The outcast in Anchorage: A senate storm brews in Alaska – politicalbetting.com

Yokes said:

pigeon said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Russia has a gigantic nuclear arsenal and control of it rests in the hands of a delusional, megalomaniacal, paranoid fascist lunatic. And if, pray God, the bastard dies before he decides to go down in a blaze of glory and turn us all to ash with him, then whatever comes after him likely won't be very much better.

The West can play the long game with China, with a reasonable degree of confidence that it won't end with us all dying horribly. Russia, on the other hand, is a lost cause. It is the land of despots, it's a vicious antagonist, and the leopard won't change its spots. And, since we can't defang the leopard - we can't wish its nuclear weapons away, sadly - then the next best thing we can do is try to cage it. All of the doors between civilized Europe and the Russian Federation should be slammed and welded shut.

Putin has wrapped himself up in religious orthodoxy, that of the Eastern Orthodox of the Russian variety. Its an under studied part of the guy's motivation. Its not just the religion but the political bent that goes with such institutions. He certainly shows plenty of the markers of a swivel-eyed religiously inspired case.

HYUFD said:

62% of US voters say Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump was still President. Including 38% of Democrats and 85% of Republicans

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1497570412041064454?s=20&t=WJuxCxnyocz1Bq1FjVIr0g

Luckyguy1983 said:

kle4 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.

Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is

We are not on the Continent.

Oh we are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf

As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.

Scott_xP said:

BigRich said:

Just a question, and don't what to be downbeat, but is there any possibility that some of these videos we keep seeing of destroyed Russian vehicles and convoys are actually Ukrainian?

I really hope not, but I think they have much of the same equipment?

I think the white Z is the identification mark for the Russians

williamglenn said:

Shipments of arms to Ukraine are still being held up by Germany.

https://twitter.com/HankeVela/status/1497578278714068998

Theuniondivvie said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Fairliered said:

Carnyx said:

CarlottaVance said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

CarlottaVance said:

Powerful. A Ukrainian approaches unknown soldiers and yells at them to say "palyanitsa". Realizing they're Russian, he tells them they can't tell him not to videotape, as Ukrainians constitution allows him to.

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1497530385273602053

I suppose an equivalent in Britain would be a Scot asking someone English to pronounce “loch”.

Och aye!

The one that seriously sets my teeth on edge is “Syne” - who the feck put a Z in it?

The real test is to ask a Southron to describe the route from Milngavie to Rutherglen and then Anstruther.

Via Strathaven.

I know (forgive me paraphrasing) Mulgai and Ainster, but how are Rutherglen and Strathaven pronounced?

Ruh-thir-glen and Straiven imo (other opinions will definitely be available)

Leon said:

IanB2 said:

MarqueeMark said:

Leon said:

Just wondering. Is this a rare if not unique occasion of a geopolitical event completely uniting PB?

Do we have a single PB-er cheering on Putin and the Russians? I can’t think of one

A momentous unanimity. Which says something in itself given the wide variety of opinions on here

You REALLY have to be a contrarian to be cheering on Putin.

Or a Trumpist Republican.

Be entertaining if Putin's greatest achievement is keeping the White House Democrat controlled for a couple of decades.

Sadly, Plato is no longer with us.

Unfair. I know you can’t libel the dead but Plato, bless her, would - I am sure - have reviled this horrible war. She was eccentric and lonely but she was also humane

ping said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

ping said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.

Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is

We are not on the Continent.

This is basic geography.

In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.

I was mocking @Luckyguy1983

These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.

Chameleon said:

https://twitter.com/POLITICOEurope/status/1497572557683412999

"Germany is still blocking allies from sending weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.

Officials from two EU member countries expressed fury and disbelief at Berlin’s position, which Germany has defended as a long-standing policy aimed at preventing bloodshed."

Germany gleefully contributing to Ukrainian deaths, once again. A country of bastards - all parts of their political spectrum are friendly to the Russians, be it the oil guzzling greens of Merkel's Chamberlain-esque CDU.

