So, in the last 24 hours or so we have seen Kwarteng bring forward his budget statement by the best part of a month to reassure the markets and allow the publication of a full OBR report; we have Truss backing off on the question of index linking benefits and we continue tp have positive noises about the NI protocol.
The catastrophically misjudged mini-budget did look terminal but is it just possible that this government might behave a bit more rationally going forward and avoid at least some of the obvious pitfalls?
No. All your list is really telling us is they are rubbish at strategy and spin, even things not their fault they end up owning. And your list makes them look weak, flapping about in whatever breeze.
Would you prefer strong, and stepping boldly out in their own direction?
I saw something on Twitter suggesting the Russians had been planning this strike for quite some time. Well before the Kerch bridge attack. If it was planned for a long time then they will have used presumably their best remaining munitions. I hope I am right in thinking that they aren't able to plan many more of these. If they were able to then why haven't they been doing so every day before?
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Yes its insane that Russia is impotently wasting its remaining valuable resources, but they're badly led which is why they're losing the war.
A targeted strike to destroy an enemies major military transport infrastructure is a successful and legitimate target and would be in any war, ever. There will be movies getting made about that strike in years to come.
An untargeted temper tantrum hitting apartment blocs, is not, and is why they're losing and deserve to lose.
And the Ukrainian car bomb that killed Darya Dugina?
What evidence do you have that the Ukrainians did that?
To be fair the US said they through the Ukrainians were involved
I saw something on Twitter suggesting the Russians had been planning this strike for quite some time. Well before the Kerch bridge attack. If it was planned for a long time then they will have used presumably their best remaining munitions. I hope I am right in thinking that they aren't able to plan many more of these. If they were able to then why haven't they been doing so every day before?
So, in the last 24 hours or so we have seen Kwarteng bring forward his budget statement by the best part of a month to reassure the markets and allow the publication of a full OBR report; we have Truss backing off on the question of index linking benefits and we continue tp have positive noises about the NI protocol.
The catastrophically misjudged mini-budget did look terminal but is it just possible that this government might behave a bit more rationally going forward and avoid at least some of the obvious pitfalls?
The big fear is how badly the react to new events.
I suspect the increase mortgage costs is what has doomed this government.
The thing is, we were muddling through and something needed to be done on the energy but economically there wasn't much complaint about Boris' government (Well compared to this new one). We simply needed to be shot of him whilst retaining the broad economic direction. It was quite simple for Truss. Boris boosterism without the lies.
So, in the last 24 hours or so we have seen Kwarteng bring forward his budget statement by the best part of a month to reassure the markets and allow the publication of a full OBR report; we have Truss backing off on the question of index linking benefits and we continue tp have positive noises about the NI protocol.
The catastrophically misjudged mini-budget did look terminal but is it just possible that this government might behave a bit more rationally going forward and avoid at least some of the obvious pitfalls?
The big fear is how badly the react to new events.
I suspect the increase mortgage costs is what has doomed this government.
Yup. Sky currently running with the average 2 year fix hitting something like 6%
Nope. I don’t think those under 50s with mortgages voted Tory 2019 to the volume ratio the poorer than them did - if you voted Labour or Lib Dem last time, you are not a switcher from Tories now are you? It’s the Brexit loving, Boris loving poor who have moved these polls, by all means show me the stats to prove I’m wrong.
“I am in Kyiv with my family and kids. The most massive RU missile attack on Ukraine: 83 missiles, 43 downed. Strikes on Kyiv, downtown and infrastructure; many other cities. Many dead and wounded. No electricity and water now.-- Russia is a terrorist state. Ukraine will prevail”
So in a fit of pique the Russians have burnt through ~$500million worth of missiles on non-military targets. Worse, these are missiles that they quite probably /cannot/ replace, meaning they will not be available to hit actual military targets in the future.
Putin continues to be a master strategist, clearly.
Not entirely non military. They have hit energy and power supplies, and key infrastructure (as well as kids' playgrounds). Given that Ukraine is totally mobilised for war - and is also attacking Russian infrastructure like bridges - those are legitimate targets
You could, moreover, argue that terror bombing, however disgusting, is a "legitimate strategy" - simply taking out loads of civilians so morale collapses and the enemy surrenders. It did not work on the Britz in the Blitz, it DID work on the Japs in Nagasaps
(No idea why I felt forced to write Nagasaps)
ANYWAY the point is Russia is not going entirely off-piste here. This hideous tactic can work. It worked for the Americans in 1945. But you have to go big
Nope. This is like the Nazis stopping bombing the RAF airfields in 1940 and beginning to Blitz London and the other cities instead. It is certainly a war crime, but it is also a military mistake. A huge mistake. You asked earlier how this ends short of UA victory. The answer is that we should do what we did with West Germany in 1955. Take Ukraine into NATO, seal the border and take all necessary steps to force the Putinist regime to collapse. Cold War 2 and with very likely the same result. However I do not see any kind of Russian victory is actually even possible.
Wes Clarke said this morning that Russian tactics were essentially the same as World War One. His contempt for the Russian armed forces was quite clear and his view was that the Russian high command is essentially murdering their own troops.
Unfortunately the scale of the war crimes against Ukrainian civilians is now even more depraved and utterly horrific. The UNHCR thinks about 30,000 dead, but this does not cover the missing, and no one knows what is being done to the Ukrainian children being taken to Russia. A long time ago I was peripherally involved in Bosnia Herzegovina where the casualties over the course of just over three and a half years were about 105,000 killed, about 30% of which were women and children. Something I found very difficult to deal with was the use of rape to terrorize and the fact that at least 30,000 women were raped still makes me sick to the stomach. This war is if anything more intense, and the direct violence against civilians is similarly brutal. The evidence of torture, rape and murder by the Russian armed forces is now clear, and I am afraid we must steal ourselves for some truly evil atrocities coming to light.
When this is over, I think that even the Russians will find it difficult to live with Russians.
I have already said, this morning, that Russia is "the evil aggressor here"
So I'm not sure who you think you are arguing with. This terrible war is a moral disaster for humanity, and the criminal responsible is Vlad Putin
My point was more about military theory. There is a lazy supposition that terror bombing of civilians does not work (because it didn't work in the Blitz). Yet it does work. It worked on Japan
Whether it worked on Germany from 1942-45 is a moot point that historians have wrestled with for decades. Personally, I believe it did at least hasten the end of the war - in the Allies' favour
No, it didn't work on Japan.
Nukes were the final nail in the coffin for Japan. They were already defeated, they just refused to surrender yet. The nukes were the final straw, but it was already just a question of how they lose not if by then.
Nuclear weapons were another weapon that said to Japan that they were outclassed and had no hope of winning the war, it was not simply terror bombing.
It was terror bombing and it worked
@pm215 is of course right that it wasn't just Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the total but conventional obliteration of Tokyo also played a significant part
The Japanese were terrified that all of Japan was going to be similarly incinerated, they had no means of defence, and they surrendered. It worked
After Hiroshima, the military cling to the statements of the scientists that it might take years to make the next bomb. The Japanese physicists had a fairly good idea of the concept of a uranium bomb, but had nowhere near the resources to build one.
Nagasaki convinced them that the Americans had a production line.
What was also very important to the Japanese militarists, Hagakure fans that they were, was that the bomb removed their ability to die heroically. It’s one thing to send school children armed with bamboo spears to charge at American Marines as they step ashore… a single plane dropping a bomb just isn’t the same in A Beautiful Death world.
I've shared this before, but I find it a really useful and interesting historical account of the thinking of both the Japanese command and the Allied commanders leading up to the bombings (I accept it is a long video and not everyone enjoys youtube as a format):
Now that @Leon has adopted a semi detached Putinesque pose, one might wonder whether being a scion of his namesake Leon Trotsky might involve him being axed. Just asking for a sometime travel writer in Mexico.
So, in the last 24 hours or so we have seen Kwarteng bring forward his budget statement by the best part of a month to reassure the markets and allow the publication of a full OBR report; we have Truss backing off on the question of index linking benefits and we continue tp have positive noises about the NI protocol.
The catastrophically misjudged mini-budget did look terminal but is it just possible that this government might behave a bit more rationally going forward and avoid at least some of the obvious pitfalls?
The big fear is how badly the react to new events.
I suspect the increase mortgage costs is what has doomed this government.
The thing is, we were muddling through and something needed to be done on the energy but economically there wasn't much complaint about Boris' government (Well compared to this new one). We simply needed to be shot of him whilst retaining the broad economic direction. It was quite simple for Truss. Boris boosterism without the lies.
Who schedules a state slashing budget for Hallowe’en 🧟♀️
Tory horror show, yes. State slashing budget, no. The Government doesn't have the votes to slash the state.
But the Markets need to see the numbers adding up. Something has to give.
Yep. So she needs to reverse her Special Fiscal Event. The whole thing. Visible from Space.
Dragging her heels just makes this worse. She should have done an immediate reverse ferret and moved on.
And yet Labour are saying they'll keep the personal tax changes, which make up the majority of the event. So how do you square that circle?
I don't square the circle and presumably Labour don't need to. Liz Truss does.
They do if they win the election and are supposed to be a serious party with serious ideas for government?
Or are you saying they're not serious or they're lying to us?
What election? If one is called tomorrow, Labour will certainly need to say what it plans to do. If it's not till January 2025 (as was privately being predicted at the Tory conference), then of course not. Starmer won't know what he's going to have for breakfast then, let alone how to fix the economic mess that is likely to arise by then.
The Government, however, does need a plan for dealing with the CURRENT position. If they're baffled, then by all means call an election.
Is this a rare case where a winter election might favour the Government? Their situation is so parlous that only the most dedicated will be coming out to vote for them anyway, whereas icy rain might put off a proportionately larger number of Labour voters?
