So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
Yes indeed. The war needs to continue. More Russian soldiers need to die. Let's see how much more they can take. They can easily stop the war by withdrawing their forces
Idiot
You're an idiot if you think it is in the Ukrainians' interest to agree a ceasefire when 30% of their country is still occupied and the enemy are resorting to donkeys to supply the front line, allowing them to regroup and rearm. You fight wars to win. The correct thing to do is to continue grinding Russia into the dirt.
Is that what you think Starmer is suggesting.
I didn't mention Starmer. Unfortunately the idea of "peace" has been given priority rather than that of winning the war. My hope would be that any peace deal offered would be rejected by Russia as falling short of their war aim
Farage said the west intimidated Putin into invading. Why would he say that if he didn’t support Putin?
Because he is a muppet?
You can say many things about Farage, but the idea he is casual with his words doesn't stand much scrutiny.
Think the worst of Farage and you won't go far wrong.
I don't over analyse Farage. That word that rhymes with James Hunt covers all eventualities. Farage is a ...
If Farage wanted to tell us that Putin is a wicked war criminal, Mr Z is a hero, Trump is sub-optimal and has chosen his friends unwisely, and Starmer has played a difficult hand well this week in times when patriotic parties in the UK unite over essentials I am sure he can find the words. He hasn't.
He will say that just as soon as he can find a way of linking all that to immigration.
Farage doesn't possess Johnson's talent for inconsistency and disloyalty. Johnson would betray Trump in a heartbeat (as Jenrick has) and claim he never praised Trump in the first place( much like Trump.). Farage is far more loyal and appears unable to condemn his orange ally.
Farage lacks the subtlety Starmer has shown. Sir K keeps saying that he is sure Trump is onside and all that, but we all know perfectly well he is setting Trump tests and giving him a chance of exits from his own duplicity, and is also developing the best possible plan (which would of course be tragically sub-optimal) for if Trump proves as perfidious as he appears.
Are we sure Starmer possesses such Machiavellian sophistication?
Welcome if true.
Well it’s not that long since people were suggesting that with the left controlling his party’s apparatus on the ground, his leadership was destined to struggle
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
My position is (and always has been) that Ukraine are defending against an immoral invasion and it is their decision (and their decision only) whether they fight back.
Separately, it is also my position that we should support (with money and weapons at the very least) whatever decision Ukraine makes. Not purely for selfless moral reasons, but also because having the most battle hardened land army in Europe as an ally seems beneficial to me.
Get real. Ukraine wants us to bomb Russia and send the troops in but for some unaccountable reason we have not done that over the past three years. Do you suppose that Starmer's plan will change that strategy.
Starmer’s plan has nothing to do with my own opinion.
Anyone read this ? t looks rather good. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Horsepower-Race-Western-Development/dp/1911658506 Calum Douglas, 40, is a professional mechanical engineer and aviation historian. He accidentally became a writer after discovering that many of the technologies of the Formula-One motor racing engines he was involved with had in fact been concieved in the Second World War...
I have, and found it very interesting if - as it should rightly be - quite technical at times. But others on PB are more informed than I am. I think it was @Malmesbury who recommended it in the first place on here some years back (hence my reading it).
Edit: or am I confusing his recommendation with another book?
I bought a copy and found it stuffed full of interesting information, much of it technical, which I liked, but it was rather disjointed and needs a good edit tbh.
Some of the primary source stuff makes it very worthwhile. The German headship on chromium shortages for valves, the incredulity of Farnborough at the performance curves for a hypothetical P-51 with a Merlin (cruise speed especially)
Yes, yes. Could you not discuss books!? I buy and read all of these many great recommendations. I have a finite amount of space though. Please God invent the infinite bookshelf! I guess Amazon and others did, but it's not the same.
There is such a thing as an infinite bookshelf. It's called a "library"
When was the last time you went to a good library?
The grand libraries have always mostly been book-stores, and the idea of a library which might have once been true as to a resource of wisdom is gone.
I mean I've only seen the highlights but surely Trump is simply taking a side in one of the oldest and most difficult dilemmas. What is worth giving up to stop the killing.
Why is dealing with that impossible question so reprehensible.
We see it in aid all the time (enable/support the tyrants to get food to the citizens..)
Yes, he’s decided that giving up Ukraine is worth it to stem the expense to the US. The democratically elected government of Ukraine - along with the opposition, judging by their public comments yesterday, disagree.
Chuck into the mix Europe’s future security, which the US has apparently decided is no longer a matter for them, then a polite no thanks is in order. No skin in the game, no say.
All that, of course, is predicated on Europe getting its shit together over the next few days and weeks.
I would like to see Europe get its shit together in the next 24 hours.
The billions the UK promised yesterday are a good start.
Lets show the Americans we can help defeat Russia with or without them - but if its without them, they don't get a say in what happens afterwards.
What jobs will guarantee exemption from being called up to fight in this proposed EU war against Russia? I'll get my lads writing their job applications out ASAP.
Who said anything about the EU? Or war with Russia?
Russia is a small country, it is smaller than Italy economically. It is not some mighty bear that we should be afraid of.
Ukraine is able to defeat Russia with our backing, we have no reason or need to go to war, just continue to support Ukraine.
Do you think what is happening now (what you want to continue with) is going to allow Ukraine to defeat Russia.
Eventually, yes.
And that is a legitimate view, if misguided in my mind. It means thousands more deaths of people that are not you or your family but so be it. Trump's is that he wants the killing to stop. With all the compromises that involves. Why is that view so reprehensible.
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
I think this probably needs a bit of an accompanying explainer?
Not for anyone who has been paying attention for the last decade
Well given that you seem to think that's what you've been doing, perhaps you will favour us with an explanation of how demographically challenged Russia, having achieved all its territorial ambitions, is going to slaughter 200,000+ innocents.
Historically, conquering armies have had little trouble in massacring civilians.
In Ukraine, we have detailed, criminal case grade evidence of murders, expulsions and kidnapping of children in the areas occupied by Russia. En masse.9
In addition, the original plans for the Russian invasion were captured. They included mass arrests of the political and intellectual classes, as part of a plan to eliminate the idea of Ukraine as a separate state to Russia, culturally.
So you need to explain why you think that the Russians would behave differently in any areas of the Ukraine they conquer from now, to the way they behaved (and planned to behave) in those they have conquered.
I can well believe that they plan to do all those horrible things. But none of them amount to killing hundreds of thousands, or anything like. That's why I asked for an explanation, and why I wasn't surprised not to get one.
May be we can work to the internationally accepted definition of “genocide” rather than the pretendy straw man made up by a Russian sympathising conspiracy theorist such as yourself?
Maybe you could actually READ you daft fuckwit - I was asking for John Lilburne's explanation of his supposition that hundreds of thousands would be killed if Ukraine surrendered. Genocide wasn't mentioned.
It was in the other post line to which you originally replied on. But of course truth doesn’t matter to you. Just your master’s bidding.
This conversation is showing you up to be a complete loon. I questioned a claim that Putin would slaughter hundreds of thousands post-"surrender". Now I am apparently twisting the meaning of genocide by using the frames of reference given in the original post?
As for 'my master's bidding' - I don't have a master, and that allows me to speak as I find. Perhaps you should think about who has benefitted you, and how that has informed your own viewpoint, because your above post reads like classic projection to me.
The original post that I replied to - and where you responded to me - talked about genocide and you responded with a straw man on 200,000+ deaths
I know that you have consistently parroted Russian propaganda lines from MH17 onward. But I forget you are a truth seeker who treats all statements by western governments with scepticism. And yet, somehow, you always end up sharing the same position as the Russians.
But you’re right. I’ve no evidence that you are paid by the Russians. May be you are just a fool instead.
Dear God, This was the post I replied to:
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
200,000+ is the minimum number that that comment could have been referring to. So it wasn't any kind of 'straw man' - it was a conservative summation of the statement I took issue with.
Did you read the Wikipedia article I posted? Or do you regard it as anti-Russian propaganda?
No, sorry, I was too busy defending myself from accusations of redefining genocide and making straw men for numbers that you had put forward. I can't see it in the thread, so if you wish to repost it, I'll read it.
Russians. It's what they do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes. Along with a prediction that what the Russians will do to Ukrainian intelligentsia if they win will look rather like Katyń
Sure. The streak of brutality that runs through Russian culture predates the Soviets - it even predates Peter the Great. I know that. I am not actually defending the invasion (I never have) or suggesting that Putin has "peaceful intentions". I took took issue with your statement because I see Russia killing 200,000 as a consequence of a ceasefire (or Ukrainian surrender as you put it) as extremely unlikely.
Russia can already (and does) kill people within the Ukrainian territory it holds. I see peace as making such killings less likely, due to such events not being camouflaged by the fog of war. I can certainly see opponents of Russia being targeted, but I would also imagine that they would be allowed to depart Russian-held territory as part of the peace deal (in exchange for those loyal to Russia being permitted to leave Ukrainian-held territory). So all in all, I see less Ukrainian people dying at the hands of Russia as a result of a peace deal, rather than more.
Hundreds of thousands is 100k+ not 200k plus. Even if you wanted to be pedantic about the plural, it begins at 100,001 and not 200,000.
And 100k or 200k+ dying as a result of a Russian victory is entirely plausible given what we've seen and the mass graves that have followed Russian occupation elsewhere.
It’s a ghastly subject but I think I’d say if it’s hundreds of thousands then it must be more than one hundred thousands, so I think it is 200,000+. Otherwise it would be more than a 100,000. I guess the question is what would happen if the war ended with Ukraine surrendering. The deaths to now were under condition of war, and frankly even the best armies commit atrocities. Yes, even the glorious American, Canadian, Australian and British in WW2, fighting the very essence of evil, sometimes went too far, or executed prisoners etc. If Russia won by just grinding forward then you can imagine many, many more ancillary deaths. Bu5 if it’s a surrender? I’m not so sure.
Exactly 100,000 falls within the range of hundreds of thousands but even if you wanted to define it as more than 100,000 that includes 100,001 which by definition is 1.00001 hundreds of thousands.
Plurals includes decimals not just the next integer onwards. If I have a full, unopened bag of coffee beans and a half bag of beans that's open do I have 1.5 bag of beans or 1.5 bags of beans? Its more than one so its 1.5 bags.
Sorry if already posted, but this is a quite interesting piece of ChatGPT psychology on the Trump/Zelensky disaster. That's what happens when you meet a narcissistic psychopath and his sidekick:
Conclusion Trump and his team employed the full spectrum of abusive tactics: gaslighting, victim-blaming, coercion into gratitude, and manipulation of the concepts of peace and diplomacy. This was not a negotiation—it was an attempt to force Zelensky into accepting terms beneficial to the US but potentially fatal for Ukraine. 1. Blaming the victim for their own situation Trump explicitly tells Zelensky: “You have allowed yourself to be in a very bad position.” This is classic abuser rhetoric—blaming the victim for their suffering. 2. Pressure and coercion into ‘gratitude’ Vance demands that Zelensky say “thank you.” This is an extremely toxic tactic—forcing the victim to express gratitude for the help they desperately need, only to later accuse them of ingratitude if they attempt to assert their rights. 3. Manipulating the concept of ‘peace’ Trump claims that Zelensky is “not ready for peace.” However, what he actually means is Ukraine’s capitulation. This is a classic manipulation technique—substituting the idea of a just peace with the notion of surrender. 4. Refusing to acknowledge the reality of war Trump repeatedly insists that Zelensky has “no cards to play” and that “without us, you have nothing.” This is yet another abusive tactic—undermining the victim’s efforts by asserting that they are powerless without the mercy of their ‘saviour.’ 5. Devaluing the victims of war “If you get a ceasefire, you must accept it so that bullets stop flying and your people stop dying,” Trump says. Yet, he ignores the fact that a ceasefire without guarantees is merely an opportunity for Russia to strike again. 6. Dominance tactics Trump constantly interrupts Zelensky, cutting him off: “No, no, you’ve already said enough,” This is deliberate psychological pressure designed to establish a hierarchy in which Zelensky is the subordinate. 7. Forcing capitulation under the guise of ‘diplomacy’ Vance asserts that “the path to peace lies through diplomacy.” This is a classic strategy where the aggressor is given the opportunity to continue their aggression unchallenged. 8. Projection and distortion of reality Trump declares: “You are playing with the lives of millions of people.” Yet, in reality, it is he who is doing exactly that—shifting responsibility onto Zelensky. 9. Creating the illusion that Ukraine ‘owes’ the US Yes, the US is assisting Ukraine, but presenting this aid as “you must obey, or you will receive nothing” is not a partnership—it is financial and military coercion. 10. Undermining Ukraine’s resistance Trump states that “if it weren’t for our weapons, this war would have ended in two weeks.” This is an attempt to erase Ukraine’s achievements and portray its efforts as entirely dependent on US support.
ChatGPT writes what you want it to write.
It's an interesting information gathering and summary tool (as long as it’s caveated for accuracy, as it does itself). It should not be used to draw conclusions that it's not capable of drawing.
I always thought ChatGPT isn’t uploaded with recent internet and couldn’t comment on topical events?
Anyhow, PB’ers who were here this morning already witnessed a superlative demonstration of where a combination of AI and sub-par human intelligence can take you. It wasn’t pretty.
Sounds as though there was quite a lot going on apart from rows about cash. A lease expired. A sexual predator on the staff who upon being sacked became a murderer.
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
More of the same is the right thing to do.
The UK alone is richer than Russia.
The UK and Europe and other assorted allies are considerably wealthier than Russia. We can continue more of the same with or without America.
So what do we think Starmer's plan will be. Invasion of Russia or ceasefire somewhere along today's positions.
I mean I've only seen the highlights but surely Trump is simply taking a side in one of the oldest and most difficult dilemmas. What is worth giving up to stop the killing.
Why is dealing with that impossible question so reprehensible.
We see it in aid all the time (enable/support the tyrants to get food to the citizens..)
Yes, he’s decided that giving up Ukraine is worth it to stem the expense to the US. The democratically elected government of Ukraine - along with the opposition, judging by their public comments yesterday, disagree.