MattW said:

JosiasJessop said:

MattW said:

Chameleon said:

https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1497500029099118594

Another Russian supply convoy wiped out.

The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?

I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.

It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.



https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/02/25/new-images-show-about-150-helicopters-large-ground-force-100-miles-from-kyiv/

RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.

Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.

Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.

https://www.wimpolepast.org/323rd_memorial.asp

Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.

HYUFD said:

62% of US voters say Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump was still President. Including 38% of Democrats and 85% of Republicans

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1497570412041064454?s=20&t=WJuxCxnyocz1Bq1FjVIr0g

Luckyguy1983 said:

ping said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

ping said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.

Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is

We are not on the Continent.

This is basic geography.

In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.

I was mocking @Luckyguy1983

These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.

Not a very successful attempt at mockery then, or a very successful post full stop. Geographically, we are separated from the Continent of Europe by the sea. Geologically, we may be connected by a shelf, but unless the Russians are going to develop gills, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion.

Yokes said:

Just so we are clear here, the Russian attack on Ukraine isn't going badly wrong because some people thought the place would be taken over in 48 hours. The assault on Kiev as yet hasn't hit full pelt but isn't yet a disaster. The attack in the south east is going ok. Only the North Eastern/Eastern assaults appear initially to have gone badly in the first stages. If there is one failure though its the suppression of air defences. I'm not sure how much of the Ukrainian airforce is left but the ground based air defence appears to be functioning. Russia has large air superiority but doesn't seem to have applied it as you'd think they would. Whether its that they haven't or can't is an open question.

If Kiev is under effective Russian control in a week and the country (or whatever part of it Putin is aiming for) is under effective control within 3 weeks that's still good going. Plus the Russians have more formations to play and stories have it the Belarussians are apparently due to commit their forces in next 48-72 hours after Russian demands of old President Big Hat. Its not known if the Ukrainians have the anywhere between 50-75k of reservists fully committed either admittedly but the assumption they have less cards to play.

There was a post last night on attacking the Russian logistical tail as both a tactical and strategic aim and I mentioned that I'd not seen much evidence of it. Today there is some evidence of this occurring, columns of fuel vehicles, engineering kit and so on being destroyed/abandoned, largely it seems, via airstrikes.

From a wider point of view if the West is shipping substantial kit via South East Poland what are the Russians going to do to interdict it and where are they going to try it? |Anyone who follows the aircraft tracking sites can't help but see US tankers up in the air frequently in that part of Poland. Part of that is supporting air intelligence craft but part of it is refuelling fighter aircraft that appear to be providing an air screen over the main logistics hub.

If continued high-grade supplies of anti armour and anti-air weaponry can get to the likes of Kiev, its going to get messy, especially since the Russians look to be on for some kind of large scale heliborne assault somewhere in that area. The possibility of losing several tens of aircraft over a week or so is a lot to contend with. Can the West, though, really move with enough speed?

As for the reported Bosphorus Straits closure that's a real wildcard. Hard to know its impact.

Farooq said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

ping said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

ping said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.

Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is

We are not on the Continent.

This is basic geography.

In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.

I was mocking @Luckyguy1983

These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.

Not a very successful attempt at mockery then, or a very successful post full stop. Geographically, we are separated from the Continent of Europe by the sea. Geologically, we may be connected by a shelf, but unless the Russians are going to develop gills, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion.

"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition

The mid-Atlantic plate runs right through Iceland, meaning the north-western side of the island is on the North American continent, with the south-eastern side on Europe.

Farooq said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

ping said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

ping said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.

Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is

We are not on the Continent.

This is basic geography.

In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.

I was mocking @Luckyguy1983

These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.

Not a very successful attempt at mockery then, or a very successful post full stop. Geographically, we are separated from the Continent of Europe by the sea. Geologically, we may be connected by a shelf, but unless the Russians are going to develop gills, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion.

We have been at war with Russia before, but overwhelmingly with us going over to the continent to fight them. That's not a convincing argument that they constitute a bigger threat to us than someone else.