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
I’m still waiting for the 2 year Delta variant lockdown you predicted to end so I can go to the pub.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You’ve all gone completely mad. The idea it was a truck bomb is not some crazy Russian lie. It’s regarded as the most likely explanation, but we just don’t know. Here’s the FT today. Is it in the pay of Putin?
Since when did you accept "regarded as the most likely explanation"? You certainly didn't over the origins of Covid!
So let me get this right. In PB Universe, Putin is paying off the editor of the Financial Times?
I saw something on Twitter suggesting the Russians had been planning this strike for quite some time. Well before the Kerch bridge attack. If it was planned for a long time then they will have used presumably their best remaining munitions. I hope I am right in thinking that they aren't able to plan many more of these. If they were able to then why haven't they been doing so every day before?
The Russians surely can't sustain this level of missile attacks. And they will need them for Doomsday
However if they can get a good supply of the Iranian drones, that would change things. They are also much cheaper
Putin is making noises
"JUST IN - Putin threatens Kyiv with "even tougher response" in case of further Ukrainian "terrorist acts" against Russia."
So, in the last 24 hours or so we have seen Kwarteng bring forward his budget statement by the best part of a month to reassure the markets and allow the publication of a full OBR report; we have Truss backing off on the question of index linking benefits and we continue tp have positive noises about the NI protocol.
The catastrophically misjudged mini-budget did look terminal but is it just possible that this government might behave a bit more rationally going forward and avoid at least some of the obvious pitfalls?
Possible, but there are a few issues: 1. The reputational damage is done and is irretrievably bad. Politically they do not recover from this. Their best case scenario is limp along until doing a 2005. 2. The markets won't be reassured even if KT are forced piece by piece into a full retreat. Whatever they say is tainted and questionable, even if they manage to find a calculator 3. The OBR *already had a report*. Thats according to the OBR anyway. So the pull forward only exposes just how bad the numbers actually are. Which doesn't help the markets.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You’ve all gone completely mad. The idea it was a truck bomb is not some crazy Russian lie. It’s regarded as the most likely explanation, but we just don’t know. Here’s the FT today. Is it in the pay of Putin?
The Russians found a remote controlled boat washed up on the beach in Sevastopol only a few weeks ago. Circumstantial evidence suggests that it contained some kind of explosive device & was Ukranian in origin, although the Russian military haven’t given any details.
So although a truck bomb is a plausible cause, it’s not the only possibility & a floating drone laden with explosives is definitely another option.
The more interesting point is that PB hysteria has reached the stage when merely saying "a truck bomb is a likely explanation, but we don't know" apparently makes you a Muscovite shill and a fucking appeaser
"And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes"
LOL
If you don't endorse precisely the exact line that PB warriors have decided is the "right" line to take then you may as well march from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly Circus carrying aloft a banner saying "Long Live Putin".
But that's free thinking, intellectually curious, rebellious by nature PB for you.
“I am in Kyiv with my family and kids. The most massive RU missile attack on Ukraine: 83 missiles, 43 downed. Strikes on Kyiv, downtown and infrastructure; many other cities. Many dead and wounded. No electricity and water now.-- Russia is a terrorist state. Ukraine will prevail”
So in a fit of pique the Russians have burnt through ~$500million worth of missiles on non-military targets. Worse, these are missiles that they quite probably /cannot/ replace, meaning they will not be available to hit actual military targets in the future.
Putin continues to be a master strategist, clearly.
Not entirely non military. They have hit energy and power supplies, and key infrastructure (as well as kids' playgrounds). Given that Ukraine is totally mobilised for war - and is also attacking Russian infrastructure like bridges - those are legitimate targets
You could, moreover, argue that terror bombing, however disgusting, is a "legitimate strategy" - simply taking out loads of civilians so morale collapses and the enemy surrenders. It did not work on the Britz in the Blitz, it DID work on the Japs in Nagasaps
(No idea why I felt forced to write Nagasaps)
ANYWAY the point is Russia is not going entirely off-piste here. This hideous tactic can work. It worked for the Americans in 1945. But you have to go big
Nope. This is like the Nazis stopping bombing the RAF airfields in 1940 and beginning to Blitz London and the other cities instead. It is certainly a war crime, but it is also a military mistake. A huge mistake. You asked earlier how this ends short of UA victory. The answer is that we should do what we did with West Germany in 1955. Take Ukraine into NATO, seal the border and take all necessary steps to force the Putinist regime to collapse. Cold War 2 and with very likely the same result. However I do not see any kind of Russian victory is actually even possible.
Wes Clarke said this morning that Russian tactics were essentially the same as World War One. His contempt for the Russian armed forces was quite clear and his view was that the Russian high command is essentially murdering their own troops.
Unfortunately the scale of the war crimes against Ukrainian civilians is now even more depraved and utterly horrific. The UNHCR thinks about 30,000 dead, but this does not cover the missing, and no one knows what is being done to the Ukrainian children being taken to Russia. A long time ago I was peripherally involved in Bosnia Herzegovina where the casualties over the course of just over three and a half years were about 105,000 killed, about 30% of which were women and children. Something I found very difficult to deal with was the use of rape to terrorize and the fact that at least 30,000 women were raped still makes me sick to the stomach. This war is if anything more intense, and the direct violence against civilians is similarly brutal. The evidence of torture, rape and murder by the Russian armed forces is now clear, and I am afraid we must steal ourselves for some truly evil atrocities coming to light.
When this is over, I think that even the Russians will find it difficult to live with Russians.
I have already said, this morning, that Russia is "the evil aggressor here"
So I'm not sure who you think you are arguing with. This terrible war is a moral disaster for humanity, and the criminal responsible is Vlad Putin
My point was more about military theory. There is a lazy supposition that terror bombing of civilians does not work (because it didn't work in the Blitz). Yet it does work. It worked on Japan
Whether it worked on Germany from 1942-45 is a moot point that historians have wrestled with for decades. Personally, I believe it did at least hasten the end of the war - in the Allies' favour
No, it didn't work on Japan.
Nukes were the final nail in the coffin for Japan. They were already defeated, they just refused to surrender yet. The nukes were the final straw, but it was already just a question of how they lose not if by then.
Nuclear weapons were another weapon that said to Japan that they were outclassed and had no hope of winning the war, it was not simply terror bombing.
It was terror bombing and it worked
@pm215 is of course right that it wasn't just Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the total but conventional obliteration of Tokyo also played a significant part
The Japanese were terrified that all of Japan was going to be similarly incinerated, they had no means of defence, and they surrendered. It worked
The Japanese were already trying for diplomacy via the Soviets (with the caveat that the Emperor could still stay in place) well before the nukes dropped. Yes, there were hard liners who wanted to continue, but if the Allies had said that the Emperor could stay in power with minor democratic changes, the Japanese would have likely surrendered well before. From what we know now it seems that the US wanted to test the bombs in combat and give a scare to the USSR more than the line that eventually came out of "ending the war quickly and with less loss of life". I've shared it here before, but I don't know how others find the medium, but there is a very thorough video essay on the topic that I found fascinating.
I saw something on Twitter suggesting the Russians had been planning this strike for quite some time. Well before the Kerch bridge attack. If it was planned for a long time then they will have used presumably their best remaining munitions. I hope I am right in thinking that they aren't able to plan many more of these. If they were able to then why haven't they been doing so every day before?
The Russians surely can't sustain this level of missile attacks. And they will need them for Doomsday
However if they can get a good supply of the Iranian drones, that would change things. They are also much cheaper
Putin is making noises
"JUST IN - Putin threatens Kyiv with "even tougher response" in case of further Ukrainian "terrorist acts" against Russia."
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You’ve all gone completely mad. The idea it was a truck bomb is not some crazy Russian lie. It’s regarded as the most likely explanation, but we just don’t know. Here’s the FT today. Is it in the pay of Putin?
The Russians found a remote controlled boat washed up on the beach in Sevastopol only a few weeks ago. Circumstantial evidence suggests that it contained some kind of explosive device & was Ukranian in origin, although the Russian military haven’t given any details.
So although a truck bomb is a plausible cause, it’s not the only possibility & a floating drone laden with explosives is definitely another option.
The more interesting point is that PB hysteria has reached the stage when merely saying "a truck bomb is a likely explanation, but we don't know" apparently makes you a Muscovite shill and a fucking appeaser
"And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes"
LOL
If you don't endorse precisely the exact line that PB warriors have decided is the "right" line to take then you may as well march from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly Circus carrying aloft a banner saying "Long Live Putin".
But that's free thinking, intellectually curious, rebellious by nature PB for you.
I saw something on Twitter suggesting the Russians had been planning this strike for quite some time. Well before the Kerch bridge attack. If it was planned for a long time then they will have used presumably their best remaining munitions. I hope I am right in thinking that they aren't able to plan many more of these. If they were able to then why haven't they been doing so every day before?
The Russians surely can't sustain this level of missile attacks. And they will need them for Doomsday
However if they can get a good supply of the Iranian drones, that would change things. They are also much cheaper
Putin is making noises
"JUST IN - Putin threatens Kyiv with "even tougher response" in case of further Ukrainian "terrorist acts" against Russia."
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You’ve all gone completely mad. The idea it was a truck bomb is not some crazy Russian lie. It’s regarded as the most likely explanation, but we just don’t know. Here’s the FT today. Is it in the pay of Putin?
The Russians found a remote controlled boat washed up on the beach in Sevastopol only a few weeks ago. Circumstantial evidence suggests that it contained some kind of explosive device & was Ukranian in origin, although the Russian military haven’t given any details.
So although a truck bomb is a plausible cause, it’s not the only possibility & a floating drone laden with explosives is definitely another option.