Chuck into the mix Europe’s future security, which the US has apparently decided is no longer a matter for them, then a polite no thanks is in order. No skin in the game, no say.
All that, of course, is predicated on Europe getting its shit together over the next few days and weeks.
I would like to see Europe get its shit together in the next 24 hours.
The billions the UK promised yesterday are a good start.
Lets show the Americans we can help defeat Russia with or without them - but if its without them, they don't get a say in what happens afterwards.
What jobs will guarantee exemption from being called up to fight in this proposed EU war against Russia? I'll get my lads writing their job applications out ASAP.
Who said anything about the EU? Or war with Russia?
Russia is a small country, it is smaller than Italy economically. It is not some mighty bear that we should be afraid of.
Ukraine is able to defeat Russia with our backing, we have no reason or need to go to war, just continue to support Ukraine.
Do you think what is happening now (what you want to continue with) is going to allow Ukraine to defeat Russia.
Eventually, yes.
And that is a legitimate view, if misguided in my mind. It means thousands more deaths of people that are not you or your family but so be it. Trump's is that he wants the killing to stop. With all the compromises that involves. Why is that view so reprehensible.
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
I think this probably needs a bit of an accompanying explainer?
Not for anyone who has been paying attention for the last decade
Well given that you seem to think that's what you've been doing, perhaps you will favour us with an explanation of how demographically challenged Russia, having achieved all its territorial ambitions, is going to slaughter 200,000+ innocents.
Historically, conquering armies have had little trouble in massacring civilians.
In Ukraine, we have detailed, criminal case grade evidence of murders, expulsions and kidnapping of children in the areas occupied by Russia. En masse.9
In addition, the original plans for the Russian invasion were captured. They included mass arrests of the political and intellectual classes, as part of a plan to eliminate the idea of Ukraine as a separate state to Russia, culturally.
So you need to explain why you think that the Russians would behave differently in any areas of the Ukraine they conquer from now, to the way they behaved (and planned to behave) in those they have conquered.
I can well believe that they plan to do all those horrible things. But none of them amount to killing hundreds of thousands, or anything like. That's why I asked for an explanation, and why I wasn't surprised not to get one.
May be we can work to the internationally accepted definition of “genocide” rather than the pretendy straw man made up by a Russian sympathising conspiracy theorist such as yourself?
Maybe you could actually READ you daft fuckwit - I was asking for John Lilburne's explanation of his supposition that hundreds of thousands would be killed if Ukraine surrendered. Genocide wasn't mentioned.
It was in the other post line to which you originally replied on. But of course truth doesn’t matter to you. Just your master’s bidding.
This conversation is showing you up to be a complete loon. I questioned a claim that Putin would slaughter hundreds of thousands post-"surrender". Now I am apparently twisting the meaning of genocide by using the frames of reference given in the original post?
As for 'my master's bidding' - I don't have a master, and that allows me to speak as I find. Perhaps you should think about who has benefitted you, and how that has informed your own viewpoint, because your above post reads like classic projection to me.
The original post that I replied to - and where you responded to me - talked about genocide and you responded with a straw man on 200,000+ deaths
I know that you have consistently parroted Russian propaganda lines from MH17 onward. But I forget you are a truth seeker who treats all statements by western governments with scepticism. And yet, somehow, you always end up sharing the same position as the Russians.
But you’re right. I’ve no evidence that you are paid by the Russians. May be you are just a fool instead.
Dear God, This was the post I replied to:
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
200,000+ is the minimum number that that comment could have been referring to. So it wasn't any kind of 'straw man' - it was a conservative summation of the statement I took issue with.
Did you read the Wikipedia article I posted? Or do you regard it as anti-Russian propaganda?
No, sorry, I was too busy defending myself from accusations of redefining genocide and making straw men for numbers that you had put forward. I can't see it in the thread, so if you wish to repost it, I'll read it.
Russians. It's what they do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes. Along with a prediction that what the Russians will do to Ukrainian intelligentsia if they win will look rather like Katyń
Sure. The streak of brutality that runs through Russian culture predates the Soviets - it even predates Peter the Great. I know that. I am not actually defending the invasion (I never have) or suggesting that Putin has "peaceful intentions". I took took issue with your statement because I see Russia killing 200,000 as a consequence of a ceasefire (or Ukrainian surrender as you put it) as extremely unlikely.
Russia can already (and does) kill people within the Ukrainian territory it holds. I see peace as making such killings less likely, due to such events not being camouflaged by the fog of war. I can certainly see opponents of Russia being targeted, but I would also imagine that they would be allowed to depart Russian-held territory as part of the peace deal (in exchange for those loyal to Russia being permitted to leave Ukrainian-held territory). So all in all, I see less Ukrainian people dying at the hands of Russia as a result of a peace deal, rather than more.
I can't share your optimism.
I think it's a fairly dispassionate analysis.
Indeed. Just wrong. The Russians will commit even more genocide in whatever part of Ukraine they occupy after peace is declared
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
I mean I've only seen the highlights but surely Trump is simply taking a side in one of the oldest and most difficult dilemmas. What is worth giving up to stop the killing.
Why is dealing with that impossible question so reprehensible.
We see it in aid all the time (enable/support the tyrants to get food to the citizens..)
Yes, he’s decided that giving up Ukraine is worth it to stem the expense to the US. The democratically elected government of Ukraine - along with the opposition, judging by their public comments yesterday, disagree.
Chuck into the mix Europe’s future security, which the US has apparently decided is no longer a matter for them, then a polite no thanks is in order. No skin in the game, no say.
All that, of course, is predicated on Europe getting its shit together over the next few days and weeks.
I would like to see Europe get its shit together in the next 24 hours.
The billions the UK promised yesterday are a good start.
Lets show the Americans we can help defeat Russia with or without them - but if its without them, they don't get a say in what happens afterwards.
What jobs will guarantee exemption from being called up to fight in this proposed EU war against Russia? I'll get my lads writing their job applications out ASAP.
Who said anything about the EU? Or war with Russia?
Russia is a small country, it is smaller than Italy economically. It is not some mighty bear that we should be afraid of.
Ukraine is able to defeat Russia with our backing, we have no reason or need to go to war, just continue to support Ukraine.
Do you think what is happening now (what you want to continue with) is going to allow Ukraine to defeat Russia.
Eventually, yes.
And that is a legitimate view, if misguided in my mind. It means thousands more deaths of people that are not you or your family but so be it. Trump's is that he wants the killing to stop. With all the compromises that involves. Why is that view so reprehensible.
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
I think this probably needs a bit of an accompanying explainer?
Not for anyone who has been paying attention for the last decade
Well given that you seem to think that's what you've been doing, perhaps you will favour us with an explanation of how demographically challenged Russia, having achieved all its territorial ambitions, is going to slaughter 200,000+ innocents.
Historically, conquering armies have had little trouble in massacring civilians.
In Ukraine, we have detailed, criminal case grade evidence of murders, expulsions and kidnapping of children in the areas occupied by Russia. En masse.9
In addition, the original plans for the Russian invasion were captured. They included mass arrests of the political and intellectual classes, as part of a plan to eliminate the idea of Ukraine as a separate state to Russia, culturally.
So you need to explain why you think that the Russians would behave differently in any areas of the Ukraine they conquer from now, to the way they behaved (and planned to behave) in those they have conquered.
I can well believe that they plan to do all those horrible things. But none of them amount to killing hundreds of thousands, or anything like. That's why I asked for an explanation, and why I wasn't surprised not to get one.
May be we can work to the internationally accepted definition of “genocide” rather than the pretendy straw man made up by a Russian sympathising conspiracy theorist such as yourself?
Maybe you could actually READ you daft fuckwit - I was asking for John Lilburne's explanation of his supposition that hundreds of thousands would be killed if Ukraine surrendered. Genocide wasn't mentioned.
It was in the other post line to which you originally replied on. But of course truth doesn’t matter to you. Just your master’s bidding.
This conversation is showing you up to be a complete loon. I questioned a claim that Putin would slaughter hundreds of thousands post-"surrender". Now I am apparently twisting the meaning of genocide by using the frames of reference given in the original post?
As for 'my master's bidding' - I don't have a master, and that allows me to speak as I find. Perhaps you should think about who has benefitted you, and how that has informed your own viewpoint, because your above post reads like classic projection to me.
The original post that I replied to - and where you responded to me - talked about genocide and you responded with a straw man on 200,000+ deaths
I know that you have consistently parroted Russian propaganda lines from MH17 onward. But I forget you are a truth seeker who treats all statements by western governments with scepticism. And yet, somehow, you always end up sharing the same position as the Russians.
But you’re right. I’ve no evidence that you are paid by the Russians. May be you are just a fool instead.
Dear God, This was the post I replied to:
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
200,000+ is the minimum number that that comment could have been referring to. So it wasn't any kind of 'straw man' - it was a conservative summation of the statement I took issue with.
Did you read the Wikipedia article I posted? Or do you regard it as anti-Russian propaganda?
No, sorry, I was too busy defending myself from accusations of redefining genocide and making straw men for numbers that you had put forward. I can't see it in the thread, so if you wish to repost it, I'll read it.
Russians. It's what they do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes. Along with a prediction that what the Russians will do to Ukrainian intelligentsia if they win will look rather like Katyń
Sure. The streak of brutality that runs through Russian culture predates the Soviets - it even predates Peter the Great. I know that. I am not actually defending the invasion (I never have) or suggesting that Putin has "peaceful intentions". I took took issue with your statement because I see Russia killing 200,000 as a consequence of a ceasefire (or Ukrainian surrender as you put it) as extremely unlikely.
Russia can already (and does) kill people within the Ukrainian territory it holds. I see peace as making such killings less likely, due to such events not being camouflaged by the fog of war. I can certainly see opponents of Russia being targeted, but I would also imagine that they would be allowed to depart Russian-held territory as part of the peace deal (in exchange for those loyal to Russia being permitted to leave Ukrainian-held territory). So all in all, I see less Ukrainian people dying at the hands of Russia as a result of a peace deal, rather than more.
Hundreds of thousands is 100k+ not 200k plus. Even if you wanted to be pedantic about the plural, it begins at 100,001 and not 200,000.
And 100k or 200k+ dying as a result of a Russian victory is entirely plausible given what we've seen and the mass graves that have followed Russian occupation elsewhere.
It’s a ghastly subject but I think I’d say if it’s hundreds of thousands then it must be more than one hundred thousands, so I think it is 200,000+. Otherwise it would be more than a 100,000. I guess the question is what would happen if the war ended with Ukraine surrendering. The deaths to now were under condition of war, and frankly even the best armies commit atrocities. Yes, even the glorious American, Canadian, Australian and British in WW2, fighting the very essence of evil, sometimes went too far, or executed prisoners etc. If Russia won by just grinding forward then you can imagine many, many more ancillary deaths. Bu5 if it’s a surrender? I’m not so sure.
If Ukraine surrenders, Russia will seek to turn them into compliant Russians. Anyone who objects, refuses to learn Russian, is a politician, intellectual or soldier, will be killed. Once the war is over the resources of the Russian state can be prioritised on genocide, the end of the war will increase deaths, not decrease them
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
@TOPPING it is important to remember that when Russia commenced this stage of the war, even giving Ukraine arms was seen as too risky. Then giving them tanks was seen as too risky. Then giving them long range missiles was too risky. Then allowing them to be used within Russia was seen as too risky. Russia has cowered in view of its "red lines" at every single turn.
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
My position is (and always has been) that Ukraine are defending against an immoral invasion and it is their decision (and their decision only) whether they fight back.
Separately, it is also my position that we should support (with money and weapons at the very least) whatever decision Ukraine makes. Not purely for selfless moral reasons, but also because having the most battle hardened land army in Europe as an ally seems beneficial to me.
Get real. Ukraine wants us to bomb Russia and send the troops in but for some unaccountable reason we have not done that over the past three years. Do you suppose that Starmer's plan will change that strategy.
I don't think Ukraine has ever asked us to do those things
Anyone read this ? t looks rather good. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Horsepower-Race-Western-Development/dp/1911658506 Calum Douglas, 40, is a professional mechanical engineer and aviation historian. He accidentally became a writer after discovering that many of the technologies of the Formula-One motor racing engines he was involved with had in fact been concieved in the Second World War...
I have, and found it very interesting if - as it should rightly be - quite technical at times. But others on PB are more informed than I am. I think it was @Malmesbury who recommended it in the first place on here some years back (hence my reading it).
Edit: or am I confusing his recommendation with another book?
I bought a copy and found it stuffed full of interesting information, much of it technical, which I liked, but it was rather disjointed and needs a good edit tbh.
Some of the primary source stuff makes it very worthwhile. The German headship on chromium shortages for valves, the incredulity of Farnborough at the performance curves for a hypothetical P-51 with a Merlin (cruise speed especially)
Yes, yes. Could you not discuss books!? I buy and read all of these many great recommendations. I have a finite amount of space though. Please God invent the infinite bookshelf! I guess Amazon and others did, but it's not the same.
There is such a thing as an infinite bookshelf. It's called a "library"
When was the last time you went to a good library?
The grand libraries have always mostly been book-stores, and the idea of a library which might have once been true as to a resource of wisdom is gone.
I am a member of a private library in Nottingham (only 2 of its sort in the county still I believe)
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
More of the same is the right thing to do.
The UK alone is richer than Russia.
The UK and Europe and other assorted allies are considerably wealthier than Russia. We can continue more of the same with or without America.
So what do we think Starmer's plan will be. Invasion of Russia or ceasefire somewhere along today's positions.
I mean I've only seen the highlights but surely Trump is simply taking a side in one of the oldest and most difficult dilemmas. What is worth giving up to stop the killing.
Why is dealing with that impossible question so reprehensible.
We see it in aid all the time (enable/support the tyrants to get food to the citizens..)
Yes, he’s decided that giving up Ukraine is worth it to stem the expense to the US. The democratically elected government of Ukraine - along with the opposition, judging by their public comments yesterday, disagree.
Chuck into the mix Europe’s future security, which the US has apparently decided is no longer a matter for them, then a polite no thanks is in order. No skin in the game, no say.