China has not attacked our mainland either, but they have undermined British companies, stolen British tech, and now developed such a commanding technological lead that our telecommunications infrastructure finds it difficult to progress without them, and our nuclear power stations need to be built by them. They are also responsible, probably not deliberately, for causing a worldwide pandemic and exacerbating its initial spread because of secrecy and lies. Russia hasn't done any of this, because it can't. It bullies its near neighbours despicably, but its ambitions and capabilities aren't comparable to China's.

Let's just forget the chemical, radiological, and electronic attacks Russia has perpetrated on this island in the last few years, eh?

Scott_xP said:

Germany is in the process of approving delivery of 400 RPGs to Ukraine via a third country, an EU diplomat says
https://twitter.com/phildstewart/status/1497588560832208898

CarlottaVance said:

⚠️ Confirmed: Various #Russia government websites including the Kremlin, State Duma and Ministry of Defense are again down, with real-time network data showing impact to FSO networks consistent with previous cyberattacks. The incident comes as Russia continues to invade Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1497594515233951744

JosiasJessop said:

Yokes said:

Just so we are clear here, the Russian attack on Ukraine isn't going badly wrong because some people thought the place would be taken over in 48 hours. The assault on Kiev as yet hasn't hit full pelt but isn't yet a disaster. The attack in the south east is going ok. Only the North Eastern/Eastern assaults appear initially to have gone badly in the first stages. If there is one failure though its the suppression of air defences. I'm not sure how much of the Ukrainian airforce is left but the ground based air defence appears to be functioning. Russia has large air superiority but doesn't seem to have applied it as you'd think they would. Whether its that they haven't or can't is an open question.

If Kiev is under effective Russian control in a week and the country (or whatever part of it Putin is aiming for) is under effective control within 3 weeks that's still good going. Plus the Russians have more formations to play and stories have it the Belarussians are apparently due to commit their forces in next 48-72 hours after Russian demands of old President Big Hat. Its not known if the Ukrainians have the anywhere between 50-75k of reservists fully committed either admittedly but the assumption they have less cards to play.

There was a post last night on attacking the Russian logistical tail as both a tactical and strategic aim and I mentioned that I'd not seen much evidence of it. Today there is some evidence of this occurring, columns of fuel vehicles, engineering kit and so on being destroyed/abandoned, largely it seems, via airstrikes.

From a wider point of view if the West is shipping substantial kit via South East Poland what are the Russians going to do to interdict it and where are they going to try it? |Anyone who follows the aircraft tracking sites can't help but see US tankers up in the air frequently in that part of Poland. Part of that is supporting air intelligence craft but part of it is refuelling fighter aircraft that appear to be providing an air screen over the main logistics hub.

If continued high-grade supplies of anti armour and anti-air weaponry can get to the likes of Kiev, its going to get messy, especially since the Russians look to be on for some kind of large scale heliborne assault somewhere in that area. The possibility of losing several tens of aircraft over a week or so is a lot to contend with. Can the West, though, really move with enough speed?

As for the reported Bosphorus Straits closure that's a real wildcard. Hard to know its impact.

" some people thought the place would be taken over in 48 hours. "

IANAE expert, obvs., but the Russian strategy does confuse me. I'd have expected them to go for a shock-and-awe approach to knock Ukraine out quickly, as any delay risks other nations getting their ducks in order and causing problems. Once they've won Ukraine, it's a fait accompli.

Instead, they seem almost to be going about it half-hearted. Had they hoped Ukraine would crumble, or is this all to some other plan? If so, what's the advantage to Russia?

Carnyx said:

JosiasJessop said:

MattW said:

JosiasJessop said:

MattW said:

Chameleon said:

https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1497500029099118594

Another Russian supply convoy wiped out.

The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?

I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.

It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.



https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/02/25/new-images-show-about-150-helicopters-large-ground-force-100-miles-from-kyiv/

RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.

Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.

Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.

https://www.wimpolepast.org/323rd_memorial.asp

Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.