The more interesting point is that PB hysteria has reached the stage when merely saying "a truck bomb is a likely explanation, but we don't know" apparently makes you a Muscovite shill and a fucking appeaser
"And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes"
LOL
If you don't endorse precisely the exact line that PB warriors have decided is the "right" line to take then you may as well march from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly Circus carrying aloft a banner saying "Long Live Putin".
But that's free thinking, intellectually curious, rebellious by nature PB for you.
This is Pascal's wager in reverse; if it does go maximally nuclear, I am not saying that PB will not wish to continue the debate about solar panels on pasture, and to a lesser extent Ukraine, but the infrastructure won't be there for them to do so. So nobody will never get to say LOL I was right.
So, in the last 24 hours or so we have seen Kwarteng bring forward his budget statement by the best part of a month to reassure the markets and allow the publication of a full OBR report; we have Truss backing off on the question of index linking benefits and we continue tp have positive noises about the NI protocol.
The catastrophically misjudged mini-budget did look terminal but is it just possible that this government might behave a bit more rationally going forward and avoid at least some of the obvious pitfalls?
Possible, but there are a few issues: 1. The reputational damage is done and is irretrievably bad. Politically they do not recover from this. Their best case scenario is limp along until doing a 2005. 2. The markets won't be reassured even if KT are forced piece by piece into a full retreat. Whatever they say is tainted and questionable, even if they manage to find a calculator 3. The OBR *already had a report*. Thats according to the OBR anyway. So the pull forward only exposes just how bad the numbers actually are. Which doesn't help the markets.
Yes, the reputational damage is terminal. It really is. The mini budget was when the modern Tories Ratnered themselves. Worse than Black Wednesday
“I am in Kyiv with my family and kids. The most massive RU missile attack on Ukraine: 83 missiles, 43 downed. Strikes on Kyiv, downtown and infrastructure; many other cities. Many dead and wounded. No electricity and water now.-- Russia is a terrorist state. Ukraine will prevail”
So in a fit of pique the Russians have burnt through ~$500million worth of missiles on non-military targets. Worse, these are missiles that they quite probably /cannot/ replace, meaning they will not be available to hit actual military targets in the future.
Putin continues to be a master strategist, clearly.
Not entirely non military. They have hit energy and power supplies, and key infrastructure (as well as kids' playgrounds). Given that Ukraine is totally mobilised for war - and is also attacking Russian infrastructure like bridges - those are legitimate targets
You could, moreover, argue that terror bombing, however disgusting, is a "legitimate strategy" - simply taking out loads of civilians so morale collapses and the enemy surrenders. It did not work on the Britz in the Blitz, it DID work on the Japs in Nagasaps
(No idea why I felt forced to write Nagasaps)
ANYWAY the point is Russia is not going entirely off-piste here. This hideous tactic can work. It worked for the Americans in 1945. But you have to go big
Nope. This is like the Nazis stopping bombing the RAF airfields in 1940 and beginning to Blitz London and the other cities instead. It is certainly a war crime, but it is also a military mistake. A huge mistake. You asked earlier how this ends short of UA victory. The answer is that we should do what we did with West Germany in 1955. Take Ukraine into NATO, seal the border and take all necessary steps to force the Putinist regime to collapse. Cold War 2 and with very likely the same result. However I do not see any kind of Russian victory is actually even possible.
Wes Clarke said this morning that Russian tactics were essentially the same as World War One. His contempt for the Russian armed forces was quite clear and his view was that the Russian high command is essentially murdering their own troops.
Unfortunately the scale of the war crimes against Ukrainian civilians is now even more depraved and utterly horrific. The UNHCR thinks about 30,000 dead, but this does not cover the missing, and no one knows what is being done to the Ukrainian children being taken to Russia. A long time ago I was peripherally involved in Bosnia Herzegovina where the casualties over the course of just over three and a half years were about 105,000 killed, about 30% of which were women and children. Something I found very difficult to deal with was the use of rape to terrorize and the fact that at least 30,000 women were raped still makes me sick to the stomach. This war is if anything more intense, and the direct violence against civilians is similarly brutal. The evidence of torture, rape and murder by the Russian armed forces is now clear, and I am afraid we must steal ourselves for some truly evil atrocities coming to light.
When this is over, I think that even the Russians will find it difficult to live with Russians.
I have already said, this morning, that Russia is "the evil aggressor here"
So I'm not sure who you think you are arguing with. This terrible war is a moral disaster for humanity, and the criminal responsible is Vlad Putin
My point was more about military theory. There is a lazy supposition that terror bombing of civilians does not work (because it didn't work in the Blitz). Yet it does work. It worked on Japan
Whether it worked on Germany from 1942-45 is a moot point that historians have wrestled with for decades. Personally, I believe it did at least hasten the end of the war - in the Allies' favour
No, it didn't work on Japan.
Nukes were the final nail in the coffin for Japan. They were already defeated, they just refused to surrender yet. The nukes were the final straw, but it was already just a question of how they lose not if by then.
Nuclear weapons were another weapon that said to Japan that they were outclassed and had no hope of winning the war, it was not simply terror bombing.
It was terror bombing and it worked
@pm215 is of course right that it wasn't just Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the total but conventional obliteration of Tokyo also played a significant part
The Japanese were terrified that all of Japan was going to be similarly incinerated, they had no means of defence, and they surrendered. It worked
The Japanese were already trying for diplomacy via the Soviets (with the caveat that the Emperor could still stay in place) well before the nukes dropped. Yes, there were hard liners who wanted to continue, but if the Allies had said that the Emperor could stay in power with minor democratic changes, the Japanese would have likely surrendered well before. From what we know now it seems that the US wanted to test the bombs in combat and give a scare to the USSR more than the line that eventually came out of "ending the war quickly and with less loss of life". I've shared it here before, but I don't know how others find the medium, but there is a very thorough video essay on the topic that I found fascinating.
The “surrender plans” the Japanese were discussing with the Soviets included
- Japan not disarming - No occupation - Keeping their overseas empire - Keep the military government - In return for the Soviets (effectively) protecting them from the rest of the Allies, the Japanese proposed a joint Soviet/Japanese alliance to attack the US at a later date…
The Americans were reading this via Purple, of course.
If anything, this convinced the Americans that the Japanese hadn’t got the message, yet.
I saw something on Twitter suggesting the Russians had been planning this strike for quite some time. Well before the Kerch bridge attack. If it was planned for a long time then they will have used presumably their best remaining munitions. I hope I am right in thinking that they aren't able to plan many more of these. If they were able to then why haven't they been doing so every day before?
The Russians surely can't sustain this level of missile attacks. And they will need them for Doomsday
However if they can get a good supply of the Iranian drones, that would change things. They are also much cheaper
Putin is making noises
"JUST IN - Putin threatens Kyiv with "even tougher response" in case of further Ukrainian "terrorist acts" against Russia."
I have to say the modern day Tory party is a death cult.
Speaking to some Truss supporting activists and I was flagging up the damage she was causing and they were a bit blasé about the damage she is causing, they took the view that if she's as shit as the media says she and her economic policies then Starmer will have a toxic inheritance and the Tories would be back in 2029.
Tumbleweeds when I mentioned it was said whoever won the 2010 general election would be out of power for a generation.
Is it just possible that the average Tory member is now so ancient that they don't much care about anything except for pensions, property prices and inheritance tax, because they'll all be dead in a few years' time?
I saw something on Twitter suggesting the Russians had been planning this strike for quite some time. Well before the Kerch bridge attack. If it was planned for a long time then they will have used presumably their best remaining munitions. I hope I am right in thinking that they aren't able to plan many more of these. If they were able to then why haven't they been doing so every day before?
The Russians surely can't sustain this level of missile attacks. And they will need them for Doomsday
However if they can get a good supply of the Iranian drones, that would change things. They are also much cheaper
Putin is making noises
"JUST IN - Putin threatens Kyiv with "even tougher response" in case of further Ukrainian "terrorist acts" against Russia."
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You’ve all gone completely mad. The idea it was a truck bomb is not some crazy Russian lie. It’s regarded as the most likely explanation, but we just don’t know. Here’s the FT today. Is it in the pay of Putin?
The Russians found a remote controlled boat washed up on the beach in Sevastopol only a few weeks ago. Circumstantial evidence suggests that it contained some kind of explosive device & was Ukranian in origin, although the Russian military haven’t given any details.
So although a truck bomb is a plausible cause, it’s not the only possibility & a floating drone laden with explosives is definitely another option.
The more interesting point is that PB hysteria has reached the stage when merely saying "a truck bomb is a likely explanation, but we don't know" apparently makes you a Muscovite shill and a fucking appeaser
"And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes"
LOL
If you don't endorse precisely the exact line that PB warriors have decided is the "right" line to take then you may as well march from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly Circus carrying aloft a banner saying "Long Live Putin".
But that's free thinking, intellectually curious, rebellious by nature PB for you.
So what's *your* line on this?
My line? Putin violated the sovereignty of Ukraine by invading which was wrong. Other than that I have no line. I am an observer. I don't know the context of how all Ukrainians see themselves or Russia sees Ukraine. I don't declare the war won or lost based upon a 30-second YouTube (or video game, sozza Nige) clip.
I do like to try to place this behaviour into an historical perspective which is why I have referenced 2003 Iraq previously on the subject. I also appreciate that the stakes are high because, much as all the PB warriors on here (and tbf some people who know what they are talking about) are ready to dismiss the Russia nuclear weapons as ineffective I have no such knowledge to be able to dismiss either their effectiveness or Putin's willingness to use them.
I saw something on Twitter suggesting the Russians had been planning this strike for quite some time. Well before the Kerch bridge attack. If it was planned for a long time then they will have used presumably their best remaining munitions. I hope I am right in thinking that they aren't able to plan many more of these. If they were able to then why haven't they been doing so every day before?