All that, of course, is predicated on Europe getting its shit together over the next few days and weeks.
I would like to see Europe get its shit together in the next 24 hours.
The billions the UK promised yesterday are a good start.
Lets show the Americans we can help defeat Russia with or without them - but if its without them, they don't get a say in what happens afterwards.
What jobs will guarantee exemption from being called up to fight in this proposed EU war against Russia? I'll get my lads writing their job applications out ASAP.
Who said anything about the EU? Or war with Russia?
Russia is a small country, it is smaller than Italy economically. It is not some mighty bear that we should be afraid of.
Ukraine is able to defeat Russia with our backing, we have no reason or need to go to war, just continue to support Ukraine.
Do you think what is happening now (what you want to continue with) is going to allow Ukraine to defeat Russia.
Eventually, yes.
And that is a legitimate view, if misguided in my mind. It means thousands more deaths of people that are not you or your family but so be it. Trump's is that he wants the killing to stop. With all the compromises that involves. Why is that view so reprehensible.
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
I think this probably needs a bit of an accompanying explainer?
Not for anyone who has been paying attention for the last decade
Well given that you seem to think that's what you've been doing, perhaps you will favour us with an explanation of how demographically challenged Russia, having achieved all its territorial ambitions, is going to slaughter 200,000+ innocents.
Historically, conquering armies have had little trouble in massacring civilians.
In Ukraine, we have detailed, criminal case grade evidence of murders, expulsions and kidnapping of children in the areas occupied by Russia. En masse.9
In addition, the original plans for the Russian invasion were captured. They included mass arrests of the political and intellectual classes, as part of a plan to eliminate the idea of Ukraine as a separate state to Russia, culturally.
So you need to explain why you think that the Russians would behave differently in any areas of the Ukraine they conquer from now, to the way they behaved (and planned to behave) in those they have conquered.
I can well believe that they plan to do all those horrible things. But none of them amount to killing hundreds of thousands, or anything like. That's why I asked for an explanation, and why I wasn't surprised not to get one.
May be we can work to the internationally accepted definition of “genocide” rather than the pretendy straw man made up by a Russian sympathising conspiracy theorist such as yourself?
Maybe you could actually READ you daft fuckwit - I was asking for John Lilburne's explanation of his supposition that hundreds of thousands would be killed if Ukraine surrendered. Genocide wasn't mentioned.
It was in the other post line to which you originally replied on. But of course truth doesn’t matter to you. Just your master’s bidding.
This conversation is showing you up to be a complete loon. I questioned a claim that Putin would slaughter hundreds of thousands post-"surrender". Now I am apparently twisting the meaning of genocide by using the frames of reference given in the original post?
As for 'my master's bidding' - I don't have a master, and that allows me to speak as I find. Perhaps you should think about who has benefitted you, and how that has informed your own viewpoint, because your above post reads like classic projection to me.
The original post that I replied to - and where you responded to me - talked about genocide and you responded with a straw man on 200,000+ deaths
I know that you have consistently parroted Russian propaganda lines from MH17 onward. But I forget you are a truth seeker who treats all statements by western governments with scepticism. And yet, somehow, you always end up sharing the same position as the Russians.
But you’re right. I’ve no evidence that you are paid by the Russians. May be you are just a fool instead.
Dear God, This was the post I replied to:
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
200,000+ is the minimum number that that comment could have been referring to. So it wasn't any kind of 'straw man' - it was a conservative summation of the statement I took issue with.
Did you read the Wikipedia article I posted? Or do you regard it as anti-Russian propaganda?
No, sorry, I was too busy defending myself from accusations of redefining genocide and making straw men for numbers that you had put forward. I can't see it in the thread, so if you wish to repost it, I'll read it.
Russians. It's what they do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes. Along with a prediction that what the Russians will do to Ukrainian intelligentsia if they win will look rather like Katyń
Sure. The streak of brutality that runs through Russian culture predates the Soviets - it even predates Peter the Great. I know that. I am not actually defending the invasion (I never have) or suggesting that Putin has "peaceful intentions". I took took issue with your statement because I see Russia killing 200,000 as a consequence of a ceasefire (or Ukrainian surrender as you put it) as extremely unlikely.
Russia can already (and does) kill people within the Ukrainian territory it holds. I see peace as making such killings less likely, due to such events not being camouflaged by the fog of war. I can certainly see opponents of Russia being targeted, but I would also imagine that they would be allowed to depart Russian-held territory as part of the peace deal (in exchange for those loyal to Russia being permitted to leave Ukrainian-held territory). So all in all, I see less Ukrainian people dying at the hands of Russia as a result of a peace deal, rather than more.
I can't share your optimism.
I think it's a fairly dispassionate analysis.
Indeed. Just wrong. The Russians will commit even more genocide in whatever part of Ukraine they occupy after peace is declared
It'll be in their (sick) interests to. It's been obvious for three years now that Ukrainians don't want to be Russian, and they will fight for their freedom. Like in France during WW2, there will be a resistance. And their way of shutting down that resistance will be the same way Lenin and Stalin shut down resistance in the 1920s. Which was far worse for local populations than the Nazis were to the French.
We've already seen it in the occupied regions with kids being forcible resettled all over Russia. And you also need to look at the way the DPR and LNR were ruled since 2014.
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
A nuclear arsenal it cannot practically use.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
well you can alway go and fight yourself - or do you want others to do that? You run a lot dont you so must be fit enough- go on
Anyone read this ? t looks rather good. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Horsepower-Race-Western-Development/dp/1911658506 Calum Douglas, 40, is a professional mechanical engineer and aviation historian. He accidentally became a writer after discovering that many of the technologies of the Formula-One motor racing engines he was involved with had in fact been concieved in the Second World War...
I have, and found it very interesting if - as it should rightly be - quite technical at times. But others on PB are more informed than I am. I think it was @Malmesbury who recommended it in the first place on here some years back (hence my reading it).
Edit: or am I confusing his recommendation with another book?
I bought a copy and found it stuffed full of interesting information, much of it technical, which I liked, but it was rather disjointed and needs a good edit tbh.
Some of the primary source stuff makes it very worthwhile. The German headship on chromium shortages for valves, the incredulity of Farnborough at the performance curves for a hypothetical P-51 with a Merlin (cruise speed especially)
Yes, yes. Could you not discuss books!? I buy and read all of these many great recommendations. I have a finite amount of space though. Please God invent the infinite bookshelf! I guess Amazon and others did, but it's not the same.
There is such a thing as an infinite bookshelf. It's called a "library"
When was the last time you went to a good library?
The grand libraries have always mostly been book-stores, and the idea of a library which might have once been true as to a resource of wisdom is gone.
I am a member of a private library in Nottingham (only 2 of its sort in the county still I believe)
And is it good?
(There are quite a few private libraries in London associated with various clubs etc)
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
A nuclear arsenal it cannot practically use.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
well you can alway go and fight yourself - or do you want others to do that?
There are already others willing to do it - the Ukrainians.
We just need to send them the materiel and support they need to finish the job.
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
A nuclear arsenal it cannot practically use.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
well you can alway go and fight yourself - or do you want others to do that? You run a lot dont you so must be fit enough- go on
Imagine if our grandparents had taken this approach in WW2 for fuck’s sake.
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
My position is (and always has been) that Ukraine are defending against an immoral invasion and it is their decision (and their decision only) whether they fight back.
Separately, it is also my position that we should support (with money and weapons at the very least) whatever decision Ukraine makes. Not purely for selfless moral reasons, but also because having the most battle hardened land army in Europe as an ally seems beneficial to me.
Get real. Ukraine wants us to bomb Russia and send the troops in but for some unaccountable reason we have not done that over the past three years. Do you suppose that Starmer's plan will change that strategy.
Starmer’s plan has nothing to do with my own opinion.
Exactly. Nor most anyone's on here. Same with Trump's. And Mandleson's.
The difference being they, yes even Trump in this instance, live in the real world not some internet chat room game of Risk-type fantasy land that you lot inhabit.
So does PB think that Starmer's announcement that the UK will work "with France and others" on a plan to stop the fighting will involve a complete withdrawal of Russian forces to 2014 lines.
I do not think you can grind Russia into the dirt.
Indeed you can, they are losing 1000-1500 a day KSI, not to mention materiel
More important than the manpower is the economic damage. The "SMO" is costing Russia about a billion $ a day.Hit one oil facility each and every day and take it down - and Russia folds.
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
My position is (and always has been) that Ukraine are defending against an immoral invasion and it is their decision (and their decision only) whether they fight back.
Separately, it is also my position that we should support (with money and weapons at the very least) whatever decision Ukraine makes. Not purely for selfless moral reasons, but also because having the most battle hardened land army in Europe as an ally seems beneficial to me.
Get real. Ukraine wants us to bomb Russia and send the troops in but for some unaccountable reason we have not done that over the past three years. Do you suppose that Starmer's plan will change that strategy.
Starmer’s plan has nothing to do with my own opinion.
Exactly. Nor most anyone's on here. Same with Trump's. And Mandleson's.
The difference being they, yes even Trump in this instance, live in the real world not some internet chat room game of Risk-type fantasy land that you lot inhabit.
I am not sure what point you are making. If we were to only discuss and critique things we do in our day jobs on here then this place would be shit.
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
My position is (and always has been) that Ukraine are defending against an immoral invasion and it is their decision (and their decision only) whether they fight back.
Separately, it is also my position that we should support (with money and weapons at the very least) whatever decision Ukraine makes. Not purely for selfless moral reasons, but also because having the most battle hardened land army in Europe as an ally seems beneficial to me.
Get real. Ukraine wants us to bomb Russia and send the troops in but for some unaccountable reason we have not done that over the past three years. Do you suppose that Starmer's plan will change that strategy.
Starmer’s plan has nothing to do with my own opinion.
Exactly. Nor most anyone's on here. Same with Trump's. And Mandleson's.
The difference being they, yes even Trump in this instance, live in the real world not some internet chat room game of Risk-type fantasy land that you lot inhabit.
I suspect the agreement will involve giving up some of Ukraine’s territory, anything else just seems unrealistic at this point.
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
More of the same is the right thing to do.
The UK alone is richer than Russia.
The UK and Europe and other assorted allies are considerably wealthier than Russia. We can continue more of the same with or without America.
So what do we think Starmer's plan will be. Invasion of Russia or ceasefire somewhere along today's positions.
I mean I've only seen the highlights but surely Trump is simply taking a side in one of the oldest and most difficult dilemmas. What is worth giving up to stop the killing.
Why is dealing with that impossible question so reprehensible.
We see it in aid all the time (enable/support the tyrants to get food to the citizens..)
Yes, he’s decided that giving up Ukraine is worth it to stem the expense to the US. The democratically elected government of Ukraine - along with the opposition, judging by their public comments yesterday, disagree.
Chuck into the mix Europe’s future security, which the US has apparently decided is no longer a matter for them, then a polite no thanks is in order. No skin in the game, no say.
All that, of course, is predicated on Europe getting its shit together over the next few days and weeks.
I would like to see Europe get its shit together in the next 24 hours.
The billions the UK promised yesterday are a good start.
Lets show the Americans we can help defeat Russia with or without them - but if its without them, they don't get a say in what happens afterwards.
What jobs will guarantee exemption from being called up to fight in this proposed EU war against Russia? I'll get my lads writing their job applications out ASAP.
Who said anything about the EU? Or war with Russia?
Russia is a small country, it is smaller than Italy economically. It is not some mighty bear that we should be afraid of.
Ukraine is able to defeat Russia with our backing, we have no reason or need to go to war, just continue to support Ukraine.
Do you think what is happening now (what you want to continue with) is going to allow Ukraine to defeat Russia.
Eventually, yes.
And that is a legitimate view, if misguided in my mind. It means thousands more deaths of people that are not you or your family but so be it. Trump's is that he wants the killing to stop. With all the compromises that involves. Why is that view so reprehensible.
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
I think this probably needs a bit of an accompanying explainer?
Not for anyone who has been paying attention for the last decade
Well given that you seem to think that's what you've been doing, perhaps you will favour us with an explanation of how demographically challenged Russia, having achieved all its territorial ambitions, is going to slaughter 200,000+ innocents.
Historically, conquering armies have had little trouble in massacring civilians.
In Ukraine, we have detailed, criminal case grade evidence of murders, expulsions and kidnapping of children in the areas occupied by Russia. En masse.9
In addition, the original plans for the Russian invasion were captured. They included mass arrests of the political and intellectual classes, as part of a plan to eliminate the idea of Ukraine as a separate state to Russia, culturally.
So you need to explain why you think that the Russians would behave differently in any areas of the Ukraine they conquer from now, to the way they behaved (and planned to behave) in those they have conquered.
I can well believe that they plan to do all those horrible things. But none of them amount to killing hundreds of thousands, or anything like. That's why I asked for an explanation, and why I wasn't surprised not to get one.
May be we can work to the internationally accepted definition of “genocide” rather than the pretendy straw man made up by a Russian sympathising conspiracy theorist such as yourself?
Maybe you could actually READ you daft fuckwit - I was asking for John Lilburne's explanation of his supposition that hundreds of thousands would be killed if Ukraine surrendered. Genocide wasn't mentioned.
It was in the other post line to which you originally replied on. But of course truth doesn’t matter to you. Just your master’s bidding.
This conversation is showing you up to be a complete loon. I questioned a claim that Putin would slaughter hundreds of thousands post-"surrender". Now I am apparently twisting the meaning of genocide by using the frames of reference given in the original post?
As for 'my master's bidding' - I don't have a master, and that allows me to speak as I find. Perhaps you should think about who has benefitted you, and how that has informed your own viewpoint, because your above post reads like classic projection to me.
The original post that I replied to - and where you responded to me - talked about genocide and you responded with a straw man on 200,000+ deaths
I know that you have consistently parroted Russian propaganda lines from MH17 onward. But I forget you are a truth seeker who treats all statements by western governments with scepticism. And yet, somehow, you always end up sharing the same position as the Russians.
But you’re right. I’ve no evidence that you are paid by the Russians. May be you are just a fool instead.