The link I gave had a diagram of the dispersal points and a wartime aerial view of them, sans aircraft. I've seen a piccie of the avenue heaving with bombers, but annoyingly I cannot immediately find it online. It may have been in a book. Sorry.

Could it have been in Roger Freeman's book Airfields of the Eighth at a guess? (don't have my own copy here).
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Airfields-Eighth-Then-After-Battle/dp/0900913096

[deleted redundant content - I'd meant something else but the pics are much the same]

pigeon said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Russia has a gigantic nuclear arsenal and control of it rests in the hands of a delusional, megalomaniacal, paranoid fascist lunatic. And if, pray God, the bastard dies before he decides to go down in a blaze of glory and turn us all to ash with him, then whatever comes after him likely won't be very much better.

The West can play the long game with China, with a reasonable degree of confidence that it won't end with us all dying horribly. Russia, on the other hand, is a lost cause. It is the land of despots, it's a vicious antagonist, and the leopard won't change its spots. And, since we can't defang the leopard - we can't wish its nuclear weapons away, sadly - then the next best thing we can do is try to cage it. All of the doors between civilized Europe and the Russian Federation should be slammed and welded shut.

I don't believe in lost causes.

They've been threatening us all with death by nuclear holocaust more or less continuously since the 1950s. The gap between the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Putin lasted about five minutes, and if we're actually lucky enough to live to see the end of Putin then there'll be another tyrant after him, and another one after that.

It's Russia. It's their culture, it's their tradition. Look at how much progress has been made in the post-Soviet Baltics, and in Georgia and Ukraine despite Putin doing his best to degrade and destroy them. And then look at Russia. They've actually gone backwards since Gorbachev. It is a deeply, deeply regressive police state, shot through with hatred - often officially sanctioned - for racial, sexual and gender minorities, as well as for any form of opposition. A terror state, with a neo-imperialist at its heart whose mission in life is to subject as many human beings as possible to that terror.

One naturally feels sorry for the likes of brave Alexei Navalny, but the Russian resisters, such as they are, are on a hiding to nothing. Russia is about subjugating its own populace and that of its neighbours alike to the will of whatever autocrat reigns at the time, either by terrifying them with threats or with sheer brute force. Yes, there's a coup every now and then, or even a revolution, but it always reverts to type in the end.

Bit like saying Germany always ends up trying to invade the world. True until its not true.

The first Tsar is known to history by the epithet "the Terrible." He was crowned nearly five hundred years ago. We're still waiting for evidence of consistent progress.

MoonRabbit said:

Legislation being rushed through this week to target where Russian money is laundered through off shore companies into UK property, without officials knowing whose money it actually is, so who actually owns the property. (could be Tony Blair actually if that what he done?)

Question. Should this legislation target just Russians, why not all gangsters and gangster regimes?

JosiasJessop said:

Carnyx said:

JosiasJessop said:

MattW said:

JosiasJessop said:

MattW said:

Chameleon said:

https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1497500029099118594

Another Russian supply convoy wiped out.

The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?

I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.

It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.



https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/02/25/new-images-show-about-150-helicopters-large-ground-force-100-miles-from-kyiv/

RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.

Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.

Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.

https://www.wimpolepast.org/323rd_memorial.asp

Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.

The link I gave had a diagram of the dispersal points and a wartime aerial view of them, sans aircraft. I've seen a piccie of the avenue heaving with bombers, but annoyingly I cannot immediately find it online. It may have been in a book. Sorry.

Could it have been in Roger Freeman's book Airfields of the Eighth at a guess? (don't have my own copy here).
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Airfields-Eighth-Then-After-Battle/dp/0900913096

[deleted redundant content - I'd meant something else but the pics are much the same]

Nope, don't think I've read that. It's blooming annoying as I definitely saw it in a book or leaflet, and wished I'd scanned it in. I'm then fairly certain I came across the same piccie online, but cannot find it now.

It may have been a local history book from the library.