The Russians surely can't sustain this level of missile attacks. And they will need them for Doomsday
However if they can get a good supply of the Iranian drones, that would change things. They are also much cheaper
Putin is making noises
"JUST IN - Putin threatens Kyiv with "even tougher response" in case of further Ukrainian "terrorist acts" against Russia."
Oh dear, is his next temper tantrum going to hit two toddlers playgrounds instead of one? And if that doesn't work, the basketball court gets it ...
Don't be a dick, mate. Posting that sort of bravado from within Kyiv would be admirable. From Warrington...
Its not supposed to be bravado, I'm mocking the impotent so-called "strong man".
The problem with being a "strong man" in your persona is that when that strength fades away, then there's really not much there.
Putin has spent a lifetime of thinking might makes right and that he's going to be the biggest and toughest bastard on the block. Now he's picked a fight, for the second time, with someone with friends bigger and stronger than him and he's getting beaten up and unsurprisingly doesn't like it.
Well tough shit. He chose this fight, and he deserves to be an object of ridicule and mockery, not fear.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You’ve all gone completely mad. The idea it was a truck bomb is not some crazy Russian lie. It’s regarded as the most likely explanation, but we just don’t know. Here’s the FT today. Is it in the pay of Putin?
The Russians found a remote controlled boat washed up on the beach in Sevastopol only a few weeks ago. Circumstantial evidence suggests that it contained some kind of explosive device & was Ukranian in origin, although the Russian military haven’t given any details.
So although a truck bomb is a plausible cause, it’s not the only possibility & a floating drone laden with explosives is definitely another option.
The more interesting point is that PB hysteria has reached the stage when merely saying "a truck bomb is a likely explanation, but we don't know" apparently makes you a Muscovite shill and a fucking appeaser
"And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes"
LOL
If you don't endorse precisely the exact line that PB warriors have decided is the "right" line to take then you may as well march from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly Circus carrying aloft a banner saying "Long Live Putin".
But that's free thinking, intellectually curious, rebellious by nature PB for you.
This is Pascal's wager in reverse; if it does go maximally nuclear, I am not saying that PB will not wish to continue the debate about solar panels on pasture, and to a lesser extent Ukraine, but the infrastructure won't be there for them to do so. So nobody will never get to say LOL I was right.
Yes I have pondered that - no one would be around to see or comment on the payoff if it goes cataclysmically. Although you can be sure if there is one laptop in one place on earth still working, someone from PB will get onto it and say "told you so".
“I am in Kyiv with my family and kids. The most massive RU missile attack on Ukraine: 83 missiles, 43 downed. Strikes on Kyiv, downtown and infrastructure; many other cities. Many dead and wounded. No electricity and water now.-- Russia is a terrorist state. Ukraine will prevail”
So in a fit of pique the Russians have burnt through ~$500million worth of missiles on non-military targets. Worse, these are missiles that they quite probably /cannot/ replace, meaning they will not be available to hit actual military targets in the future.
Putin continues to be a master strategist, clearly.
Not entirely non military. They have hit energy and power supplies, and key infrastructure (as well as kids' playgrounds). Given that Ukraine is totally mobilised for war - and is also attacking Russian infrastructure like bridges - those are legitimate targets
You could, moreover, argue that terror bombing, however disgusting, is a "legitimate strategy" - simply taking out loads of civilians so morale collapses and the enemy surrenders. It did not work on the Britz in the Blitz, it DID work on the Japs in Nagasaps
(No idea why I felt forced to write Nagasaps)
ANYWAY the point is Russia is not going entirely off-piste here. This hideous tactic can work. It worked for the Americans in 1945. But you have to go big
Nope. This is like the Nazis stopping bombing the RAF airfields in 1940 and beginning to Blitz London and the other cities instead. It is certainly a war crime, but it is also a military mistake. A huge mistake. You asked earlier how this ends short of UA victory. The answer is that we should do what we did with West Germany in 1955. Take Ukraine into NATO, seal the border and take all necessary steps to force the Putinist regime to collapse. Cold War 2 and with very likely the same result. However I do not see any kind of Russian victory is actually even possible.
Wes Clarke said this morning that Russian tactics were essentially the same as World War One. His contempt for the Russian armed forces was quite clear and his view was that the Russian high command is essentially murdering their own troops.
Unfortunately the scale of the war crimes against Ukrainian civilians is now even more depraved and utterly horrific. The UNHCR thinks about 30,000 dead, but this does not cover the missing, and no one knows what is being done to the Ukrainian children being taken to Russia. A long time ago I was peripherally involved in Bosnia Herzegovina where the casualties over the course of just over three and a half years were about 105,000 killed, about 30% of which were women and children. Something I found very difficult to deal with was the use of rape to terrorize and the fact that at least 30,000 women were raped still makes me sick to the stomach. This war is if anything more intense, and the direct violence against civilians is similarly brutal. The evidence of torture, rape and murder by the Russian armed forces is now clear, and I am afraid we must steal ourselves for some truly evil atrocities coming to light.
When this is over, I think that even the Russians will find it difficult to live with Russians.
I have already said, this morning, that Russia is "the evil aggressor here"
So I'm not sure who you think you are arguing with. This terrible war is a moral disaster for humanity, and the criminal responsible is Vlad Putin
My point was more about military theory. There is a lazy supposition that terror bombing of civilians does not work (because it didn't work in the Blitz). Yet it does work. It worked on Japan
Whether it worked on Germany from 1942-45 is a moot point that historians have wrestled with for decades. Personally, I believe it did at least hasten the end of the war - in the Allies' favour
No, it didn't work on Japan.
Nukes were the final nail in the coffin for Japan. They were already defeated, they just refused to surrender yet. The nukes were the final straw, but it was already just a question of how they lose not if by then.
Nuclear weapons were another weapon that said to Japan that they were outclassed and had no hope of winning the war, it was not simply terror bombing.
It was terror bombing and it worked
@pm215 is of course right that it wasn't just Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the total but conventional obliteration of Tokyo also played a significant part
The Japanese were terrified that all of Japan was going to be similarly incinerated, they had no means of defence, and they surrendered. It worked
The Japanese were already trying for diplomacy via the Soviets (with the caveat that the Emperor could still stay in place) well before the nukes dropped. Yes, there were hard liners who wanted to continue, but if the Allies had said that the Emperor could stay in power with minor democratic changes, the Japanese would have likely surrendered well before. From what we know now it seems that the US wanted to test the bombs in combat and give a scare to the USSR more than the line that eventually came out of "ending the war quickly and with less loss of life". I've shared it here before, but I don't know how others find the medium, but there is a very thorough video essay on the topic that I found fascinating.
The “surrender plans” the Japanese were discussing with the Soviets included
- Japan not disarming - No occupation - Keeping their overseas empire - Keep the military government - In return for the Soviets (effectively) protecting them from the rest of the Allies, the Japanese proposed a joint Soviet/Japanese alliance to attack the US at a later date…
The Americans were reading this via Purple, of course.
If anything, this convinced the Americans that the Japanese hadn’t got the message, yet.
I mean, everyone tries to present a hard line at the beginning of negotiations - from my understanding the thing that the hardliners and the "moderates" were agreed as the only hard line was the Emperor staying. Also, once the Soviets invaded Japanese territories, they seemed really willing to give up much of that. But again, not my area of expertise, just something I watched a very interesting essay on and read around slightly after that.
There's a good (not great) documentary on Netflix about the storming of the Capitol - Four Hours at the Capitol. I note it is 2021 so perhaps old news on here.
Doesn't dig too deep but plenty of interviews with participants (barring the one major participant) and uses a lot of bodycam/citizens' journalist/Capitol CCTV footage to tell the story.
Edit: I mean some of those boys really did think that Trump was sent by god.
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
I saw something on Twitter suggesting the Russians had been planning this strike for quite some time. Well before the Kerch bridge attack. If it was planned for a long time then they will have used presumably their best remaining munitions. I hope I am right in thinking that they aren't able to plan many more of these. If they were able to then why haven't they been doing so every day before?
The Russians surely can't sustain this level of missile attacks. And they will need them for Doomsday
However if they can get a good supply of the Iranian drones, that would change things. They are also much cheaper
Putin is making noises
"JUST IN - Putin threatens Kyiv with "even tougher response" in case of further Ukrainian "terrorist acts" against Russia."
Oh dear, is his next temper tantrum going to hit two toddlers playgrounds instead of one? And if that doesn't work, the basketball court gets it ...
Don't be a dick, mate. Posting that sort of bravado from within Kyiv would be admirable. From Warrington...
Its not supposed to be bravado, I'm mocking the impotent so-called "strong man".
The problem with being a "strong man" in your persona is that when that strength fades away, then there's really not much there.
Putin has spent a lifetime of thinking might makes right and that he's going to be the biggest and toughest bastard on the block. Now he's picked a fight, for the second time, with someone with friends bigger and stronger than him and he's getting beaten up and unsurprisingly doesn't like it.
Well tough shit. He chose this fight, and he deserves to be an object of ridicule and mockery, not fear.
The Ukrainians have shown themselves to be world-class disrespectful snarky wind-up merchants...
They have such an aptitude for getting under Putin's skin.
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
The only small snag is that it seems most unlikely the Ukrainians or the Russians would accept those terms.
Incidentally, why only four provinces? Russia holds six Ukrainian provinces. Or do the people of Crimea and Sevastopol not get a say?
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
The only small snag is that it seems most unlikely the Ukrainians or the Russians would accept those terms.
Incidentally, why only four provinces? Russia holds six Ukrainian provinces. Or do the people of Crimea and Sevastopol not get a say?