Dear God, This was the post I replied to:
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
200,000+ is the minimum number that that comment could have been referring to. So it wasn't any kind of 'straw man' - it was a conservative summation of the statement I took issue with.
Did you read the Wikipedia article I posted? Or do you regard it as anti-Russian propaganda?
No, sorry, I was too busy defending myself from accusations of redefining genocide and making straw men for numbers that you had put forward. I can't see it in the thread, so if you wish to repost it, I'll read it.
Russians. It's what they do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes. Along with a prediction that what the Russians will do to Ukrainian intelligentsia if they win will look rather like Katyń
Sure. The streak of brutality that runs through Russian culture predates the Soviets - it even predates Peter the Great. I know that. I am not actually defending the invasion (I never have) or suggesting that Putin has "peaceful intentions". I took took issue with your statement because I see Russia killing 200,000 as a consequence of a ceasefire (or Ukrainian surrender as you put it) as extremely unlikely.
Russia can already (and does) kill people within the Ukrainian territory it holds. I see peace as making such killings less likely, due to such events not being camouflaged by the fog of war. I can certainly see opponents of Russia being targeted, but I would also imagine that they would be allowed to depart Russian-held territory as part of the peace deal (in exchange for those loyal to Russia being permitted to leave Ukrainian-held territory). So all in all, I see less Ukrainian people dying at the hands of Russia as a result of a peace deal, rather than more.
I can't share your optimism.
I think it's a fairly dispassionate analysis.
Indeed. Just wrong. The Russians will commit even more genocide in whatever part of Ukraine they occupy after peace is declared
"Even more genocide". Are there degrees in it now. You see what Hamas had done to you. Using their talking points you are now using the word as they want you to use it, as a variable phenomenon, rather than an absolute state.
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
A nuclear arsenal it cannot practically use.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
well you can alway go and fight yourself - or do you want others to do that? You run a lot dont you so must be fit enough- go on
Imagine if our grandparents had taken this approach in WW2 for fuck’s sake.
well go and fight then - nothing is stopping you . If you dont realsie the world is very different under MAD and comparing real politics to a war before nuclear weapons (clue look how it ended with one country with atomic bombs dropping on another without) then you are deluded
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
My position is (and always has been) that Ukraine are defending against an immoral invasion and it is their decision (and their decision only) whether they fight back.
Separately, it is also my position that we should support (with money and weapons at the very least) whatever decision Ukraine makes. Not purely for selfless moral reasons, but also because having the most battle hardened land army in Europe as an ally seems beneficial to me.
Get real. Ukraine wants us to bomb Russia and send the troops in but for some unaccountable reason we have not done that over the past three years. Do you suppose that Starmer's plan will change that strategy.
I don't think Ukraine has ever asked us to do those things
@TOPPING it is important to remember that when Russia commenced this stage of the war, even giving Ukraine arms was seen as too risky. Then giving them tanks was seen as too risky. Then giving them long range missiles was too risky. Then allowing them to be used within Russia was seen as too risky. Russia has cowered in view of its "red lines" at every single turn.
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
More of the same is the right thing to do.
The UK alone is richer than Russia.
The UK and Europe and other assorted allies are considerably wealthier than Russia. We can continue more of the same with or without America.
So what do we think Starmer's plan will be. Invasion of Russia or ceasefire somewhere along today's positions.
I mean I've only seen the highlights but surely Trump is simply taking a side in one of the oldest and most difficult dilemmas. What is worth giving up to stop the killing.
Why is dealing with that impossible question so reprehensible.
We see it in aid all the time (enable/support the tyrants to get food to the citizens..)
Yes, he’s decided that giving up Ukraine is worth it to stem the expense to the US. The democratically elected government of Ukraine - along with the opposition, judging by their public comments yesterday, disagree.
Chuck into the mix Europe’s future security, which the US has apparently decided is no longer a matter for them, then a polite no thanks is in order. No skin in the game, no say.
All that, of course, is predicated on Europe getting its shit together over the next few days and weeks.
I would like to see Europe get its shit together in the next 24 hours.
The billions the UK promised yesterday are a good start.
Lets show the Americans we can help defeat Russia with or without them - but if its without them, they don't get a say in what happens afterwards.
What jobs will guarantee exemption from being called up to fight in this proposed EU war against Russia? I'll get my lads writing their job applications out ASAP.
Who said anything about the EU? Or war with Russia?
Russia is a small country, it is smaller than Italy economically. It is not some mighty bear that we should be afraid of.
Ukraine is able to defeat Russia with our backing, we have no reason or need to go to war, just continue to support Ukraine.
Do you think what is happening now (what you want to continue with) is going to allow Ukraine to defeat Russia.
Eventually, yes.
And that is a legitimate view, if misguided in my mind. It means thousands more deaths of people that are not you or your family but so be it. Trump's is that he wants the killing to stop. With all the compromises that involves. Why is that view so reprehensible.
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
I think this probably needs a bit of an accompanying explainer?
Not for anyone who has been paying attention for the last decade
Well given that you seem to think that's what you've been doing, perhaps you will favour us with an explanation of how demographically challenged Russia, having achieved all its territorial ambitions, is going to slaughter 200,000+ innocents.
Historically, conquering armies have had little trouble in massacring civilians.
In Ukraine, we have detailed, criminal case grade evidence of murders, expulsions and kidnapping of children in the areas occupied by Russia. En masse.9
In addition, the original plans for the Russian invasion were captured. They included mass arrests of the political and intellectual classes, as part of a plan to eliminate the idea of Ukraine as a separate state to Russia, culturally.
So you need to explain why you think that the Russians would behave differently in any areas of the Ukraine they conquer from now, to the way they behaved (and planned to behave) in those they have conquered.
I can well believe that they plan to do all those horrible things. But none of them amount to killing hundreds of thousands, or anything like. That's why I asked for an explanation, and why I wasn't surprised not to get one.
May be we can work to the internationally accepted definition of “genocide” rather than the pretendy straw man made up by a Russian sympathising conspiracy theorist such as yourself?
Maybe you could actually READ you daft fuckwit - I was asking for John Lilburne's explanation of his supposition that hundreds of thousands would be killed if Ukraine surrendered. Genocide wasn't mentioned.
It was in the other post line to which you originally replied on. But of course truth doesn’t matter to you. Just your master’s bidding.
This conversation is showing you up to be a complete loon. I questioned a claim that Putin would slaughter hundreds of thousands post-"surrender". Now I am apparently twisting the meaning of genocide by using the frames of reference given in the original post?
As for 'my master's bidding' - I don't have a master, and that allows me to speak as I find. Perhaps you should think about who has benefitted you, and how that has informed your own viewpoint, because your above post reads like classic projection to me.
The original post that I replied to - and where you responded to me - talked about genocide and you responded with a straw man on 200,000+ deaths
I know that you have consistently parroted Russian propaganda lines from MH17 onward. But I forget you are a truth seeker who treats all statements by western governments with scepticism. And yet, somehow, you always end up sharing the same position as the Russians.
But you’re right. I’ve no evidence that you are paid by the Russians. May be you are just a fool instead.
Dear God, This was the post I replied to:
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
200,000+ is the minimum number that that comment could have been referring to. So it wasn't any kind of 'straw man' - it was a conservative summation of the statement I took issue with.
Did you read the Wikipedia article I posted? Or do you regard it as anti-Russian propaganda?
No, sorry, I was too busy defending myself from accusations of redefining genocide and making straw men for numbers that you had put forward. I can't see it in the thread, so if you wish to repost it, I'll read it.
Russians. It's what they do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes. Along with a prediction that what the Russians will do to Ukrainian intelligentsia if they win will look rather like Katyń
Sure. The streak of brutality that runs through Russian culture predates the Soviets - it even predates Peter the Great. I know that. I am not actually defending the invasion (I never have) or suggesting that Putin has "peaceful intentions". I took took issue with your statement because I see Russia killing 200,000 as a consequence of a ceasefire (or Ukrainian surrender as you put it) as extremely unlikely.
Russia can already (and does) kill people within the Ukrainian territory it holds. I see peace as making such killings less likely, due to such events not being camouflaged by the fog of war. I can certainly see opponents of Russia being targeted, but I would also imagine that they would be allowed to depart Russian-held territory as part of the peace deal (in exchange for those loyal to Russia being permitted to leave Ukrainian-held territory). So all in all, I see less Ukrainian people dying at the hands of Russia as a result of a peace deal, rather than more.
I can't share your optimism.
I think it's a fairly dispassionate analysis.
Indeed. Just wrong. The Russians will commit even more genocide in whatever part of Ukraine they occupy after peace is declared
"Even more genocide". Are there degrees in it now. You see what Hamas had done to you. Using their talking points you are now using the word as they want you to use it, as a variable phenomenon, rather than an absolute state.
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
A nuclear arsenal it cannot practically use.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
well you can alway go and fight yourself - or do you want others to do that?
There are already others willing to do it - the Ukrainians.
We just need to send them the materiel and support they need to finish the job.
oh come on there has been a stalemate for over a year (look at the maps ) - prolonging this is not going to lead to victory its just going to lead to more deaths - Stop being so deluded - I think we in the west hve go so used to gaining victory over the years that we think its our right - sometimes real situations occur where victory is not possible
@TOPPING it is important to remember that when Russia commenced this stage of the war, even giving Ukraine arms was seen as too risky. Then giving them tanks was seen as too risky. Then giving them long range missiles was too risky. Then allowing them to be used within Russia was seen as too risky. Russia has cowered in view of its "red lines" at every single turn.
So what do you suppose Starmer's plan will be.
Dunno. Does it matter? At the moment it feels like Europe is not prepared to police its own continent so realistically it will probably be what Donald Trump wants it to be. That doesn’t mean I have to support that approach.
Liz Cheney @Liz_Cheney Here is some truth: Putin invaded Ukraine. NATO is the most successful military alliance in history. Since 1945, American leadership has ensured freedom and security for ourselves and millions of others around the world. Together with our allies, we defeated the Soviet Union—an empire so evil it had to build gulags and walls to keep its own people in. Destroying America’s alliances and abandoning the cause of freedom is morally and strategically indefensible. Putin will pocket Trump’s naive concessions and demand much more. Appeasement makes a wider war more likely, not less.
@realDonaldTrump , @JDVance , and @elonmusk have made clear who they are. Only fools—or Kremlin tools—would abandon NATO, side with Russia, and demand Ukraine surrender in the face of Putin’s brutal aggression.
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
More of the same is the right thing to do.
The UK alone is richer than Russia.
The UK and Europe and other assorted allies are considerably wealthier than Russia. We can continue more of the same with or without America.
So what do we think Starmer's plan will be. Invasion of Russia or ceasefire somewhere along today's positions.
I mean I've only seen the highlights but surely Trump is simply taking a side in one of the oldest and most difficult dilemmas. What is worth giving up to stop the killing.
Why is dealing with that impossible question so reprehensible.
We see it in aid all the time (enable/support the tyrants to get food to the citizens..)
Yes, he’s decided that giving up Ukraine is worth it to stem the expense to the US. The democratically elected government of Ukraine - along with the opposition, judging by their public comments yesterday, disagree.
Chuck into the mix Europe’s future security, which the US has apparently decided is no longer a matter for them, then a polite no thanks is in order. No skin in the game, no say.
All that, of course, is predicated on Europe getting its shit together over the next few days and weeks.
I would like to see Europe get its shit together in the next 24 hours.
The billions the UK promised yesterday are a good start.
Lets show the Americans we can help defeat Russia with or without them - but if its without them, they don't get a say in what happens afterwards.
What jobs will guarantee exemption from being called up to fight in this proposed EU war against Russia? I'll get my lads writing their job applications out ASAP.
Who said anything about the EU? Or war with Russia?
Russia is a small country, it is smaller than Italy economically. It is not some mighty bear that we should be afraid of.
Ukraine is able to defeat Russia with our backing, we have no reason or need to go to war, just continue to support Ukraine.
Do you think what is happening now (what you want to continue with) is going to allow Ukraine to defeat Russia.
Eventually, yes.
And that is a legitimate view, if misguided in my mind. It means thousands more deaths of people that are not you or your family but so be it. Trump's is that he wants the killing to stop. With all the compromises that involves. Why is that view so reprehensible.
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
I think this probably needs a bit of an accompanying explainer?
Not for anyone who has been paying attention for the last decade
Well given that you seem to think that's what you've been doing, perhaps you will favour us with an explanation of how demographically challenged Russia, having achieved all its territorial ambitions, is going to slaughter 200,000+ innocents.
Historically, conquering armies have had little trouble in massacring civilians.
In Ukraine, we have detailed, criminal case grade evidence of murders, expulsions and kidnapping of children in the areas occupied by Russia. En masse.9
In addition, the original plans for the Russian invasion were captured. They included mass arrests of the political and intellectual classes, as part of a plan to eliminate the idea of Ukraine as a separate state to Russia, culturally.
So you need to explain why you think that the Russians would behave differently in any areas of the Ukraine they conquer from now, to the way they behaved (and planned to behave) in those they have conquered.
I can well believe that they plan to do all those horrible things. But none of them amount to killing hundreds of thousands, or anything like. That's why I asked for an explanation, and why I wasn't surprised not to get one.
May be we can work to the internationally accepted definition of “genocide” rather than the pretendy straw man made up by a Russian sympathising conspiracy theorist such as yourself?
Maybe you could actually READ you daft fuckwit - I was asking for John Lilburne's explanation of his supposition that hundreds of thousands would be killed if Ukraine surrendered. Genocide wasn't mentioned.
It was in the other post line to which you originally replied on. But of course truth doesn’t matter to you. Just your master’s bidding.
This conversation is showing you up to be a complete loon. I questioned a claim that Putin would slaughter hundreds of thousands post-"surrender". Now I am apparently twisting the meaning of genocide by using the frames of reference given in the original post?
As for 'my master's bidding' - I don't have a master, and that allows me to speak as I find. Perhaps you should think about who has benefitted you, and how that has informed your own viewpoint, because your above post reads like classic projection to me.