Farooq said:

pigeon said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Russia has a gigantic nuclear arsenal and control of it rests in the hands of a delusional, megalomaniacal, paranoid fascist lunatic. And if, pray God, the bastard dies before he decides to go down in a blaze of glory and turn us all to ash with him, then whatever comes after him likely won't be very much better.

The West can play the long game with China, with a reasonable degree of confidence that it won't end with us all dying horribly. Russia, on the other hand, is a lost cause. It is the land of despots, it's a vicious antagonist, and the leopard won't change its spots. And, since we can't defang the leopard - we can't wish its nuclear weapons away, sadly - then the next best thing we can do is try to cage it. All of the doors between civilized Europe and the Russian Federation should be slammed and welded shut.

I don't believe in lost causes.

They've been threatening us all with death by nuclear holocaust more or less continuously since the 1950s. The gap between the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Putin lasted about five minutes, and if we're actually lucky enough to live to see the end of Putin then there'll be another tyrant after him, and another one after that.

It's Russia. It's their culture, it's their tradition. Look at how much progress has been made in the post-Soviet Baltics, and in Georgia and Ukraine despite Putin doing his best to degrade and destroy them. And then look at Russia. They've actually gone backwards since Gorbachev. It is a deeply, deeply regressive police state, shot through with hatred - often officially sanctioned - for racial, sexual and gender minorities, as well as for any form of opposition. A terror state, with a neo-imperialist at its heart whose mission in life is to subject as many human beings as possible to that terror.

One naturally feels sorry for the likes of brave Alexei Navalny, but the Russian resisters, such as they are, are on a hiding to nothing. Russia is about subjugating its own populace and that of its neighbours alike to the will of whatever autocrat reigns at the time, either by terrifying them with threats or with sheer brute force. Yes, there's a coup every now and then, or even a revolution, but it always reverts to type in the end.

Bit like saying Germany always ends up trying to invade the world. True until its not true.

The first Tsar is known to history by the epithet "the Terrible." He was crowned nearly five hundred years ago. We're still waiting for evidence of consistent progress.

Ivan the Terrible
Catherine the Great
Vladimir the House Elf

BlancheLivermore said:

JosiasJessop said:

Carnyx said:

JosiasJessop said:

MattW said:

JosiasJessop said:

MattW said:

Chameleon said:

https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1497500029099118594

Another Russian supply convoy wiped out.

The baffling failure of Russian air power and ability to defend it's own supply lines make no sense. Mavbe he really did expect Ukraine to just roll over?

I'm inclined to think that "somebody* on the Russian side is a little complacent, or over-confident.

It must require a large number of assumptions about risk to line up 90 helicopters parked nose to tail on a road 20-25 miles inside Belarus.



https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2022/02/25/new-images-show-about-150-helicopters-large-ground-force-100-miles-from-kyiv/

RAF Basingbourn (still an MOD site) is just down the road from me. It was home to B17 aircraft of the USAAF.

Nearby there is a stately home, Wimpole Hall, which coincidentally had a wide two-mile long avenue stretching between it and the base. So the air force used it as distributed parking for their aircraft - and there are photos of these massive bombers arrayed along it.

Whenever I walk the avenue, I think of what it must have been like with all those bombers there.

https://www.wimpolepast.org/323rd_memorial.asp

Do you have a link to a photograph of that? Fascinating.

The link I gave had a diagram of the dispersal points and a wartime aerial view of them, sans aircraft. I've seen a piccie of the avenue heaving with bombers, but annoyingly I cannot immediately find it online. It may have been in a book. Sorry.

Could it have been in Roger Freeman's book Airfields of the Eighth at a guess? (don't have my own copy here).
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Airfields-Eighth-Then-After-Battle/dp/0900913096

[deleted redundant content - I'd meant something else but the pics are much the same]

Nope, don't think I've read that. It's blooming annoying as I definitely saw it in a book or leaflet, and wished I'd scanned it in. I'm then fairly certain I came across the same piccie online, but cannot find it now.

It may have been a local history book from the library.