Any feasible peace is going to be uncomfortable for Putin AND Ukraine
“I am in Kyiv with my family and kids. The most massive RU missile attack on Ukraine: 83 missiles, 43 downed. Strikes on Kyiv, downtown and infrastructure; many other cities. Many dead and wounded. No electricity and water now.-- Russia is a terrorist state. Ukraine will prevail”
So in a fit of pique the Russians have burnt through ~$500million worth of missiles on non-military targets. Worse, these are missiles that they quite probably /cannot/ replace, meaning they will not be available to hit actual military targets in the future.
Putin continues to be a master strategist, clearly.
Not entirely non military. They have hit energy and power supplies, and key infrastructure (as well as kids' playgrounds). Given that Ukraine is totally mobilised for war - and is also attacking Russian infrastructure like bridges - those are legitimate targets
You could, moreover, argue that terror bombing, however disgusting, is a "legitimate strategy" - simply taking out loads of civilians so morale collapses and the enemy surrenders. It did not work on the Britz in the Blitz, it DID work on the Japs in Nagasaps
(No idea why I felt forced to write Nagasaps)
ANYWAY the point is Russia is not going entirely off-piste here. This hideous tactic can work. It worked for the Americans in 1945. But you have to go big
Nope. This is like the Nazis stopping bombing the RAF airfields in 1940 and beginning to Blitz London and the other cities instead. It is certainly a war crime, but it is also a military mistake. A huge mistake. You asked earlier how this ends short of UA victory. The answer is that we should do what we did with West Germany in 1955. Take Ukraine into NATO, seal the border and take all necessary steps to force the Putinist regime to collapse. Cold War 2 and with very likely the same result. However I do not see any kind of Russian victory is actually even possible.
Wes Clarke said this morning that Russian tactics were essentially the same as World War One. His contempt for the Russian armed forces was quite clear and his view was that the Russian high command is essentially murdering their own troops.
Unfortunately the scale of the war crimes against Ukrainian civilians is now even more depraved and utterly horrific. The UNHCR thinks about 30,000 dead, but this does not cover the missing, and no one knows what is being done to the Ukrainian children being taken to Russia. A long time ago I was peripherally involved in Bosnia Herzegovina where the casualties over the course of just over three and a half years were about 105,000 killed, about 30% of which were women and children. Something I found very difficult to deal with was the use of rape to terrorize and the fact that at least 30,000 women were raped still makes me sick to the stomach. This war is if anything more intense, and the direct violence against civilians is similarly brutal. The evidence of torture, rape and murder by the Russian armed forces is now clear, and I am afraid we must steal ourselves for some truly evil atrocities coming to light.
When this is over, I think that even the Russians will find it difficult to live with Russians.
I have already said, this morning, that Russia is "the evil aggressor here"
So I'm not sure who you think you are arguing with. This terrible war is a moral disaster for humanity, and the criminal responsible is Vlad Putin
My point was more about military theory. There is a lazy supposition that terror bombing of civilians does not work (because it didn't work in the Blitz). Yet it does work. It worked on Japan
Whether it worked on Germany from 1942-45 is a moot point that historians have wrestled with for decades. Personally, I believe it did at least hasten the end of the war - in the Allies' favour
No, it didn't work on Japan.
Nukes were the final nail in the coffin for Japan. They were already defeated, they just refused to surrender yet. The nukes were the final straw, but it was already just a question of how they lose not if by then.
Nuclear weapons were another weapon that said to Japan that they were outclassed and had no hope of winning the war, it was not simply terror bombing.
It was terror bombing and it worked
@pm215 is of course right that it wasn't just Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the total but conventional obliteration of Tokyo also played a significant part
The Japanese were terrified that all of Japan was going to be similarly incinerated, they had no means of defence, and they surrendered. It worked
The Japanese were already trying for diplomacy via the Soviets (with the caveat that the Emperor could still stay in place) well before the nukes dropped. Yes, there were hard liners who wanted to continue, but if the Allies had said that the Emperor could stay in power with minor democratic changes, the Japanese would have likely surrendered well before. From what we know now it seems that the US wanted to test the bombs in combat and give a scare to the USSR more than the line that eventually came out of "ending the war quickly and with less loss of life". I've shared it here before, but I don't know how others find the medium, but there is a very thorough video essay on the topic that I found fascinating.
The “surrender plans” the Japanese were discussing with the Soviets included
- Japan not disarming - No occupation - Keeping their overseas empire - Keep the military government - In return for the Soviets (effectively) protecting them from the rest of the Allies, the Japanese proposed a joint Soviet/Japanese alliance to attack the US at a later date…
The Americans were reading this via Purple, of course.
If anything, this convinced the Americans that the Japanese hadn’t got the message, yet.
I mean, everyone tries to present a hard line at the beginning of negotiations - from my understanding the thing that the hardliners and the "moderates" were agreed as the only hard line was the Emperor staying. Also, once the Soviets invaded Japanese territories, they seemed really willing to give up much of that. But again, not my area of expertise, just something I watched a very interesting essay on and read around slightly after that.
The Japanese were negotiating for an Armistice. One where they would get ready for round 2. They weren’t negotiating surrender. Setting up for a rerun of the end of WWI….
They thought they would keep their conquests in China, for example.
When asked, after the war, the Japanese diplomats said that if they had suggested actual surrender, they would have been murdered by the military.
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
The only small snag is that it seems most unlikely the Ukrainians or the Russians would accept those terms.
Incidentally, why only four provinces? Russia holds six Ukrainian provinces. Or do the people of Crimea and Sevastopol not get a say?
Any feasible peace is going to be uncomfortable for Putin AND Ukraine
A full Russian withdrawal wouldn't be uncomfortable for Ukraine. And that doesn't look as infeasible as it did in February when almost everyone, including me, thought the Ukrainians would be lucky to last a week.
Any plausible peace plan is certainly going to be uncomfortable for Russia, as they can't have not only what they want, which is all Ukraine, but even what they claimed, which is the six provinces. But they've only got themselves to blame for that. Leaving aside the minor detail that nobody forced them to invade Ukraine, to quote Blackadder, a war hasn't been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, High King of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge)
Not just refugees that need to return to Ukraine. All those children that have been taken to Russia need returning. Immediately.
Full POW exchange.
Crimea subject of UN organised referendum on whether they wish to be part of Russia or an independent nation. Which will not be open to join NATO.
Stationing of NATO state of the art missile shield in Ukraine, including right on the Russian border.
And what of thousands of hideous Russian war crimes? Brushed under the carpet?
So, in the last 24 hours or so we have seen Kwarteng bring forward his budget statement by the best part of a month to reassure the markets and allow the publication of a full OBR report; we have Truss backing off on the question of index linking benefits and we continue tp have positive noises about the NI protocol.
The catastrophically misjudged mini-budget did look terminal but is it just possible that this government might behave a bit more rationally going forward and avoid at least some of the obvious pitfalls?
The big fear is how badly the react to new events.
I suspect the increase mortgage costs is what has doomed this government.
Yup. Sky currently running with the average 2 year fix hitting something like 6%
Nope. I don’t think those under 50s with mortgages voted Tory 2019 to the volume ratio the poorer than them did - if you voted Labour or Lib Dem last time, you are not a switcher from Tories now are you? It’s the Brexit loving, Boris loving poor who have moved these polls, by all means show me the stats to prove I’m wrong.
There aren't nearly enough low income Leavers switching sides to account for the dramatic collapse in the Tories' position. A repeat of the property panic of the early Nineties - mortgage rate spikes, price crashes, repossessions, negative equity - is going to kick aspirational lower middle income homeowners right in the bollocks. Add to that a general sense of complete incompetence that's beginning to erode Tory support across all social groups, even the elderly, and you can understand why they're in such a deep hole. But mortgage cost increases certainly are very important.
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
The only small snag is that it seems most unlikely the Ukrainians or the Russians would accept those terms.
Incidentally, why only four provinces? Russia holds six Ukrainian provinces. Or do the people of Crimea and Sevastopol not get a say?
Any feasible peace is going to be uncomfortable for Putin AND Ukraine
A full Russian withdrawal wouldn't be uncomfortable for Ukraine. And that doesn't look as infeasible as it did in February when almost everyone, including me, thought the Ukrainians would be lucky to last a week.
Any plausible peace plan is certainly going to be uncomfortable for Russia, as they can't have not only what they want, which is all Ukraine, but even what they claimed, which is the six provinces. But they've only got themselves to blame for that. Leaving aside the minor detail that nobody forced them to invade Ukraine, to quote Blackadder, a war hasn't been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, High King of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.
Constructing a potential peace deal is really hard
The idea is to give Putin a victory that he can just about sell, while leaving him seriously diminished and sobered
The victory for him here is worldwide recognition that Crimea is Russian. He will like that. It cements in place his biggest achievement. Everything else is defeat for him (the provinces will surely vote to join Ukraine)
Plus he gets to survive
Would the Ukrainians buy it? They get their country rebuilt, they get to join NATO, they basically win (but permanently lose Crimea)
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You’ve all gone completely mad. The idea it was a truck bomb is not some crazy Russian lie. It’s regarded as the most likely explanation, but we just don’t know. Here’s the FT today. Is it in the pay of Putin?
The Russians found a remote controlled boat washed up on the beach in Sevastopol only a few weeks ago. Circumstantial evidence suggests that it contained some kind of explosive device & was Ukranian in origin, although the Russian military haven’t given any details.
So although a truck bomb is a plausible cause, it’s not the only possibility & a floating drone laden with explosives is definitely another option.
The more interesting point is that PB hysteria has reached the stage when merely saying "a truck bomb is a likely explanation, but we don't know" apparently makes you a Muscovite shill and a fucking appeaser
"And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes"
LOL
If you don't endorse precisely the exact line that PB warriors have decided is the "right" line to take then you may as well march from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly Circus carrying aloft a banner saying "Long Live Putin".
But that's free thinking, intellectually curious, rebellious by nature PB for you.
So what's *your* line on this?