The original post that I replied to - and where you responded to me - talked about genocide and you responded with a straw man on 200,000+ deaths
I know that you have consistently parroted Russian propaganda lines from MH17 onward. But I forget you are a truth seeker who treats all statements by western governments with scepticism. And yet, somehow, you always end up sharing the same position as the Russians.
But you’re right. I’ve no evidence that you are paid by the Russians. May be you are just a fool instead.
Dear God, This was the post I replied to:
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
200,000+ is the minimum number that that comment could have been referring to. So it wasn't any kind of 'straw man' - it was a conservative summation of the statement I took issue with.
Did you read the Wikipedia article I posted? Or do you regard it as anti-Russian propaganda?
No, sorry, I was too busy defending myself from accusations of redefining genocide and making straw men for numbers that you had put forward. I can't see it in the thread, so if you wish to repost it, I'll read it.
Russians. It's what they do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes. Along with a prediction that what the Russians will do to Ukrainian intelligentsia if they win will look rather like Katyń
Sure. The streak of brutality that runs through Russian culture predates the Soviets - it even predates Peter the Great. I know that. I am not actually defending the invasion (I never have) or suggesting that Putin has "peaceful intentions". I took took issue with your statement because I see Russia killing 200,000 as a consequence of a ceasefire (or Ukrainian surrender as you put it) as extremely unlikely.
Russia can already (and does) kill people within the Ukrainian territory it holds. I see peace as making such killings less likely, due to such events not being camouflaged by the fog of war. I can certainly see opponents of Russia being targeted, but I would also imagine that they would be allowed to depart Russian-held territory as part of the peace deal (in exchange for those loyal to Russia being permitted to leave Ukrainian-held territory). So all in all, I see less Ukrainian people dying at the hands of Russia as a result of a peace deal, rather than more.
I can't share your optimism.
I think it's a fairly dispassionate analysis.
Indeed. Just wrong. The Russians will commit even more genocide in whatever part of Ukraine they occupy after peace is declared
"Even more genocide". Are there degrees in it now. You see what Hamas had done to you. Using their talking points you are now using the word as they want you to use it, as a variable phenomenon, rather than an absolute state.
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
A nuclear arsenal it cannot practically use.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
well you can alway go and fight yourself - or do you want others to do that?
There are already others willing to do it - the Ukrainians.
We just need to send them the materiel and support they need to finish the job.
oh come on there has been a stalemate for over a year (look at the maps ) - prolonging this is not going to lead to victory its just going to lead to more deaths - Stop being so deluded - I think we in the west hve go so used to gaining victory over the years that we think its our right - sometimes real situations occur where victory is not possible
There was a stalemate in both world wars for years, both still ended with a victor.
Russia is not a superpower, it is smaller than Italy. It is running out of men, money and materiel and occupying territory is a lot tougher for multiple reasons than fighting for your homeland.
Liz Cheney @Liz_Cheney Here is some truth: Putin invaded Ukraine. NATO is the most successful military alliance in history. Since 1945, American leadership has ensured freedom and security for ourselves and millions of others around the world. Together with our allies, we defeated the Soviet Union—an empire so evil it had to build gulags and walls to keep its own people in. Destroying America’s alliances and abandoning the cause of freedom is morally and strategically indefensible. Putin will pocket Trump’s naive concessions and demand much more. Appeasement makes a wider war more likely, not less.
@realDonaldTrump , @JDVance , and @elonmusk have made clear who they are. Only fools—or Kremlin tools—would abandon NATO, side with Russia, and demand Ukraine surrender in the face of Putin’s brutal aggression.
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
A nuclear arsenal it cannot practically use.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
well you can alway go and fight yourself - or do you want others to do that?
There are already others willing to do it - the Ukrainians.
We just need to send them the materiel and support they need to finish the job.
oh come on there has been a stalemate for over a year (look at the maps ) - prolonging this is not going to lead to victory its just going to lead to more deaths - Stop being so deluded - I think we in the west hve go so used to gaining victory over the years that we think its our right - sometimes real situations occur where victory is not possible
Whether or not too many Ukrainian sons have died is not a decision for us, or the West. It’s a decision for them. They are literally fighting for the survival of their country. I really hope that should Britain find itself in such a position, our allies are not making the same pathetic arguments as yours. Your arguments are straight out of the Putin propaganda book.
I do not think you can grind Russia into the dirt.
The Ukrainians already have, with a GDP per capita of 5000 USD.
We need to rid ourselves of this inferiority complex. If we increased our defence spending to only 4% of GDP our military spending would match Russia's. UK + Germany + France is already more than double that.
In PPP terms our spend is a lot lower. Russia has a significantly lower cost structure than we do and they also don't place the same value on human life as we do so are willing to throw the lives of their citizens away in a meat grinder. It's absolutely horrific but it makes their military much more effective than anything we can offer in Europe at much lower spend. We'd need 4% sustained in the UK, France, Poland and one of Germany or Italy to match their capability on the battlefield given our understandable lack of willingness to throw the lives of our soldiers away.
@TOPPING it is important to remember that when Russia commenced this stage of the war, even giving Ukraine arms was seen as too risky. Then giving them tanks was seen as too risky. Then giving them long range missiles was too risky. Then allowing them to be used within Russia was seen as too risky. Russia has cowered in view of its "red lines" at every single turn.
So what do you suppose Starmer's plan will be.
Dunno. Does it matter? At the moment it feels like Europe is not prepared to police its own continent so realistically it will probably be what Donald Trump wants it to be. That doesn’t mean I have to support that approach.
thats the lesson to learn though isn't it? My opinion doesnt matter , yours doesn't either because the decisions are made by those who have the most power (and might) and that is Trump atm - So if you want influence and power you need to work at it (ie not let our army dilute to the point of nothing over 40 years etc )
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
My position is (and always has been) that Ukraine are defending against an immoral invasion and it is their decision (and their decision only) whether they fight back.
Separately, it is also my position that we should support (with money and weapons at the very least) whatever decision Ukraine makes. Not purely for selfless moral reasons, but also because having the most battle hardened land army in Europe as an ally seems beneficial to me.
Get real. Ukraine wants us to bomb Russia and send the troops in but for some unaccountable reason we have not done that over the past three years. Do you suppose that Starmer's plan will change that strategy.
Starmer’s plan has nothing to do with my own opinion.
Exactly. Nor most anyone's on here. Same with Trump's. And Mandleson's.
The difference being they, yes even Trump in this instance, live in the real world not some internet chat room game of Risk-type fantasy land that you lot inhabit.
I think you are right. I'd be surprised if Mandelson has gone off the script. Starmer, France and all the European leaders seem to be clear to me. Support for Ukraine in the effort to get peace on decent terms - no less, but no more and only with US backing. Not ideal, but it is what it is.
I do not think you can grind Russia into the dirt.
The Ukrainians already have, with a GDP per capita of 5000 USD.
We need to rid ourselves of this inferiority complex. If we increased our defence spending to only 4% of GDP our military spending would match Russia's. UK + Germany + France is already more than double that.
In PPP terms our spend is a lot lower. Russia has a significantly lower cost structure than we do and they also don't place the same value on human life as we do so are willing to throw the lives of their citizens away in a meat grinder. It's absolutely horrific but it makes their military much more effective than anything we can offer in Europe at much lower spend. We'd need 4% sustained in the UK, France, Poland and one of Germany or Italy to match their capability on the battlefield given our understandable lack of willingness to throw the lives of our soldiers away.
Ukraine is already matching their capability on the battlefield and bleeding them dry.
We just need to continue to do the same. There's only so much rope a dope until Russia collapses from running out of forces, material or money - and its already needing to scrape the barrel on all three fronts.
I do not think you can grind Russia into the dirt.
The Ukrainians already have, with a GDP per capita of 5000 USD.
We need to rid ourselves of this inferiority complex. If we increased our defence spending to only 4% of GDP our military spending would match Russia's. UK + Germany + France is already more than double that.
In PPP terms our spend is a lot lower. Russia has a significantly lower cost structure than we do and they also don't place the same value on human life as we do so are willing to throw the lives of their citizens away in a meat grinder. It's absolutely horrific but it makes their military much more effective than anything we can offer in Europe at much lower spend. We'd need 4% sustained in the UK, France, Poland and one of Germany or Italy to match their capability on the battlefield given our understandable lack of willingness to throw the lives of our soldiers away.
It means they can make more basic shells and drones and field more (foreign, not Muscovite) soldiers. But effectiveness is more questionable. Even with Russian drone improvements you’re still looking at several multiples in the attrition ratios between Ukraine and Russia.
Seems to me that Europe should invest equally in dumb volume and smart technology, rather than one or other.
The “coalition of the willing” seems as though it will be announced by some of the countries concerned next week.
…We will go further develop a coalition of the willing to defend a deal in Ukraine and to guarantee the peace. Not every nation will feel able to contribute, but that can’t mean that we sit back. Instead, those willing will intensify planning now with real urgency. The UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air, together with others…
What Starmer seems to be trying for is a deal which keeps the US on board, and satisfies Ukraine’s ongoing security concerns. A ceasefire is certainly possible (with, I expect, Ukraine maintaining its claim on the occupied regions).
Trump will probably be bribed with the mineral contracts to back it. Whether Putin accepts it - because it will inevitably and necessarily involve European troops and aircraft inUkraine - is open to question.
In any event, Zelensky is not without cards, as Trump believed on Friday.
So Minsk III, but with Ukraine de facto, though not de jure a member of European NATO.
One thing I confidently predict is that (if it happens) it won’t be anywhere near as durable as the Korean armistice.
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
A nuclear arsenal it cannot practically use.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
well you can alway go and fight yourself - or do you want others to do that?
There are already others willing to do it - the Ukrainians.
We just need to send them the materiel and support they need to finish the job.
oh come on there has been a stalemate for over a year (look at the maps ) - prolonging this is not going to lead to victory its just going to lead to more deaths - Stop being so deluded - I think we in the west hve go so used to gaining victory over the years that we think its our right - sometimes real situations occur where victory is not possible
If you are being invaded, then a stalemate is a step in the right direction, ie the enemy is no longer advancing. (And let's not forget that Ukraine has thrown back the Russians from Kyiv, Kherson and Kharkiv, not to mention the amusing incursion into Kursk)
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
A nuclear arsenal it cannot practically use.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
well you can alway go and fight yourself - or do you want others to do that?
There are already others willing to do it - the Ukrainians.
We just need to send them the materiel and support they need to finish the job.
oh come on there has been a stalemate for over a year (look at the maps ) - prolonging this is not going to lead to victory its just going to lead to more deaths - Stop being so deluded - I think we in the west hve go so used to gaining victory over the years that we think its our right - sometimes real situations occur where victory is not possible
Whether or not too many Ukrainian sons have died is not a decision for us, or the West. It’s a decision for them. They are literally fighting for the survival of their country. I really hope that should Britain find itself in such a position, our allies are not making the same pathetic arguments as yours. Your arguments are straight out of the Putin propaganda book.
And it certainly shouldn’t be Russia making that decision. Russia could stop the pointless deaths tomorrow by simply packing up and going home.
I do not think you can grind Russia into the dirt.
The Ukrainians already have, with a GDP per capita of 5000 USD.
We need to rid ourselves of this inferiority complex. If we increased our defence spending to only 4% of GDP our military spending would match Russia's. UK + Germany + France is already more than double that.
In PPP terms our spend is a lot lower. Russia has a significantly lower cost structure than we do and they also don't place the same value on human life as we do so are willing to throw the lives of their citizens away in a meat grinder. It's absolutely horrific but it makes their military much more effective than anything we can offer in Europe at much lower spend. We'd need 4% sustained in the UK, France, Poland and one of Germany or Italy to match their capability on the battlefield given our understandable lack of willingness to throw the lives of our soldiers away.
This still assumes we would ever use it. I think a far more effective use of the money would be to buy lots of UK kit for Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Ukraine, while we focus on North Sea cables, energy security and an independent Trident.
Eminence grise Mandleson is showing once again his mastery of shitspeaking. Pity that the Oxford MAs saw through him and installed the straight speaking Yorksire tyke instead. His bons mots words could have stayed where they dropped at high table.
I do not think you can grind Russia into the dirt.
The Ukrainians already have, with a GDP per capita of 5000 USD.
We need to rid ourselves of this inferiority complex. If we increased our defence spending to only 4% of GDP our military spending would match Russia's. UK + Germany + France is already more than double that.
In PPP terms our spend is a lot lower. Russia has a significantly lower cost structure than we do and they also don't place the same value on human life as we do so are willing to throw the lives of their citizens away in a meat grinder. It's absolutely horrific but it makes their military much more effective than anything we can offer in Europe at much lower spend. We'd need 4% sustained in the UK, France, Poland and one of Germany or Italy to match their capability on the battlefield given our understandable lack of willingness to throw the lives of our soldiers away.
Ukraine is already matching their capability on the battlefield and bleeding them dry.
We just need to continue to do the same. There's only so much rope a dope until Russia collapses from running out of forces, material or money - and its already needing to scrape the barrel on all three fronts.
Ukraine are matching them because of $300bn worth of military aid, that's not a small amount of money.
I think we need to be realistic about it and realise that Putin's willingness to throw human lives away does make for an effective military the likes of which we won't have or will have to find another method to achieve. Even their drone taskforce is absolutely mental, they literally use Norks and Chechens as human bait for drones, wait for them to fire to locate them and then use RPGs to take them out. It's barbaric but the kind of warfare we would never use.
I do not think you can grind Russia into the dirt.
The Ukrainians already have, with a GDP per capita of 5000 USD.
We need to rid ourselves of this inferiority complex. If we increased our defence spending to only 4% of GDP our military spending would match Russia's. UK + Germany + France is already more than double that.
In PPP terms our spend is a lot lower. Russia has a significantly lower cost structure than we do and they also don't place the same value on human life as we do so are willing to throw the lives of their citizens away in a meat grinder. It's absolutely horrific but it makes their military much more effective than anything we can offer in Europe at much lower spend. We'd need 4% sustained in the UK, France, Poland and one of Germany or Italy to match their capability on the battlefield given our understandable lack of willingness to throw the lives of our soldiers away.