This from Pinterest in NL captioned "Wimpole Hall Avenue, with parking for 9 B-17,s"
https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/488851734556659861/

MoonRabbit said:

CarlottaVance said:

⚠️ Confirmed: Various #Russia government websites including the Kremlin, State Duma and Ministry of Defense are again down, with real-time network data showing impact to FSO networks consistent with previous cyberattacks. The incident comes as Russia continues to invade Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1497594515233951744

They invented the game, now can’t even get out the group at the World Cup 💻

HYUFD said:

The DUP have withdrawn from the Stormont Executive though to stop leakage to TUV and will not return unless and until the UK government invokes Article 16

OldKingCole said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

ping said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

ping said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.

Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is

We are not on the Continent.

This is basic geography.

In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.

I was mocking @Luckyguy1983

These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.

Not a very successful attempt at mockery then, or a very successful post full stop. Geographically, we are separated from the Continent of Europe by the sea. Geologically, we may be connected by a shelf, but unless the Russians are going to develop gills, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion.

We have been at war with Russia before, but overwhelmingly with us going over to the continent to fight them. That's not a convincing argument that they constitute a bigger threat to us than someone else.

China has not attacked our mainland either, but they have undermined British companies, stolen British tech, and now developed such a commanding technological lead that our telecommunications infrastructure finds it difficult to progress without them, and our nuclear power stations need to be built by them. They are also responsible, probably not deliberately, for causing a worldwide pandemic and exacerbating its initial spread because of secrecy and lies. Russia hasn't done any of this, because it can't. It bullies its near neighbours despicably, but its ambitions and capabilities aren't comparable to China's.

We also poisoned the Chinese people with opium and abused their Emperor and their traditions

Peter_the_Punter said:

OldKingCole said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

ping said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

ping said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.

Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is

We are not on the Continent.

This is basic geography.

In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.

I was mocking @Luckyguy1983

These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.

Not a very successful attempt at mockery then, or a very successful post full stop. Geographically, we are separated from the Continent of Europe by the sea. Geologically, we may be connected by a shelf, but unless the Russians are going to develop gills, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion.

We have been at war with Russia before, but overwhelmingly with us going over to the continent to fight them. That's not a convincing argument that they constitute a bigger threat to us than someone else.

China has not attacked our mainland either, but they have undermined British companies, stolen British tech, and now developed such a commanding technological lead that our telecommunications infrastructure finds it difficult to progress without them, and our nuclear power stations need to be built by them. They are also responsible, probably not deliberately, for causing a worldwide pandemic and exacerbating its initial spread because of secrecy and lies. Russia hasn't done any of this, because it can't. It bullies its near neighbours despicably, but its ambitions and capabilities aren't comparable to China's.

We also poisoned the Chinese people with opium and abused their Emperor and their traditions

Well the Emporor did indulge unwisely in confrontation but yes, that was no excuse for poisoning his people.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

BBC

France reporting no more objections to swift and an announcement is due later

Excellent news

HYUFD said:

stodge said:

HYUFD said:

The DUP have withdrawn from the Stormont Executive though to stop leakage to TUV and will not return unless and until the UK government invokes Article 16

That doesn't stop the Executive from existing, does it?

The Executive currently represents 81 of the 90 Assembly members - without the DUP, the cross-community votes couldn't happen but routine business could. Whether the UU or Alliance could take the Deputy First Minister role if the DUP refused to serve, I don't know.

I suspect and hope your understanding of the functions of the NI Assembly is superior to mine.

In practical terms though without the largest Unionist party it has broken down as has the GFA until the Irish Sea border is removed.

At the time of the GFA it was the UUP the largest Unionist party, now the DUP is largest party and with the TUV makes up well over half of Unionists

MoonRabbit said:

Legislation being rushed through this week to target where Russian money is laundered through off shore companies into UK property, without officials knowing whose money it actually is, so who actually owns the property. (could be Tony Blair actually if that what he done?)

Question. Should this legislation target just Russians, why not all gangsters and gangster regimes?