My line? Putin violated the sovereignty of Ukraine by invading which was wrong. Other than that I have no line. I am an observer. I don't know the context of how all Ukrainians see themselves or Russia sees Ukraine. I don't declare the war won or lost based upon a 30-second YouTube (or video game, sozza Nige) clip.
I do like to try to place this behaviour into an historical perspective which is why I have referenced 2003 Iraq previously on the subject. I also appreciate that the stakes are high because, much as all the PB warriors on here (and tbf some people who know what they are talking about) are ready to dismiss the Russia nuclear weapons as ineffective I have no such knowledge to be able to dismiss either their effectiveness or Putin's willingness to use them.
What's your line?
That's not a line; it's an apathetic shrug of the shoulders.
M line is the following: Putin (from his own words) wants Russian influence to span most of Europe. He wants Russia to be a superpower, but over the last two decades of power has done nothing to make it one, instead allowing widespread theft by his mates.
So that's what he wants - and what he wants is massively important when discussing this. It is also a *really* bad thing for Europe and the world.
Towards that aim, over the two decades, he has increasingly 'tested' the rest of the world, and particularly the west. Georgia. Litvinenko. MH17. Crimea. Syria. The Donbass. Salisbury.
And each time, we (that is, the west) have thrown a few sanctions on and shrugged.
So it becomes a simple question of whether we allow him to achieve his aims, or stand up to him. I'm of the view that we should have done more earlier; but given where we are, we need to act now. Yes, there are risks; but capitulating now just increases the risk in the future.
As Ukraine has said: NATO is not protecting us. We are protecting NATO.
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
The only small snag is that it seems most unlikely the Ukrainians or the Russians would accept those terms.
Incidentally, why only four provinces? Russia holds six Ukrainian provinces. Or do the people of Crimea and Sevastopol not get a say?
Any feasible peace is going to be uncomfortable for Putin AND Ukraine
A full Russian withdrawal wouldn't be uncomfortable for Ukraine. And that doesn't look as infeasible as it did in February when almost everyone, including me, thought the Ukrainians would be lucky to last a week.
Any plausible peace plan is certainly going to be uncomfortable for Russia, as they can't have not only what they want, which is all Ukraine, but even what they claimed, which is the six provinces. But they've only got themselves to blame for that. Leaving aside the minor detail that nobody forced them to invade Ukraine, to quote Blackadder, a war hasn't been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, High King of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.
Constructing a potential peace deal is really hard
The idea is to give Putin a victory that he can just about sell, while leaving him seriously diminished and sobered
The victory for him here is worldwide recognition that Crimea is Russian. He will like that. It cements in place his biggest achievement. Everything else is defeat for him (the provinces will surely vote to join Ukraine)
Plus he gets to survive
Would the Ukrainians buy it? They get their country rebuilt, they get to join NATO, they basically win (but permanently lose Crimea)
At least I had a go
One thing the war has shown is having Kherson and Crimea in different hands is a recipe for conflict, so Crimea should be part of Ukraine for that reason alone.
I must say that some of the most detestable hypocrites around getting their knickers in a faux twist over this is making me rethink my detest the Tories and all they stand for stance.
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
The only small snag is that it seems most unlikely the Ukrainians or the Russians would accept those terms.
Incidentally, why only four provinces? Russia holds six Ukrainian provinces. Or do the people of Crimea and Sevastopol not get a say?
Any feasible peace is going to be uncomfortable for Putin AND Ukraine
A full Russian withdrawal wouldn't be uncomfortable for Ukraine. And that doesn't look as infeasible as it did in February when almost everyone, including me, thought the Ukrainians would be lucky to last a week.
Any plausible peace plan is certainly going to be uncomfortable for Russia, as they can't have not only what they want, which is all Ukraine, but even what they claimed, which is the six provinces. But they've only got themselves to blame for that. Leaving aside the minor detail that nobody forced them to invade Ukraine, to quote Blackadder, a war hasn't been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, High King of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.
Constructing a potential peace deal is really hard
The idea is to give Putin a victory that he can just about sell, while leaving him seriously diminished and sobered
The victory for him here is worldwide recognition that Crimea is Russian. He will like that. It cements in place his biggest achievement. Everything else is defeat for him (the provinces will surely vote to join Ukraine)
Plus he gets to survive
Would the Ukrainians buy it? They get their country rebuilt, they get to join NATO, they basically win (but permanently lose Crimea)
At least I had a go
One thing the war has shown is having Kherson and Crimea in different hands is a recipe for conflict, so Crimea should be part of Ukraine for that reason alone.
But that leaves Putin with nothing he can say is a victory, or even a minor prize. It is total defeat for him, not a peace deal, and it therefore would not work
I must say that some of the most detestable hypocrites around getting their knickers in a faux twist over this is making me rethink my detest the Tories and all they stand for stance.
There is an interesting tendency in politics in the UK and USA where anything to the right of the norm must be respected because normal people vote for that sometimes, and it would be awful to suggest that normal people just voting for things are extreme, but then if they vote for anything slightly left to the norm they must be commies in disguise out to destroy the entire of Western civilisation. There is a one way ratchet effect, where only right wing views are legitimate, and left wing views aren't. Which is astounding, because it is the right who always cry victimhood and go on about woke snowflakes and free speech.
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
The only small snag is that it seems most unlikely the Ukrainians or the Russians would accept those terms.
Incidentally, why only four provinces? Russia holds six Ukrainian provinces. Or do the people of Crimea and Sevastopol not get a say?
Any feasible peace is going to be uncomfortable for Putin AND Ukraine
A full Russian withdrawal wouldn't be uncomfortable for Ukraine. And that doesn't look as infeasible as it did in February when almost everyone, including me, thought the Ukrainians would be lucky to last a week.
Any plausible peace plan is certainly going to be uncomfortable for Russia, as they can't have not only what they want, which is all Ukraine, but even what they claimed, which is the six provinces. But they've only got themselves to blame for that. Leaving aside the minor detail that nobody forced them to invade Ukraine, to quote Blackadder, a war hasn't been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, High King of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.
Constructing a potential peace deal is really hard
The idea is to give Putin a victory that he can just about sell, while leaving him seriously diminished and sobered
The victory for him here is worldwide recognition that Crimea is Russian. He will like that. It cements in place his biggest achievement. Everything else is defeat for him (the provinces will surely vote to join Ukraine)
Plus he gets to survive
Would the Ukrainians buy it? They get their country rebuilt, they get to join NATO, they basically win (but permanently lose Crimea)
At least I had a go
I'm afraid your deal is immediately dead in the water. Putin couldn't sell the loss of the four provinces he annexed with such fanfare as a 'win.' Not even if he kept Crimea, given that his supporters already assume that's Russian. He would need something along the lines of a demilitarized Ukraine and the annexation of all territory east of the Dnieper, and that's just not going to happen.
Even if Ukraine agreed to let Crimea go illegally, they would still demand far more money in reparations than he's willing to pay.
And at the moment, it doesn't look like his army can hold. They may hang on to Crimea due to the narrowness of the isthmus, even if they lose the water supply again, but the rest is shortly going to be pretty much defenceless.
So, in the last 24 hours or so we have seen Kwarteng bring forward his budget statement by the best part of a month to reassure the markets and allow the publication of a full OBR report; we have Truss backing off on the question of index linking benefits and we continue tp have positive noises about the NI protocol.
The catastrophically misjudged mini-budget did look terminal but is it just possible that this government might behave a bit more rationally going forward and avoid at least some of the obvious pitfalls?
The big fear is how badly the react to new events.
I suspect the increase mortgage costs is what has doomed this government.
Yup. Sky currently running with the average 2 year fix hitting something like 6%
Nope. I don’t think those under 50s with mortgages voted Tory 2019 to the volume ratio the poorer than them did - if you voted Labour or Lib Dem last time, you are not a switcher from Tories now are you? It’s the Brexit loving, Boris loving poor who have moved these polls, by all means show me the stats to prove I’m wrong.
Their aren't nearly enough low income Leavers switching sides to account for the dramatic collapse in the Tories' position. A repeat of the property panic of the early Nineties - mortgage rate spikes, price crashes, repossessions, negative equity - is going to kick aspirational lower middle income homeowners right in the bollocks. Add to that a general sense of complete incompetence that's beginning to erode Tory support across all social groups, even the elderly, and you can understand why they're in such a deep hole. But mortgage cost increases certainly are very important.
Multiple different groups: 1. Red Wall 1st time Tories. They were persuaded that (a) Brexit would be manna from heaven and (b) Labour had failed them. Polls show an avalanche of these voters returning to Labour and as that was their habitual vote I'd be surprised if they are recoverable for the Tories 2. Middle England swing voters. The people who used to give 5 figure majorities for Blair who gave the same to Johnson and May. Horrified by the assault on mortgages and pensions and honesty. 3. Lower income occasional voters in fear of their ability to survive energy costs / wage and UC cuts relative inflation / public services being axed. They'll ensure they vote Labour to preserve what they need to live 4. Higher income but still "the squeezed middle" who often vote Tory who now won't.
The only question now is what kind of election we have? A "both sides offer something decent but I prefer x to y" like in 2015. A "lets get behind Keith because he's safe" election like 2019. Or a "fuck the Tories at all costs" landslide like 1997 or 2001.
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
That's essentially what Dynamo proposed, before Elon got wind of it and repeated it.
We can assume the territories vote to stay in Russia. So as for the nuke-free thing we can even achieve some symmetry: no nukes in Ukraine; no nukes in the Russian territories, except Crimea and Sevastopol. Russia is a Black Sea naval power after all. Crimea doesn't even border Ukraine.
Best if Ukraine stays out of NATO. Ditto Sweden and Finland.
The no nukes requirement can be made stronger in both areas (i.e. Ukraine and the 4 territories): reduce militarisation more than that.
