian soldiers killed. How does the life look now? What is the plan for the future?
Telling @CNN right from #Kyiv.
https://twitter.com/kiraincongress/status/1497879774269779969
Of course, the Russians WILL shoot back ...
Germany, France, over to you…..
JUST IN: #Anonymous takes down more than 300+ #Russian government, state media & banks websites in the last 48 hrs, with most of them currently offline. #OpRussia #FckPutin #FreeUkraine
In fact, Putin has probably ensured greater cohesion of the two bits. Fear of Putin has acted as a kind of glue.
Note that I have never said that the boundaries should be redrawn by a madman.
I said there should be UN organised plebiscites in disputed areas, and if necessary splitting regions (as happened in Silesia or Schleswig). I was told this was impossible (it wasn't).
And now we are all (including the Ukrainians) far worse off.
That aside, I imagine that German society contains much the same pressures as ours. Sheltering under the American shield is so much easier than rearming yourself. Every pound/euro spent on armaments is one that cannot be spent on hospitals, schools and pensions, after all.
One thing is now clear, the Chinese embassy in Kiev was not tipped-off by the Russians, as speculated here. The Chinese ambassador in Kiev has issued a somewhat defensive message to fellow citizens in Ukraine.
(Sounded like there was some dissent - I guess from the Greens?). Of course, given the history, not unabashed good news necessarily. But i think given what is going on in America i think on balance EU increased spending on military has to be welcomed - i'm not confident that they can be relied upon in future unless something massive changes in the Republican Party.
here's one for our own parochial politics and Comrade BJ.
'The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.'
Drones like this are game-changers. So much cheaper than jet fighters. No pilot required. Devastatingly lethal. Can be launched from a backyard, basically
Who'd have imagined that?