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Farooq said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

ping said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

ping said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.

Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is

We are not on the Continent.

This is basic geography.

In which you are wrong. We are part of the European continent by any normal definition.

I was mocking @Luckyguy1983

These people just make up their own facts to suit them. They end up looking like complete idiots, posting tripe like that.

Not a very successful attempt at mockery then, or a very successful post full stop. Geographically, we are separated from the Continent of Europe by the sea. Geologically, we may be connected by a shelf, but unless the Russians are going to develop gills, it's utterly irrelevant to the discussion.

"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition

The mid-Atlantic plate runs right through Iceland, meaning the north-western side of the island is on the North American continent, with the south-eastern side on Europe.

We're talking landmass, not plates! Otherwise India isn't part of Asia!

OldKingCole said:

Farooq said:

pigeon said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Russia has a gigantic nuclear arsenal and control of it rests in the hands of a delusional, megalomaniacal, paranoid fascist lunatic. And if, pray God, the bastard dies before he decides to go down in a blaze of glory and turn us all to ash with him, then whatever comes after him likely won't be very much better.

The West can play the long game with China, with a reasonable degree of confidence that it won't end with us all dying horribly. Russia, on the other hand, is a lost cause. It is the land of despots, it's a vicious antagonist, and the leopard won't change its spots. And, since we can't defang the leopard - we can't wish its nuclear weapons away, sadly - then the next best thing we can do is try to cage it. All of the doors between civilized Europe and the Russian Federation should be slammed and welded shut.

I don't believe in lost causes.

They've been threatening us all with death by nuclear holocaust more or less continuously since the 1950s. The gap between the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Putin lasted about five minutes, and if we're actually lucky enough to live to see the end of Putin then there'll be another tyrant after him, and another one after that.

It's Russia. It's their culture, it's their tradition. Look at how much progress has been made in the post-Soviet Baltics, and in Georgia and Ukraine despite Putin doing his best to degrade and destroy them. And then look at Russia. They've actually gone backwards since Gorbachev. It is a deeply, deeply regressive police state, shot through with hatred - often officially sanctioned - for racial, sexual and gender minorities, as well as for any form of opposition. A terror state, with a neo-imperialist at its heart whose mission in life is to subject as many human beings as possible to that terror.

One naturally feels sorry for the likes of brave Alexei Navalny, but the Russian resisters, such as they are, are on a hiding to nothing. Russia is about subjugating its own populace and that of its neighbours alike to the will of whatever autocrat reigns at the time, either by terrifying them with threats or with sheer brute force. Yes, there's a coup every now and then, or even a revolution, but it always reverts to type in the end.

Bit like saying Germany always ends up trying to invade the world. True until its not true.

The first Tsar is known to history by the epithet "the Terrible." He was crowned nearly five hundred years ago. We're still waiting for evidence of consistent progress.

Ivan the Terrible
Catherine the Great
Vladimir the House Elf

Peter the Great was, for the times, quite a reasonable chap.
I’m prepared, of course, for further advice.

dixiedean said:

state_go_away said:

On Chess.com whenever I am paired with a Russian I am refusing to play - a bit like Iran when paired with Israel.

My Online Go site has just refunded all money ever paid by its Ukrainian site supporters.
Maybe I should boycott the Koreans and Chinese?
Might help my ranking.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

kle4 said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

pigeon said:

IanB2 said:

Cyclefree said:

Heathener said:

Chelsea could go bust

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553871/Chelsea-BUST-owner-Roman-Abramovich-hit-sanctions.html

I've been calling for a clean up of dirty Russian money for years.

The problem here is that the Premier League is awash with dirty money and so is London. We host the Arms Fair every two years which directly contributes to dirty regimes.

And whilst I definitely want to ban Abramovich and his fellow Putin-loving Russian mafia, what about Saudi Arabia? What about Qatar?

I love Qatar Airways but I'm under no illusion about the country behind it.

Corruption runs deep and money talks. That's why the stock markets soared yesterday. They know our sanctions are feeble.