“Effective” isn’t the word I would choose, but you are right that fighting a war the way we would want to is considerably more expensive than the way Russia is going about it. Russia never needed a top class economy to fight a war, so long as it had millions of peasants forced to do as they are ordered.
A significant problem we would have in expanding our armed forces is overcoming the reluctance to sign up; all the forces struggle to recruit to even the current meagre levels, as here:
Anyone read this ? t looks rather good. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Horsepower-Race-Western-Development/dp/1911658506 Calum Douglas, 40, is a professional mechanical engineer and aviation historian. He accidentally became a writer after discovering that many of the technologies of the Formula-One motor racing engines he was involved with had in fact been concieved in the Second World War...
I have, and found it very interesting if - as it should rightly be - quite technical at times. But others on PB are more informed than I am. I think it was @Malmesbury who recommended it in the first place on here some years back (hence my reading it).
Edit: or am I confusing his recommendation with another book?
I bought a copy and found it stuffed full of interesting information, much of it technical, which I liked, but it was rather disjointed and needs a good edit tbh.
Some of the primary source stuff makes it very worthwhile. The German headship on chromium shortages for valves, the incredulity of Farnborough at the performance curves for a hypothetical P-51 with a Merlin (cruise speed especially)
Yes, yes. Could you not discuss books!? I buy and read all of these many great recommendations. I have a finite amount of space though. Please God invent the infinite bookshelf! I guess Amazon and others did, but it's not the same.
There is such a thing as an infinite bookshelf. It's called a "library"
When was the last time you went to a good library?
The grand libraries have always mostly been book-stores, and the idea of a library which might have once been true as to a resource of wisdom is gone.
Well I applied for a British Library readers card some years ago but then COVID and da fuck up happened. My local library used to do interlibrary loans but stopped, so I went to a nearby city and registered there. Also because I spend three days a week in an alternate location I can register with the libraries there. All sorts of paywalls come down if you a registered with a library.
As for libraries I visit my local once a week. I think I have made that plain given my remarks over the years. I have two out at the moment.
Eminence grise Mandleson is showing once again his mastery of shitspeaking. Pity that the Oxford MAs saw through him and installed the straight speaking Yorksire tyke instead. His bons mots words could have stayed where they dropped at high table.
Mandelson in Dump management and Hague representing our overseas interests seems a better solution than the current one to me.
Anyone read this ? t looks rather good. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Horsepower-Race-Western-Development/dp/1911658506 Calum Douglas, 40, is a professional mechanical engineer and aviation historian. He accidentally became a writer after discovering that many of the technologies of the Formula-One motor racing engines he was involved with had in fact been concieved in the Second World War...
I have, and found it very interesting if - as it should rightly be - quite technical at times. But others on PB are more informed than I am. I think it was @Malmesbury who recommended it in the first place on here some years back (hence my reading it).
Edit: or am I confusing his recommendation with another book?
I bought a copy and found it stuffed full of interesting information, much of it technical, which I liked, but it was rather disjointed and needs a good edit tbh.
Some of the primary source stuff makes it very worthwhile. The German headship on chromium shortages for valves, the incredulity of Farnborough at the performance curves for a hypothetical P-51 with a Merlin (cruise speed especially)
Yes, yes. Could you not discuss books!? I buy and read all of these many great recommendations. I have a finite amount of space though. Please God invent the infinite bookshelf! I guess Amazon and others did, but it's not the same.
There is such a thing as an infinite bookshelf. It's called a "library"
When was the last time you went to a good library?
The grand libraries have always mostly been book-stores, and the idea of a library which might have once been true as to a resource of wisdom is gone.
Well I applied for a British Library readers card some years ago but then COVID and da fuck up happened. My local library used to do interlibrary loans but stopped, so I went to a nearby city and registered there. Also because I spend three days a week in an alternate location I can register with the libraries there. All sorts of paywalls come down if you a registered with a library.
As for libraries I visit my local once a week. I think I have made that plain given my remarks over the years. I have two out at the moment.
The “coalition of the willing” seems as though it will be announced by some of the countries concerned next week.
…We will go further develop a coalition of the willing to defend a deal in Ukraine and to guarantee the peace. Not every nation will feel able to contribute, but that can’t mean that we sit back. Instead, those willing will intensify planning now with real urgency. The UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air, together with others…
What Starmer seems to be trying for is a deal which keeps the US on board, and satisfies Ukraine’s ongoing security concerns. A ceasefire is certainly possible (with, I expect, Ukraine maintaining its claim on the occupied regions).
Trump will probably be bribed with the mineral contracts to back it. Whether Putin accepts it - because it will inevitably and necessarily involve European troops and aircraft inUkraine - is open to question.
In any event, Zelensky is not without cards, as Trump believed on Friday.
So Minsk III, but with Ukraine de facto, though not de jure a member of European NATO.
One thing I confidently predict is that (if it happens) it won’t be anywhere near as durable as the Korean armistice.
A 50 mile DMZ with a shit ton of landmines will do it. Part of me wishes Ukraine has done this in 2014 and damned the international condemnation that would have followed.
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
More of the same is the right thing to do.
The UK alone is richer than Russia.
The UK and Europe and other assorted allies are considerably wealthier than Russia. We can continue more of the same with or without America.
So what do we think Starmer's plan will be. Invasion of Russia or ceasefire somewhere along today's positions.
I mean I've only seen the highlights but surely Trump is simply taking a side in one of the oldest and most difficult dilemmas. What is worth giving up to stop the killing.
Why is dealing with that impossible question so reprehensible.
We see it in aid all the time (enable/support the tyrants to get food to the citizens..)
Yes, he’s decided that giving up Ukraine is worth it to stem the expense to the US. The democratically elected government of Ukraine - along with the opposition, judging by their public comments yesterday, disagree.
Chuck into the mix Europe’s future security, which the US has apparently decided is no longer a matter for them, then a polite no thanks is in order. No skin in the game, no say.
All that, of course, is predicated on Europe getting its shit together over the next few days and weeks.
I would like to see Europe get its shit together in the next 24 hours.
The billions the UK promised yesterday are a good start.
Lets show the Americans we can help defeat Russia with or without them - but if its without them, they don't get a say in what happens afterwards.
What jobs will guarantee exemption from being called up to fight in this proposed EU war against Russia? I'll get my lads writing their job applications out ASAP.
Who said anything about the EU? Or war with Russia?
Russia is a small country, it is smaller than Italy economically. It is not some mighty bear that we should be afraid of.
Ukraine is able to defeat Russia with our backing, we have no reason or need to go to war, just continue to support Ukraine.
Do you think what is happening now (what you want to continue with) is going to allow Ukraine to defeat Russia.
Eventually, yes.
And that is a legitimate view, if misguided in my mind. It means thousands more deaths of people that are not you or your family but so be it. Trump's is that he wants the killing to stop. With all the compromises that involves. Why is that view so reprehensible.
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
I think this probably needs a bit of an accompanying explainer?
Not for anyone who has been paying attention for the last decade
Well given that you seem to think that's what you've been doing, perhaps you will favour us with an explanation of how demographically challenged Russia, having achieved all its territorial ambitions, is going to slaughter 200,000+ innocents.
Historically, conquering armies have had little trouble in massacring civilians.
In Ukraine, we have detailed, criminal case grade evidence of murders, expulsions and kidnapping of children in the areas occupied by Russia. En masse.9
In addition, the original plans for the Russian invasion were captured. They included mass arrests of the political and intellectual classes, as part of a plan to eliminate the idea of Ukraine as a separate state to Russia, culturally.
So you need to explain why you think that the Russians would behave differently in any areas of the Ukraine they conquer from now, to the way they behaved (and planned to behave) in those they have conquered.
I can well believe that they plan to do all those horrible things. But none of them amount to killing hundreds of thousands, or anything like. That's why I asked for an explanation, and why I wasn't surprised not to get one.
May be we can work to the internationally accepted definition of “genocide” rather than the pretendy straw man made up by a Russian sympathising conspiracy theorist such as yourself?
Maybe you could actually READ you daft fuckwit - I was asking for John Lilburne's explanation of his supposition that hundreds of thousands would be killed if Ukraine surrendered. Genocide wasn't mentioned.
It was in the other post line to which you originally replied on. But of course truth doesn’t matter to you. Just your master’s bidding.
This conversation is showing you up to be a complete loon. I questioned a claim that Putin would slaughter hundreds of thousands post-"surrender". Now I am apparently twisting the meaning of genocide by using the frames of reference given in the original post?
As for 'my master's bidding' - I don't have a master, and that allows me to speak as I find. Perhaps you should think about who has benefitted you, and how that has informed your own viewpoint, because your above post reads like classic projection to me.
The original post that I replied to - and where you responded to me - talked about genocide and you responded with a straw man on 200,000+ deaths
I know that you have consistently parroted Russian propaganda lines from MH17 onward. But I forget you are a truth seeker who treats all statements by western governments with scepticism. And yet, somehow, you always end up sharing the same position as the Russians.
But you’re right. I’ve no evidence that you are paid by the Russians. May be you are just a fool instead.
Dear God, This was the post I replied to:
Trump doesn't want the killing to stop. He wants Ukraine to surrender, after which hundreds of thousands will be killed by Russia. Stopping the war doesn't bring peace, it enables genocide.
200,000+ is the minimum number that that comment could have been referring to. So it wasn't any kind of 'straw man' - it was a conservative summation of the statement I took issue with.
Did you read the Wikipedia article I posted? Or do you regard it as anti-Russian propaganda?
No, sorry, I was too busy defending myself from accusations of redefining genocide and making straw men for numbers that you had put forward. I can't see it in the thread, so if you wish to repost it, I'll read it.
Russians. It's what they do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes. Along with a prediction that what the Russians will do to Ukrainian intelligentsia if they win will look rather like Katyń
Sure. The streak of brutality that runs through Russian culture predates the Soviets - it even predates Peter the Great. I know that. I am not actually defending the invasion (I never have) or suggesting that Putin has "peaceful intentions". I took took issue with your statement because I see Russia killing 200,000 as a consequence of a ceasefire (or Ukrainian surrender as you put it) as extremely unlikely.
Russia can already (and does) kill people within the Ukrainian territory it holds. I see peace as making such killings less likely, due to such events not being camouflaged by the fog of war. I can certainly see opponents of Russia being targeted, but I would also imagine that they would be allowed to depart Russian-held territory as part of the peace deal (in exchange for those loyal to Russia being permitted to leave Ukrainian-held territory). So all in all, I see less Ukrainian people dying at the hands of Russia as a result of a peace deal, rather than more.
I can't share your optimism.
I think it's a fairly dispassionate analysis.
Indeed. Just wrong. The Russians will commit even more genocide in whatever part of Ukraine they occupy after peace is declared
"Even more genocide". Are there degrees in it now. You see what Hamas had done to you. Using their talking points you are now using the word as they want you to use it, as a variable phenomenon, rather than an absolute state.
The Russian military committed large scale war crimes as part of their invasion. They will undoubtedly commit more if they advance further.
They have committed such war crimes in Chechnya, Syria and Ukraine. It’s what they do.
Anyone read this ? t looks rather good. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Horsepower-Race-Western-Development/dp/1911658506 Calum Douglas, 40, is a professional mechanical engineer and aviation historian. He accidentally became a writer after discovering that many of the technologies of the Formula-One motor racing engines he was involved with had in fact been concieved in the Second World War...
I have, and found it very interesting if - as it should rightly be - quite technical at times. But others on PB are more informed than I am. I think it was @Malmesbury who recommended it in the first place on here some years back (hence my reading it).
Edit: or am I confusing his recommendation with another book?
I bought a copy and found it stuffed full of interesting information, much of it technical, which I liked, but it was rather disjointed and needs a good edit tbh.
Some of the primary source stuff makes it very worthwhile. The German headship on chromium shortages for valves, the incredulity of Farnborough at the performance curves for a hypothetical P-51 with a Merlin (cruise speed especially)
Yes, yes. Could you not discuss books!? I buy and read all of these many great recommendations. I have a finite amount of space though. Please God invent the infinite bookshelf! I guess Amazon and others did, but it's not the same.
There is such a thing as an infinite bookshelf. It's called a "library"
When was the last time you went to a good library?
The grand libraries have always mostly been book-stores, and the idea of a library which might have once been true as to a resource of wisdom is gone.
Well I applied for a British Library readers card some years ago but then COVID and da fuck up happened. My local library used to do interlibrary loans but stopped, so I went to a nearby city and registered there. Also because I spend three days a week in an alternate location I can register with the libraries there. All sorts of paywalls come down if you a registered with a library.
As for libraries I visit my local once a week. I think I have made that plain given my remarks over the years. I have two out at the moment.
Two books, or two libraries?
With local government cuts, one book per library might be the average soon.
Eminence grise Mandleson is showing once again his mastery of shitspeaking. Pity that the Oxford MAs saw through him and installed the straight speaking Yorksire tyke instead. His bons mots words could have stayed where they dropped at high table.
His interview is even being tweeted out by the White House.
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
A nuclear arsenal it cannot practically use.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
well you can alway go and fight yourself - or do you want others to do that?
There are already others willing to do it - the Ukrainians.
We just need to send them the materiel and support they need to finish the job.
oh come on there has been a stalemate for over a year (look at the maps ) - prolonging this is not going to lead to victory its just going to lead to more deaths - Stop being so deluded - I think we in the west hve go so used to gaining victory over the years that we think its our right - sometimes real situations occur where victory is not possible
More Russian deaths are a good thing.
Doubtless someone will get upset at me for saying this but aren't we supposed to think now in realpolitik rather than moral terms.
I do not think you can grind Russia into the dirt.
The Ukrainians already have, with a GDP per capita of 5000 USD.
We need to rid ourselves of this inferiority complex. If we increased our defence spending to only 4% of GDP our military spending would match Russia's. UK + Germany + France is already more than double that.
In PPP terms our spend is a lot lower. Russia has a significantly lower cost structure than we do and they also don't place the same value on human life as we do so are willing to throw the lives of their citizens away in a meat grinder. It's absolutely horrific but it makes their military much more effective than anything we can offer in Europe at much lower spend. We'd need 4% sustained in the UK, France, Poland and one of Germany or Italy to match their capability on the battlefield given our understandable lack of willingness to throw the lives of our soldiers away.