And on 5 and 7, if the UN is organising referendum reruns then the veto powers at least can commit to recognising sovereignty according to the results. Suggest China as the best principal monitoring power. Bear in mind that a majority of the veto powers are in NATO and have been arming Ukraine.
You realise the Azov Regiment won't like this? Something has to be done about the Azov Regiment.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You’ve all gone completely mad. The idea it was a truck bomb is not some crazy Russian lie. It’s regarded as the most likely explanation, but we just don’t know. Here’s the FT today. Is it in the pay of Putin?
The Russians found a remote controlled boat washed up on the beach in Sevastopol only a few weeks ago. Circumstantial evidence suggests that it contained some kind of explosive device & was Ukranian in origin, although the Russian military haven’t given any details.
So although a truck bomb is a plausible cause, it’s not the only possibility & a floating drone laden with explosives is definitely another option.
The more interesting point is that PB hysteria has reached the stage when merely saying "a truck bomb is a likely explanation, but we don't know" apparently makes you a Muscovite shill and a fucking appeaser
"And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes"
LOL
If you don't endorse precisely the exact line that PB warriors have decided is the "right" line to take then you may as well march from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly Circus carrying aloft a banner saying "Long Live Putin".
But that's free thinking, intellectually curious, rebellious by nature PB for you.
So what's *your* line on this?
My line? Putin violated the sovereignty of Ukraine by invading which was wrong. Other than that I have no line. I am an observer. I don't know the context of how all Ukrainians see themselves or Russia sees Ukraine. I don't declare the war won or lost based upon a 30-second YouTube (or video game, sozza Nige) clip.
I do like to try to place this behaviour into an historical perspective which is why I have referenced 2003 Iraq previously on the subject. I also appreciate that the stakes are high because, much as all the PB warriors on here (and tbf some people who know what they are talking about) are ready to dismiss the Russia nuclear weapons as ineffective I have no such knowledge to be able to dismiss either their effectiveness or Putin's willingness to use them.
What's your line?
That's not a line; it's an apathetic shrug of the shoulders.
M line is the following: Putin (from his own words) wants Russian influence to span most of Europe. He wants Russia to be a superpower, but over the last two decades of power has done nothing to make it one, instead allowing widespread theft by his mates.
So that's what he wants - and what he wants is massively important when discussing this. It is also a *really* bad thing for Europe and the world.
Towards that aim, over the two decades, he has increasingly 'tested' the rest of the world, and particularly the west. Georgia. Litvinenko. MH17. Crimea. Syria. The Donbass. Salisbury.
And each time, we (that is, the west) have thrown a few sanctions on and shrugged.
So it becomes a simple question of whether we allow him to achieve his aims, or stand up to him. I'm of the view that we should have done more earlier; but given where we are, we need to act now. Yes, there are risks; but capitulating now just increases the risk in the future.
As Ukraine has said: NATO is not protecting us. We are protecting NATO.
Yeah a bunch of virtue signalling bullshit.
And oh god another PB Warrior - what exactly is this "we need to act now"?
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
That's essentially what Dynamo proposed, before Elon got wind of it and repeated it.
We can assume the territories vote to stay in Russia. So as for the nuke-free thing we can even achieve some symmetry: no nukes in Ukraine; no nukes in the Russian territories, except Crimea and Sevastopol. Russia is a Black Sea naval power after all. Crimea doesn't even border Ukraine.
Best if Ukraine stays out of NATO. Ditto Sweden and Finland.
The no nukes requirement can be made stronger in both areas: reduce militarisation more than that.
And on 5 and 7, if the UN is organising referendum reruns then the veto powers at least can recognise sovereignty according to the results. Suggest China as the best principal monitoring power. Bear in mind that a majority of the veto powers are in NATO and have been arming Ukraine.
You realise the Azov Regiment won't like this? Something has to be done about the Azov Regiment.
That has got to be the most unconvincing lie since Vladimir Putin said he wasn't a war criminal.
I agree about the Azov Regiment. How about they and their fellow neo-Nazis in the Wagner regiment are trapped on an uninhabited island together? Any survivors after twelve months to be given amnesty and a new life in Kazakhstan.
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
That's essentially what Dynamo proposed, before Elon got wind of it and repeated it.
We can assume the territories vote to stay in Russia. So as for the nuke-free thing we can even achieve some symmetry: no nukes in Ukraine; no nukes in the Russian territories, except Crimea and Sevastopol. Russia is a Black Sea naval power after all. Crimea doesn't even border Ukraine.
Best if Ukraine stays out of NATO. Ditto Sweden and Finland.
The no nukes requirement can be made stronger in both areas (i.e. Ukraine and the 4 territories): reduce militarisation more than that.
And on 5 and 7, if the UN is organising referendum reruns then the veto powers at least can commit to recognising sovereignty according to the results. Suggest China as the best principal monitoring power. Bear in mind that a majority of the veto powers are in NATO and have been arming Ukraine.
You realise the Azov Regiment won't like this? Something has to be done about the Azov Regiment.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You’ve all gone completely mad. The idea it was a truck bomb is not some crazy Russian lie. It’s regarded as the most likely explanation, but we just don’t know. Here’s the FT today. Is it in the pay of Putin?
The Russians found a remote controlled boat washed up on the beach in Sevastopol only a few weeks ago. Circumstantial evidence suggests that it contained some kind of explosive device & was Ukranian in origin, although the Russian military haven’t given any details.
So although a truck bomb is a plausible cause, it’s not the only possibility & a floating drone laden with explosives is definitely another option.
The more interesting point is that PB hysteria has reached the stage when merely saying "a truck bomb is a likely explanation, but we don't know" apparently makes you a Muscovite shill and a fucking appeaser
"And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes"
LOL
If you don't endorse precisely the exact line that PB warriors have decided is the "right" line to take then you may as well march from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly Circus carrying aloft a banner saying "Long Live Putin".
But that's free thinking, intellectually curious, rebellious by nature PB for you.
So what's *your* line on this?
My line? Putin violated the sovereignty of Ukraine by invading which was wrong. Other than that I have no line. I am an observer. I don't know the context of how all Ukrainians see themselves or Russia sees Ukraine. I don't declare the war won or lost based upon a 30-second YouTube (or video game, sozza Nige) clip.
I do like to try to place this behaviour into an historical perspective which is why I have referenced 2003 Iraq previously on the subject. I also appreciate that the stakes are high because, much as all the PB warriors on here (and tbf some people who know what they are talking about) are ready to dismiss the Russia nuclear weapons as ineffective I have no such knowledge to be able to dismiss either their effectiveness or Putin's willingness to use them.
What's your line?
That's not a line; it's an apathetic shrug of the shoulders.
M line is the following: Putin (from his own words) wants Russian influence to span most of Europe. He wants Russia to be a superpower, but over the last two decades of power has done nothing to make it one, instead allowing widespread theft by his mates.
So that's what he wants - and what he wants is massively important when discussing this. It is also a *really* bad thing for Europe and the world.
Towards that aim, over the two decades, he has increasingly 'tested' the rest of the world, and particularly the west. Georgia. Litvinenko. MH17. Crimea. Syria. The Donbass. Salisbury.
And each time, we (that is, the west) have thrown a few sanctions on and shrugged.
So it becomes a simple question of whether we allow him to achieve his aims, or stand up to him. I'm of the view that we should have done more earlier; but given where we are, we need to act now. Yes, there are risks; but capitulating now just increases the risk in the future.
As Ukraine has said: NATO is not protecting us. We are protecting NATO.
Yeah a bunch of virtue signalling bullshit.
And oh god another PB Warrior - what exactly is this "we need to act now"?
Why is it "virtue signalling bullshit"?
Which bits do you disagree with / think are wrong?
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
The only small snag is that it seems most unlikely the Ukrainians or the Russians would accept those terms.
Incidentally, why only four provinces? Russia holds six Ukrainian provinces. Or do the people of Crimea and Sevastopol not get a say?
Any feasible peace is going to be uncomfortable for Putin AND Ukraine
A full Russian withdrawal wouldn't be uncomfortable for Ukraine. And that doesn't look as infeasible as it did in February when almost everyone, including me, thought the Ukrainians would be lucky to last a week.
Any plausible peace plan is certainly going to be uncomfortable for Russia, as they can't have not only what they want, which is all Ukraine, but even what they claimed, which is the six provinces. But they've only got themselves to blame for that. Leaving aside the minor detail that nobody forced them to invade Ukraine, to quote Blackadder, a war hasn't been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, High King of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.
Constructing a potential peace deal is really hard
The idea is to give Putin a victory that he can just about sell, while leaving him seriously diminished and sobered
The victory for him here is worldwide recognition that Crimea is Russian. He will like that. It cements in place his biggest achievement. Everything else is defeat for him (the provinces will surely vote to join Ukraine)
Plus he gets to survive
Would the Ukrainians buy it? They get their country rebuilt, they get to join NATO, they basically win (but permanently lose Crimea)
At least I had a go
One thing the war has shown is having Kherson and Crimea in different hands is a recipe for conflict, so Crimea should be part of Ukraine for that reason alone.
But that leaves Putin with nothing he can say is a victory, or even a minor prize. It is total defeat for him, not a peace deal, and it therefore would not work
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
Ukraine refers you to the answer given by their former ambassador to Germany, to Elon Musk last week.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
For those who are even remotely attempting to shift the responsibility for this bombardment on Ukraine because of the #Crimea bridge incident — you look like someone scolding a girl for punching in the stomach a man who’s been violently raping her. https://twitter.com/lapatina_/status/1579378201146851328
Well quite.
It was like when someone was trying to be clever about the mobilisation in Russia and talking abotu Zelensky prohibiting military age males from leaving the country.