Frankly, if London property prices crash as a result of getting dirty money out of London, that would be a good thing. I am frankly sick of hearing about ludicrously overpriced properties, of whole areas going dark because houses are bought and not lived in, of local businesses failing because there is no local population and knowing how hard it will be for my children to get onto the property ladder because of the effects of London property being treated as a bank by the crooked and corrupt of the world.

The Chinese are worse.

The Chinese regime is dreadful, but it does at least have the advantage of being led by rational actors with clearly defined and comprehensible aims, even if we don't agree with them. If Xi were anything like Putin he'd be sending the troops in to bite random chunks out of Vietnam and Mongolia and install client satraps, and threatening to nuke Bhutan if it ran away screaming into an alliance with India.

Putin is a far more dangerous and volatile proposition, and so is Russia itself. The escalating rupture to economic and cultural ties - in everything from football to banking transactions - does at least suggest that the penny is finally dropping, even (it would now appear) amongst hitherto sympathetic states like Hungary and Cyprus. If the Russians won't junk Putin and reform - and I'm betting that they won't - then the rupture should be total. We will have to deal with the buggers at the United Nations, but other than that let's have nothing more to do with them.

I think like everyone, Putin's actions are pulling him ever closer to the thing he fears most, the disintegration of his state apparatus at the hands of the West. After his formative experiences in the collapse of the GDR, when he called for back up and it never came, his whole career has been built on preventing this from happening, but his own actions will bring it about. We can scream 'Yes' at something and it will come; we can scream 'No' at something and it will still come.

But sorry, in no way is Russia more of a threat to us than China. They haven't unleashed a pandemic on us for one thing.

Of course Russia is more of a threat to us than China. It is on the same continent as us for starters while China is on the other side of the world.

Post vaccination Covid is also now much less of an issue. China may be more of a threat to Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia than us, Russia is more of a threat to Europe and us however than China is

We are not on the Continent.

Oh we are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf

As far as the non-tentacled community is concerned, we're not.

"Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Contemporary_definition

HYUFD said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

HYUFD said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

HYUFD said:

stodge said:

HYUFD said:

The DUP have withdrawn from the Stormont Executive though to stop leakage to TUV and will not return unless and until the UK government invokes Article 16

That doesn't stop the Executive from existing, does it?

The Executive currently represents 81 of the 90 Assembly members - without the DUP, the cross-community votes couldn't happen but routine business could. Whether the UU or Alliance could take the Deputy First Minister role if the DUP refused to serve, I don't know.

I suspect and hope your understanding of the functions of the NI Assembly is superior to mine.

In practical terms though without the largest Unionist party it has broken down as has the GFA until the Irish Sea border is removed.

At the time of the GFA it was the UUP the largest Unionist party, now the DUP is largest party and with the TUV makes up well over half of Unionists

I expect you are going to find as this war plays out there will be a large move by HMG to resolve the NI protocol and come together much more with the EU over lots of areas

This will have changed the dial on UK- EU relationships and for the better

It won't, Starmer might, Johnson won't.

NATO unity is separate

I am not talking about NATO but trust you to misunderstanding the post

You are deluded if you think Johnson will align closer to the EU was the point, the ERG would go mad.

Starmer might if he won the next general election, not the Tories

pigeon said:

Incidentally, Dmitry Medvedev (the Putin stooge who swapped the Russian presidency with him back in the 2000s) has apparently gone on the record suggesting that Russia no longer has need of diplomatic relations with the West, and that its suspension from the Council of Europe opens the way to reinstatement of the death penalty for some offences.

Putting relations with Russia in the deep freeze is necessary under the circumstances, but it will have the tragic side effect of removing the last restraints on Tsar Vladimir's atrocious behaviour at home.

BigRich said:

state_go_away said:

On Chess.com whenever I am paired with a Russian I am refusing to play - a bit like Iran when paired with Israel.

I don't know how the site works, but would not another strategy be to play and engage in conversation at the same time, try to persuade him Putin must go!