“Effective” isn’t the word I would choose, but you are right that fighting a war the way we would want to is considerably more expensive than the way Russia is going about it. Russia never needed a top class economy to fight a war, so long as it had millions of peasants forced to do as they are ordered.
The problem is Russia doesn't have multiples more population than Ukraine, which is what is needed even just for an occupation let alone its attrition deficit.
People overestimate how big Russia is and underestimate how big Ukraine is. 3x multiple is not enough to justify the meat waves we're seeing, which is why they've already resorted in desperation to prisons and N Korea etc.
Putin is putting on a brave face, but he's desperate. We know it, Zelensky knows it, everyone barring Trump knows it - or if he is a Russian agent then possibly Trump does know it too which is why he's so desperate to end the war now.
Eminence grise Mandleson is showing once again his mastery of shitspeaking. Pity that the Oxford MAs saw through him and installed the straight speaking Yorksire tyke instead. His bons mots words could have stayed where they dropped at high table.
His interview is even being tweeted out by the White House.
I do not think you can grind Russia into the dirt.
The Ukrainians already have, with a GDP per capita of 5000 USD.
We need to rid ourselves of this inferiority complex. If we increased our defence spending to only 4% of GDP our military spending would match Russia's. UK + Germany + France is already more than double that.
In PPP terms our spend is a lot lower. Russia has a significantly lower cost structure than we do and they also don't place the same value on human life as we do so are willing to throw the lives of their citizens away in a meat grinder. It's absolutely horrific but it makes their military much more effective than anything we can offer in Europe at much lower spend. We'd need 4% sustained in the UK, France, Poland and one of Germany or Italy to match their capability on the battlefield given our understandable lack of willingness to throw the lives of our soldiers away.
Ukraine is already matching their capability on the battlefield and bleeding them dry.
We just need to continue to do the same. There's only so much rope a dope until Russia collapses from running out of forces, material or money - and its already needing to scrape the barrel on all three fronts.
Ukraine are matching them because of $300bn worth of military aid, that's not a small amount of money.
I think we need to be realistic about it and realise that Putin's willingness to throw human lives away does make for an effective military the likes of which we won't have or will have to find another method to achieve. Even their drone taskforce is absolutely mental, they literally use Norks and Chechens as human bait for drones, wait for them to fire to locate them and then use RPGs to take them out. It's barbaric but the kind of warfare we would never use.
Yes he's willing to throw away lives, and money, and materiel.
But he doesn't have an infinite supply to throw away.
Russia only has 3x Ukraine's population, not magnitudes more. Keep throwing away lives and there's no-one left to fight on when you run out. Ditto money and materiel.
The “coalition of the willing” seems as though it will be announced by some of the countries concerned next week.
…We will go further develop a coalition of the willing to defend a deal in Ukraine and to guarantee the peace. Not every nation will feel able to contribute, but that can’t mean that we sit back. Instead, those willing will intensify planning now with real urgency. The UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air, together with others…
What Starmer seems to be trying for is a deal which keeps the US on board, and satisfies Ukraine’s ongoing security concerns. A ceasefire is certainly possible (with, I expect, Ukraine maintaining its claim on the occupied regions).
Trump will probably be bribed with the mineral contracts to back it. Whether Putin accepts it - because it will inevitably and necessarily involve European troops and aircraft inUkraine - is open to question.
In any event, Zelensky is not without cards, as Trump believed on Friday.
So Minsk III, but with Ukraine de facto, though not de jure a member of European NATO.
One thing I confidently predict is that (if it happens) it won’t be anywhere near as durable as the Korean armistice.
The problem with the Trumpian world view is that he really wanted two things- for America to still be Top Nation (with all the attendant respect) and for the rest of NATO/whoever to pay for that status.
Trouble is, you can have one or the other, but not both. The net effect of the last few days is that America might be allowed to follow, but its leadership claim looks very wobbly.
The worst bit of business Trump has done since... the last terrible bit of business Trump did.
Trump is indifferent to the outcome of the war. His "deal" will work with Russia controlling the territory just as well as Ukraine. In fact Russia would likely be better for him.
The “coalition of the willing” seems as though it will be announced by some of the countries concerned next week.
…We will go further develop a coalition of the willing to defend a deal in Ukraine and to guarantee the peace. Not every nation will feel able to contribute, but that can’t mean that we sit back. Instead, those willing will intensify planning now with real urgency. The UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air, together with others…
What Starmer seems to be trying for is a deal which keeps the US on board, and satisfies Ukraine’s ongoing security concerns. A ceasefire is certainly possible (with, I expect, Ukraine maintaining its claim on the occupied regions).
Trump will probably be bribed with the mineral contracts to back it. Whether Putin accepts it - because it will inevitably and necessarily involve European troops and aircraft inUkraine - is open to question.
In any event, Zelensky is not without cards, as Trump believed on Friday.
So Minsk III, but with Ukraine de facto, though not de jure a member of European NATO.
One thing I confidently predict is that (if it happens) it won’t be anywhere near as durable as the Korean armistice.
The problem with the Trumpian world view is that he really wanted two things- for America to still be Top Nation (with all the attendant respect) and for the rest of NATO/whoever to pay for that status.
Trouble is, you can have one or the other, but not both. The net effect of the last few days is that America might be allowed to follow, but its leadership claim looks very wobbly.
The worst bit of business Trump has done since... the last terrible bit of business Trump did.
Very true. America is on the slide, in relative terms at least, and Trumpism is part of the reaction.
I do not think you can grind Russia into the dirt.
The Ukrainians already have, with a GDP per capita of 5000 USD.
We need to rid ourselves of this inferiority complex. If we increased our defence spending to only 4% of GDP our military spending would match Russia's. UK + Germany + France is already more than double that.
In PPP terms our spend is a lot lower. Russia has a significantly lower cost structure than we do and they also don't place the same value on human life as we do so are willing to throw the lives of their citizens away in a meat grinder. It's absolutely horrific but it makes their military much more effective than anything we can offer in Europe at much lower spend. We'd need 4% sustained in the UK, France, Poland and one of Germany or Italy to match their capability on the battlefield given our understandable lack of willingness to throw the lives of our soldiers away.
“Effective” isn’t the word I would choose, but you are right that fighting a war the way we would want to is considerably more expensive than the way Russia is going about it. Russia never needed a top class economy to fight a war, so long as it had millions of peasants forced to do as they are ordered.
A significant problem we would have in expanding our armed forces is overcoming the reluctance to sign up; all the forces struggle to recruit to even the current meagre levels, as here:
The “coalition of the willing” seems as though it will be announced by some of the countries concerned next week.
…We will go further develop a coalition of the willing to defend a deal in Ukraine and to guarantee the peace. Not every nation will feel able to contribute, but that can’t mean that we sit back. Instead, those willing will intensify planning now with real urgency. The UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air, together with others…
What Starmer seems to be trying for is a deal which keeps the US on board, and satisfies Ukraine’s ongoing security concerns. A ceasefire is certainly possible (with, I expect, Ukraine maintaining its claim on the occupied regions).
Trump will probably be bribed with the mineral contracts to back it. Whether Putin accepts it - because it will inevitably and necessarily involve European troops and aircraft inUkraine - is open to question.
In any event, Zelensky is not without cards, as Trump believed on Friday.
So Minsk III, but with Ukraine de facto, though not de jure a member of European NATO.
One thing I confidently predict is that (if it happens) it won’t be anywhere near as durable as the Korean armistice.
The problem with the Trumpian world view is that he really wanted two things- for America to still be Top Nation (with all the attendant respect) and for the rest of NATO/whoever to pay for that status.
Trouble is, you can have one or the other, but not both. The net effect of the last few days is that America might be allowed to follow, but its leadership claim looks very wobbly.
The worst bit of business Trump has done since... the last terrible bit of business Trump did.
Yes, but it’s clear European leaders have decided, for now at the very least, that they’re not ready to go it alone. So he must be appeased.
But the reliability of the US as an ally and NATO member, is at a postwar low. And every western nation will be making plans accordingly.
And that means Trump cannot dictate the terms of any settlement, as he’s thrown away half his cards.
Anyone read this ? t looks rather good. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Horsepower-Race-Western-Development/dp/1911658506 Calum Douglas, 40, is a professional mechanical engineer and aviation historian. He accidentally became a writer after discovering that many of the technologies of the Formula-One motor racing engines he was involved with had in fact been concieved in the Second World War...
I have, and found it very interesting if - as it should rightly be - quite technical at times. But others on PB are more informed than I am. I think it was @Malmesbury who recommended it in the first place on here some years back (hence my reading it).
Edit: or am I confusing his recommendation with another book?
I bought a copy and found it stuffed full of interesting information, much of it technical, which I liked, but it was rather disjointed and needs a good edit tbh.
Some of the primary source stuff makes it very worthwhile. The German headship on chromium shortages for valves, the incredulity of Farnborough at the performance curves for a hypothetical P-51 with a Merlin (cruise speed especially)
Yes, yes. Could you not discuss books!? I buy and read all of these many great recommendations. I have a finite amount of space though. Please God invent the infinite bookshelf! I guess Amazon and others did, but it's not the same.
There is such a thing as an infinite bookshelf. It's called a "library"
When was the last time you went to a good library?
The grand libraries have always mostly been book-stores, and the idea of a library which might have once been true as to a resource of wisdom is gone.
Well I applied for a British Library readers card some years ago but then COVID and da fuck up happened. My local library used to do interlibrary loans but stopped, so I went to a nearby city and registered there. Also because I spend three days a week in an alternate location I can register with the libraries there. All sorts of paywalls come down if you a registered with a library.
As for libraries I visit my local once a week. I think I have made that plain given my remarks over the years. I have two out at the moment.
Two books, or two libraries?
Currently: two books from one library. I have multiple library cards for multiple libraries, of which at least three are current. But logistics usually means just one library. If I am engaged in a research thing for which more arcane books are required, then I use other libraries.
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
A nuclear arsenal it cannot practically use.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
well you can alway go and fight yourself - or do you want others to do that? You run a lot dont you so must be fit enough- go on
It's always interesting to consider how you would react if you found yourself a citizen of a country that had been invaded by a fascist state - like France in 1940.
Many people like to think they would be a member of the resistance; heroically fighting the enemy. Most people thinking that are deluded. An alternative is someone just trying to get on with life, minding their own business. Then there are those who would willingly collaborate, and even those who would willingly help and join the occupier.
Which would you do? Given your attitude on here, I guess you would not be a heroic member of the resistance. A collaborator, perhaps?
Dear @Keir_Starmer, dear @EmmanuelMacron, thank you for your leadership to bring a lasting and just peace to #Ukraine. Your efforts are key to build bridges across the Atlantic. We have to remain united in our goal to end Russia’s war of aggression. (FM)
The “coalition of the willing” seems as though it will be announced by some of the countries concerned next week.
…We will go further develop a coalition of the willing to defend a deal in Ukraine and to guarantee the peace. Not every nation will feel able to contribute, but that can’t mean that we sit back. Instead, those willing will intensify planning now with real urgency. The UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air, together with others…
What Starmer seems to be trying for is a deal which keeps the US on board, and satisfies Ukraine’s ongoing security concerns. A ceasefire is certainly possible (with, I expect, Ukraine maintaining its claim on the occupied regions).
Trump will probably be bribed with the mineral contracts to back it. Whether Putin accepts it - because it will inevitably and necessarily involve European troops and aircraft inUkraine - is open to question.
In any event, Zelensky is not without cards, as Trump believed on Friday.
So Minsk III, but with Ukraine de facto, though not de jure a member of European NATO.
One thing I confidently predict is that (if it happens) it won’t be anywhere near as durable as the Korean armistice.
The problem with the Trumpian world view is that he really wanted two things- for America to still be Top Nation (with all the attendant respect) and for the rest of NATO/whoever to pay for that status.
Trouble is, you can have one or the other, but not both. The net effect of the last few days is that America might be allowed to follow, but its leadership claim looks very wobbly.
The worst bit of business Trump has done since... the last terrible bit of business Trump did.
I suspect the Americans are about to discover that the world that emerges once Europe and other democracies decide they can no longer trust American guarantees and allyship is one that will be a rude awakening.
Sod those WASPI women, it is surely the United faithful that need some compensation and consideration for unexpected and brutal disappointments. £20k a head seems light for the trauma we have had to endure. This is beyond depressing and I am getting beyond depressed. Help.
It could be worse - my EA’s partner just got sacked from MK Dons
Presumably the Starstreak. … On top of the £2.2bn loan announced yesterday, Starmer now adds another £1.6bn in UK export finance allowing Ukraine “to buy more than 5,000 air defence missiles, which will be made in Belfast, creating jobs in our brilliant defence sector”…
They’re supposed to be around £100k a pop, though, not £300k.
Anyone read this ? t looks rather good. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Horsepower-Race-Western-Development/dp/1911658506 Calum Douglas, 40, is a professional mechanical engineer and aviation historian. He accidentally became a writer after discovering that many of the technologies of the Formula-One motor racing engines he was involved with had in fact been concieved in the Second World War...
I have, and found it very interesting if - as it should rightly be - quite technical at times. But others on PB are more informed than I am. I think it was @Malmesbury who recommended it in the first place on here some years back (hence my reading it).
Edit: or am I confusing his recommendation with another book?
I bought a copy and found it stuffed full of interesting information, much of it technical, which I liked, but it was rather disjointed and needs a good edit tbh.
Some of the primary source stuff makes it very worthwhile. The German headship on chromium shortages for valves, the incredulity of Farnborough at the performance curves for a hypothetical P-51 with a Merlin (cruise speed especially)
Yes, yes. Could you not discuss books!? I buy and read all of these many great recommendations. I have a finite amount of space though. Please God invent the infinite bookshelf! I guess Amazon and others did, but it's not the same.
There is such a thing as an infinite bookshelf. It's called a "library"
When was the last time you went to a good library?
The grand libraries have always mostly been book-stores, and the idea of a library which might have once been true as to a resource of wisdom is gone.