The context is a rather significant factor here, and in terms of 'losing' the moral high ground, well, war is ugly and I don't doubt some Ukrainians have committed crimes too, but there's a long long way to go before anyone could talk seriously about the scales being balanced.
This will come as a shock to PB-ers, but I have a very bad feeling about the Ukraine War
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire 2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines 3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will) 4. Refugees return to Ukraine 5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia 6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil 7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea 8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge) 9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
Never mind what Ukraine would say to that, Putin is not about to agree to withdraw to pre-2022 lines, that is clear.
But at least your proposal is not suggesting immediate sanction dropping or preventing Ukraine joining NATO in theory, so it is technically not the worst proposal that has been suggested (but that is not saying much when you look at some of them).
Comments
The Last Mission https://amzn.eu/d/aoFZP0x
Surprisingly good as a historical work - lots of primary sources stuff from the Japanese side that is not often mentioned.
What's in a name after all .....
However if they can get a good supply of the Iranian drones, that would change things. They are also much cheaper
Putin is making noises
"JUST IN - Putin threatens Kyiv with "even tougher response" in case of further Ukrainian "terrorist acts" against Russia."
https://twitter.com/hansamit99/status/1579442933580763137?s=20&t=e-8Mq83JJC2F3Ad-HIVnPw
1. The reputational damage is done and is irretrievably bad. Politically they do not recover from this. Their best case scenario is limp along until doing a 2005.
2. The markets won't be reassured even if KT are forced piece by piece into a full retreat. Whatever they say is tainted and questionable, even if they manage to find a calculator
3. The OBR *already had a report*. Thats according to the OBR anyway. So the pull forward only exposes just how bad the numbers actually are. Which doesn't help the markets.
If you don't endorse precisely the exact line that PB warriors have decided is the "right" line to take then you may as well march from Oxford Circus to Piccadilly Circus carrying aloft a banner saying "Long Live Putin".
But that's free thinking, intellectually curious, rebellious by nature PB for you.
They will lose in 2024
- Japan not disarming
- No occupation
- Keeping their overseas empire
- Keep the military government
- In return for the Soviets (effectively) protecting them from the rest of the Allies, the Japanese proposed a joint Soviet/Japanese alliance to attack the US at a later date…
The Americans were reading this via Purple, of course.
If anything, this convinced the Americans that the Japanese hadn’t got the message, yet.
https://twitter.com/Dave_MdaC/status/1579085368443695109
I do like to try to place this behaviour into an historical perspective which is why I have referenced 2003 Iraq previously on the subject. I also appreciate that the stakes are high because, much as all the PB warriors on here (and tbf some people who know what they are talking about) are ready to dismiss the Russia nuclear weapons as ineffective I have no such knowledge to be able to dismiss either their effectiveness or Putin's willingness to use them.
What's your line?
The problem with being a "strong man" in your persona is that when that strength fades away, then there's really not much there.
Putin has spent a lifetime of thinking might makes right and that he's going to be the biggest and toughest bastard on the block. Now he's picked a fight, for the second time, with someone with friends bigger and stronger than him and he's getting beaten up and unsurprisingly doesn't like it.
Well tough shit. He chose this fight, and he deserves to be an object of ridicule and mockery, not fear.
Oh, wait...
Govt press release says FOUR times that James Bowler has previously spent 20 years at HMT. More than just a tilt back to Treasury orthodoxy https://twitter.com/sebastianepayne/status/1579442547923222528
There's a good (not great) documentary on Netflix about the storming of the Capitol - Four Hours at the Capitol. I note it is 2021 so perhaps old news on here.
Doesn't dig too deep but plenty of interviews with participants (barring the one major participant) and uses a lot of bodycam/citizens' journalist/Capitol CCTV footage to tell the story.
Edit: I mean some of those boys really did think that Trump was sent by god.
And I believe we need a negotiated peace, because the risk of nuclear war is too great
But just saying that without suggesting how doesn't get us very far
Maybe something like this
In some highly public place, the G7 leaders get together and offer peace terms to Putin along these lines
1. An immediate ceasefire
2. Both sides withdraw military to pre-Feb 2022 lines
3. Sanctions are progressively dropped over the ensuing two years, pipelines reopened (but EU countries can obviously decide if they still want to rely on Russian energy, I doubt they will)
4. Refugees return to Ukraine
5. UN organised referendums are held in the four provinces on whether they wish to be part of Ukraine or Russia
6. Ukraine will join NATO but will agree not to station nukes on Uke soil
7. The world will recognise Russian possession of Crimea
8. The G20 will create a fund to rebuild Ukraine AND Russian infrastructure damaged in the war (eg Kerch Bridge)
9. Aaaand..... everyone relax
They have such an aptitude for getting under Putin's skin.
Incidentally, why only four provinces? Russia holds six Ukrainian provinces. Or do the people of Crimea and Sevastopol not get a say?
They thought they would keep their conquests in China, for example.
When asked, after the war, the Japanese diplomats said that if they had suggested actual surrender, they would have been murdered by the military.
Any plausible peace plan is certainly going to be uncomfortable for Russia, as they can't have not only what they want, which is all Ukraine, but even what they claimed, which is the six provinces. But they've only got themselves to blame for that. Leaving aside the minor detail that nobody forced them to invade Ukraine, to quote Blackadder, a war hasn't been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, High King of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.
Full POW exchange.
Crimea subject of UN organised referendum on whether they wish to be part of Russia or an independent nation. Which will not be open to join NATO.
Stationing of NATO state of the art missile shield in Ukraine, including right on the Russian border.
And what of thousands of hideous Russian war crimes? Brushed under the carpet?
Donetsk, Moscow ?
A genuine question.
The idea is to give Putin a victory that he can just about sell, while leaving him seriously diminished and sobered
The victory for him here is worldwide recognition that Crimea is Russian. He will like that. It cements in place his biggest achievement. Everything else is defeat for him (the provinces will surely vote to join Ukraine)
Plus he gets to survive
Would the Ukrainians buy it? They get their country rebuilt, they get to join NATO, they basically win (but permanently lose Crimea)
At least I had a go
M line is the following: Putin (from his own words) wants Russian influence to span most of Europe. He wants Russia to be a superpower, but over the last two decades of power has done nothing to make it one, instead allowing widespread theft by his mates.
So that's what he wants - and what he wants is massively important when discussing this. It is also a *really* bad thing for Europe and the world.
Towards that aim, over the two decades, he has increasingly 'tested' the rest of the world, and particularly the west. Georgia. Litvinenko. MH17. Crimea. Syria. The Donbass. Salisbury.
And each time, we (that is, the west) have thrown a few sanctions on and shrugged.
So it becomes a simple question of whether we allow him to achieve his aims, or stand up to him. I'm of the view that we should have done more earlier; but given where we are, we need to act now. Yes, there are risks; but capitulating now just increases the risk in the future.
As Ukraine has said: NATO is not protecting us. We are protecting NATO.
This is the art of the possible
Even if Ukraine agreed to let Crimea go illegally, they would still demand far more money in reparations than he's willing to pay.
And at the moment, it doesn't look like his army can hold. They may hang on to Crimea due to the narrowness of the isthmus, even if they lose the water supply again, but the rest is shortly going to be pretty much defenceless.
1. Red Wall 1st time Tories. They were persuaded that (a) Brexit would be manna from heaven and (b) Labour had failed them. Polls show an avalanche of these voters returning to Labour and as that was their habitual vote I'd be surprised if they are recoverable for the Tories
2. Middle England swing voters. The people who used to give 5 figure majorities for Blair who gave the same to Johnson and May. Horrified by the assault on mortgages and pensions and honesty.
3. Lower income occasional voters in fear of their ability to survive energy costs / wage and UC cuts relative inflation / public services being axed. They'll ensure they vote Labour to preserve what they need to live
4. Higher income but still "the squeezed middle" who often vote Tory who now won't.
The only question now is what kind of election we have? A "both sides offer something decent but I prefer x to y" like in 2015. A "lets get behind Keith because he's safe" election like 2019. Or a "fuck the Tories at all costs" landslide like 1997 or 2001.
We can assume the territories vote to stay in Russia. So as for the nuke-free thing we can even achieve some symmetry: no nukes in Ukraine; no nukes in the Russian territories, except Crimea and Sevastopol. Russia is a Black Sea naval power after all. Crimea doesn't even border Ukraine.
Best if Ukraine stays out of NATO. Ditto Sweden and Finland.
The no nukes requirement can be made stronger in both areas (i.e. Ukraine and the 4 territories): reduce militarisation more than that.
And on 5 and 7, if the UN is organising referendum reruns then the veto powers at least can commit to recognising sovereignty according to the results. Suggest China as the best principal monitoring power. Bear in mind that a majority of the veto powers are in NATO and have been arming Ukraine.
You realise the Azov Regiment won't like this? Something has to be done about the Azov Regiment.
And oh god another PB Warrior - what exactly is this "we need to act now"?
NEW THREAD
I agree about the Azov Regiment. How about they and their fellow neo-Nazis in the Wagner regiment are trapped on an uninhabited island together? Any survivors after twelve months to be given amnesty and a new life in Kazakhstan.
Which bits do you disagree with / think are wrong?
What is your alternative?
To summarise, “Arkell v Pressdram”.
It was like when someone was trying to be clever about the mobilisation in Russia and talking abotu Zelensky prohibiting military age males from leaving the country.
The context is a rather significant factor here, and in terms of 'losing' the moral high ground, well, war is ugly and I don't doubt some Ukrainians have committed crimes too, but there's a long long way to go before anyone could talk seriously about the scales being balanced.
But at least your proposal is not suggesting immediate sanction dropping or preventing Ukraine joining NATO in theory, so it is technically not the worst proposal that has been suggested (but that is not saying much when you look at some of them).