Well I applied for a British Library readers card some years ago but then COVID and da fuck up happened. My local library used to do interlibrary loans but stopped, so I went to a nearby city and registered there. Also because I spend three days a week in an alternate location I can register with the libraries there. All sorts of paywalls come down if you a registered with a library.
As for libraries I visit my local once a week. I think I have made that plain given my remarks over the years. I have two out at the moment.
Two books, or two libraries?
Currently: two books from one library. I have multiple library cards for multiple libraries, of which at least three are current. But logistics usually means just one library. If I am engaged in a research thing for which more arcane books are required, then I use other libraries.
I used to use reference libraries a hell of a lot when I was at school and university. I think the advent of the Internet and a house of my own kicked that into touch.
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
still has a bloody great nuclear arsenal though. We are also dealing with the fact our army is about 20% of what it was even 30 years ago.
A nuclear arsenal it cannot practically use.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
well you can alway go and fight yourself - or do you want others to do that? You run a lot dont you so must be fit enough- go on
It's always interesting to consider how you would react if you found yourself a citizen of a country that had been invaded by a fascist state - like France in 1940.
Many people like to think they would be a member of the resistance; heroically fighting the enemy. Most people thinking that are deluded. An alternative is someone just trying to get on with life, minding their own business. Then there are those who would willingly collaborate, and even those who would willingly help and join the occupier.
Which would you do? Given your attitude on here, I guess you would not be a heroic member of the resistance. A collaborator, perhaps?
I mean I've only seen the highlights but surely Trump is simply taking a side in one of the oldest and most difficult dilemmas. What is worth giving up to stop the killing.
Why is dealing with that impossible question so reprehensible.
We see it in aid all the time (enable/support the tyrants to get food to the citizens..)
Asking the injured party to give up everything and the bad guy to get the spoils is hardly worth doing. The arse would be back once he had regrouped as we have seen already. Some backbones required.
So as I see it when there is no deal and no ceasefire then PB en masse will be high fiving and celebrating a huge victory.
(PS: there will be a deal.)
A good deal is ideal, but no deal is better than a bad deal.
And the only way to get a good deal is to be prepared to accept walking away with no deal.
You should have learnt that lesson five years ago.
It's great fun playing with the lives of thousands of people you don't know, isn't it.
He's not playing with anything, this same argument was made 3 years ago for crying out loud. For one thing advising Ukraine to concede its territory is also playing with the lives of thousands by submitting them to Russian rule forever. But more fundamentally it's deferring to whether Ukraine and its people feel the cost of continuing is worth it and supporting them if they do.
Reasonable people may differ about that position, but the 'playing with lives' argument is as silly as the other one from 3 years ago 'hurr hurr, I don't see you going on the front line'.
There is no plan anywhere to do what the PB Ukraine ultras want and are advocating.
Despite the constant whining on here, all that is being talked about is more of the same of the last three years.
Now, it has long been my position that Ukraine should stop fighting when Ukraine wants to stop fighting. But the very controlled aid it has been getting is about to become further restricted. So Zelensky must navigate within those constraints and I have no doubt that he will and a deal will be done.
My position is (and always has been) that Ukraine are defending against an immoral invasion and it is their decision (and their decision only) whether they fight back.
Separately, it is also my position that we should support (with money and weapons at the very least) whatever decision Ukraine makes. Not purely for selfless moral reasons, but also because having the most battle hardened land army in Europe as an ally seems beneficial to me.
Get real. Ukraine wants us to bomb Russia and send the troops in but for some unaccountable reason we have not done that over the past three years. Do you suppose that Starmer's plan will change that strategy.
Starmer’s plan has nothing to do with my own opinion.
Looks like Topping has become a Putin shill, what is the world coming to.
Eminence grise Mandleson is showing once again his mastery of shitspeaking. Pity that the Oxford MAs saw through him and installed the straight speaking Yorksire tyke instead. His bons mots words could have stayed where they dropped at high table.
His interview is even being tweeted out by the White House.
Mandelson is ensuring that there remains a comms channel with Trump and that means, unfortunately, getting a hearing in MAGA world. It's an ugly job but someone has to do it. Realpolitik. Mandelson has his detractors (I'm one) but he's probably the right person for navigating Washington DC right now.
Trudeau stumbles on the reason Trump is so keen on Putin.
… It’s important at every chance we get to lay out the facts as clearly as possible. In 2014 Russia chose to invade Ukraine, to occupy Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine. For that, they were kicked out of the G7 and in 2022 they chose to violate the existing cease fire and invaded Ukraine with the intention of taking Kyiv in three days and the entire country in three weeks. That has failed. Russia continues to try to fight to claim more land in Ukraine. We could see an end to this war tomorrow if Russia decided to stop its illegal invasion of Ukraine. On Friday in the Oval Office, President Zelenskyy pointed out in so many words that Vladimir Putin is a liar and a criminal and cannot be trusted to keep his word in any way, shape or form, because he has demonstrated time and time again that he will break any agreements...
Sod those WASPI women, it is surely the United faithful that need some compensation and consideration for unexpected and brutal disappointments. £20k a head seems light for the trauma we have had to endure. This is beyond depressing and I am getting beyond depressed. Help.
It could be worse - my EA’s partner just got sacked from MK Dons
Sod those WASPI women, it is surely the United faithful that need some compensation and consideration for unexpected and brutal disappointments. £20k a head seems light for the trauma we have had to endure. This is beyond depressing and I am getting beyond depressed. Help.
It could be worse - my EA’s partner just got sacked from MK Dons
What is an EA
Executive Assistant, the new job title for Secretary.
Comments
The grand libraries have always mostly been book-stores, and the idea of a library which might have once been true as to a resource of wisdom is gone.
Plurals includes decimals not just the next integer onwards. If I have a full, unopened bag of coffee beans and a half bag of beans that's open do I have 1.5 bag of beans or 1.5 bags of beans? Its more than one so its 1.5 bags.
Trump to Zalensky: "I have all the cards... I have get out of jail for free - the Supreme Court gave me that one!"
https://x.com/nbcsnl/status/1896062193524703261
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/mar/02/ukraine-war-volodymyr-zelenskyy-keir-starmer-donald-trump-us-europe-eu-russia-defence-latest-live-news
Nothing decided, as far as I can see - other than that Europe is not ready to go it alone without the US.
OTOH, there’s no new German leader yet.
And I can’t see where Mandelson might get his “unilateral ceasefire” nonsense from.
Anyhow, PB’ers who were here this morning already witnessed a superlative demonstration of where a combination of AI and sub-par human intelligence can take you. It wasn’t pretty.
We are facing Russia; a smaller, less-powerful country, with a much smaller economy. And no Ukrainians...
Too many people seem to think we are still facing the USSR; the giant that spanned Asia and half of Europe. Tens of millions of those European 'Soviets' are now on our side, and fearful of Russian aims.
The only way Putin can beat us is politically; and we risk letting him do that.
It is undeniable that Russia's ability to wage war is now much reduced.
We've already seen it in the occupied regions with kids being forcible resettled all over Russia. And you also need to look at the way the DPR and LNR were ruled since 2014.
Barbarism.
What a pathetic defeatist view you have.
(There are quite a few private libraries in London associated with various clubs etc)
We just need to send them the materiel and support they need to finish the job.
The difference being they, yes even Trump in this instance, live in the real world not some internet chat room game of Risk-type fantasy land that you lot inhabit.
I expect NBC will lose their licence any day now since the federal comms agency has been taken by the Putin Pirates iirc.
I used to work at a place where everyone five or so years younger than me spent every single lunchtime playing these cards.
https://gizmodo.com/trumps-defense-secretary-hegseth-orders-cyber-command-to-stand-down-on-all-russia-operations-2000570343
Hillary Clinton
@HillaryClinton
·
1h
Wouldn’t want to hurt Putin’s feelings.
Liz Cheney
@Liz_Cheney
Here is some truth: Putin invaded Ukraine. NATO is the most successful military alliance in history. Since 1945, American leadership has ensured freedom and security for ourselves and millions of others around the world. Together with our allies, we defeated the Soviet Union—an empire so evil it had to build gulags and walls to keep its own people in. Destroying America’s alliances and abandoning the cause of freedom is morally and strategically indefensible. Putin will pocket Trump’s naive concessions and demand much more. Appeasement makes a wider war more likely, not less.
@realDonaldTrump
,
@JDVance
, and
@elonmusk
have made clear who they are. Only fools—or Kremlin tools—would abandon NATO, side with Russia, and demand Ukraine surrender in the face of Putin’s brutal aggression.
https://x.com/Liz_Cheney/status/1896287164075323775
Russia is not a superpower, it is smaller than Italy. It is running out of men, money and materiel and occupying territory is a lot tougher for multiple reasons than fighting for your homeland.
An unusually good year for varied films. Most of the 'best films' are worth a look
We just need to continue to do the same. There's only so much rope a dope until Russia collapses from running out of forces, material or money - and its already needing to scrape the barrel on all three fronts.
Seems to me that Europe should invest equally in dumb volume and smart technology, rather than one or other.
…We will go further develop a coalition of the willing to defend a deal in Ukraine and to guarantee the peace.
Not every nation will feel able to contribute, but that can’t mean that we sit back.
Instead, those willing will intensify planning now with real urgency. The UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air, together with others…
What Starmer seems to be trying for is a deal which keeps the US on board, and satisfies Ukraine’s ongoing security concerns.
A ceasefire is certainly possible (with, I expect, Ukraine maintaining its claim on the occupied regions).
Trump will probably be bribed with the mineral contracts to back it.
Whether Putin accepts it - because it will inevitably and necessarily involve European troops and aircraft inUkraine - is open to question.
In any event, Zelensky is not without cards, as Trump believed on Friday.
So Minsk III, but with Ukraine de facto, though not de jure a member of European NATO.
One thing I confidently predict is that (if it happens) it won’t be anywhere near as durable as the Korean armistice.
Pity that the Oxford MAs saw through him and installed the straight speaking Yorksire tyke instead. His bons mots words could have stayed where they dropped at high table.
I think we need to be realistic about it and realise that Putin's willingness to throw human lives away does make for an effective military the likes of which we won't have or will have to find another method to achieve. Even their drone taskforce is absolutely mental, they literally use Norks and Chechens as human bait for drones, wait for them to fire to locate them and then use RPGs to take them out. It's barbaric but the kind of warfare we would never use.
A significant problem we would have in expanding our armed forces is overcoming the reluctance to sign up; all the forces struggle to recruit to even the current meagre levels, as here:
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/armed-forces-recruitment-falls-short-of-targets/
As for libraries I visit my local once a week. I think I have made that plain given my remarks over the years. I have two out at the moment.
The Russian military committed large scale war crimes as part of their invasion. They will undoubtedly commit more if they advance further.
They have committed such war crimes in Chechnya, Syria and Ukraine. It’s what they do.
What has that got to do with Hamas?
Welcome back.
https://x.com/rapidresponse47/status/1896217665909469378
Doubtless someone will get upset at me for saying this but aren't we supposed to think now in realpolitik rather than moral terms.
People overestimate how big Russia is and underestimate how big Ukraine is. 3x multiple is not enough to justify the meat waves we're seeing, which is why they've already resorted in desperation to prisons and N Korea etc.
Putin is putting on a brave face, but he's desperate. We know it, Zelensky knows it, everyone barring Trump knows it - or if he is a Russian agent then possibly Trump does know it too which is why he's so desperate to end the war now.
Whereas Hague still carries the scars.
But he doesn't have an infinite supply to throw away.
Russia only has 3x Ukraine's population, not magnitudes more. Keep throwing away lives and there's no-one left to fight on when you run out. Ditto money and materiel.
Trouble is, you can have one or the other, but not both. The net effect of the last few days is that America might be allowed to follow, but its leadership claim looks very wobbly.
The worst bit of business Trump has done since... the last terrible bit of business Trump did.
Lower welfare for the NEETs and higher wages for military personnel.
Whether the military would want some of the extra people it might get is uncertain.
So he must be appeased.
But the reliability of the US as an ally and NATO member, is at a postwar low.
And every western nation will be making plans accordingly.
And that means Trump cannot dictate the terms of any settlement, as he’s thrown away half his cards.
Many people like to think they would be a member of the resistance; heroically fighting the enemy. Most people thinking that are deluded. An alternative is someone just trying to get on with life, minding their own business. Then there are those who would willingly collaborate, and even those who would willingly help and join the occupier.
Which would you do? Given your attitude on here, I guess you would not be a heroic member of the resistance. A collaborator, perhaps?
Dear @Keir_Starmer, dear @EmmanuelMacron, thank you for your leadership to bring a lasting and just peace to #Ukraine. Your efforts are key to build bridges across the Atlantic. We have to remain united in our goal to end Russia’s war of aggression. (FM)
… On top of the £2.2bn loan announced yesterday, Starmer now adds another £1.6bn in UK export finance allowing Ukraine “to buy more than 5,000 air defence missiles, which will be made in Belfast, creating jobs in our brilliant defence sector”…
They’re supposed to be around £100k a pop, though, not £300k.
Some backbones required.
… It’s important at every chance we get to lay out the facts as clearly as possible.
In 2014 Russia chose to invade Ukraine, to occupy Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine. For that, they were kicked out of the G7 and in 2022 they chose to violate the existing cease fire and invaded Ukraine with the intention of taking Kyiv in three days and the entire country in three weeks.
That has failed.
Russia continues to try to fight to claim more land in Ukraine.
We could see an end to this war tomorrow if Russia decided to stop its illegal invasion of Ukraine.
On Friday in the Oval Office, President Zelenskyy pointed out in so many words that Vladimir Putin is a liar and a criminal and cannot be trusted to keep his word in any way, shape or form, because he has demonstrated time and time again that he will break any agreements...
Black mark on the UK government no matter how the meeting went.
Trump doesn’t understand who the aggressor is’: fatigue and anger in Odesa
Russian attacks on Ukrainian city that was initially spared worst have increased since Washington-Moscow detente
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/02/odesa-ukraine-russian-airstrikes-donald-trump-vladimir-putin