The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
Kharkiv now totally controlled by Ukraine again, acc to local administration. Local head Oleg Sinegubov says Russian soldiers "abandoning vehicles and surrendering in groups"
Took a little drive round Kharkiv. Current situation: - streets deserted - some kind of fight/operation still going on around Shevchenko avenue/Hidropark. - city in Ukrainian hands
Kharkiv now totally controlled by Ukraine again, acc to local administration. Local head Oleg Sinegubov says Russian soldiers "abandoning vehicles and surrendering in groups"
Took a little drive round Kharkiv. Current situation: - streets deserted - some kind of fight/operation still going on around Shevchenko avenue/Hidropark. - city in Ukrainian hands
Ethnic Russian ≠ Russian national either, any more than British Indian ≠ Indian national. Though FWIW, 17% of Ukraine is considerably less than 20 million people.
Besides that there's not much evidence that despite their Russian ethnicity those people actually want to be ruled by the crooks in the Kremlin.
One of the first books I read about International affairs ...... can't recall who it was by, but it was about what we should do after we've won WWII. And written late in that war. ( Read it about 1948.... precocious little sod) Anyway talking about Germany's Eastern border the author said..... it is impossible to draw a line and say all to the East of that line are Polish and all to the West are Germans. There has been so much population movement all over Eastern Europe that there are all sorts of communities and individuals which don't fit in to a nice clean pattern. And, especially given the history, there may well be 'Russians' who would prefer to be Ukrainian, and indeed, vice versa. And I very much doubt if the borders of the current Ukrainian state were drawn with much care as to the wishes of the people then living there.
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
Problem is there is no face saving way out and one wasn’t possible from the moment he sent the first troop across the border.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Yes, strange that a plebiscite is the way to settle an issue, and yet the votes in 1991 can be ignored if doing so further's Russian interests.
As I recollect, John Major was in power in 1991. He is not still in power because there have been elections. The world is not frozen in 1991.
Yet, you don't think a boundary can ever be revisited.
If there is an overwhelming majority in every part of the Ukraine for the present boundaries, surely a plebsicite will confirm that ?
A powerful argument that the Ukrainian state can use to retain Donetsk and Luhansk, no? .
It's a fantasy to believe there can be a free vote in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russians.
Edit: And besides, your talking point from a few days ago is that plebiscites do settle this issue for the long term, rather than creating the backwards and forwards conflict of war after war over the boundaries. You weren't arguing for every generation to redraw the borders with new plebiscites.
You are embarrassingly all over the place with this, because you refuse to stand up to Russian aggression, and so you are casting around for any sort of figleaf to explain how it could easily have been avoided.
There are ~ 20 million Russians in the Ukraine. That is a large minority. Whatever Ukraine does, it has to take that minority into account -- if it wishes to be a country drawn on the boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR.
Plebiscites are conducted at a district or town level
You can see the patchwork of Danish and German areas. You draw a new boundary with that detailed information. The historic region of the Duchy of Schleswig/Slesvig was split.
That was *not* done in 1991 for the Ukraine-Russia boundary, nor was it even what was asked.
What I strongly object to in your post is the statement that I "refuse to stand up to Russian aggression,"
Unless you propose to join the pb.com International Brigades, you are also not "standing up to Russian aggression "either.
We are all just posting words on a blog.
Objection: Russian speakers ≠ Russians, just as English speakers ≠ English.
I understand that. I am not English myself.
I used the demographics data of the Ukraine on wiki.
And, as has been pointed out, large numbers of those Russian speakers want to be in Ukraine, not Russia.
They voted that way in 1991 and the poll (below) shows that things haven't changed much.
A big part of the reason for this invasion was that Putins attempts at "uprisings" in Ukraine kept not working due to lack of local support.
And as has been pointed out, what better way to show that by a plebiscite.
Given you endlessly post a crappy CNN poll, why not check the quality of the data by doing a proper job?
I understand it would not have been easy, but it might have been easier than what we are now going to have to endure.
Complaining when someone posts legitimate polling data on PB.... That's an interesting approach.
The CNN poll used the standard methodologies for good polling - I did look. Interesting that you think it was "crappy" - why?
I suppose we are back to "Any poll you don't like the result of, is an outlier"....
Well, do you not accept that the regions in that map are rather big?
Like the Crimea, which has a Russian majority, is absorbed into some gigantic (& arbitrary) region of south/central Ukraine.
If you want to demonstrate that there was no appetite for Scottish independence, you could join Scotland with NE England and NW England and carry out a poll.
It would give you the misleading result you want.
Based on your criteria, the most "impossible" state in Europe is Russia itself. Do you think it should give independence to all the ethnic republics it contains?
Yes. I do. If there is an ethnic grouping in Russia that wishes to be independent, then of course.
I agree that Russia is an "impossible" state as well.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Yes, strange that a plebiscite is the way to settle an issue, and yet the votes in 1991 can be ignored if doing so further's Russian interests.
As I recollect, John Major was in power in 1991. He is not still in power because there have been elections. The world is not frozen in 1991.
Yet, you don't think a boundary can ever be revisited.
If there is an overwhelming majority in every part of the Ukraine for the present boundaries, surely a plebsicite will confirm that ?
A powerful argument that the Ukrainian state can use to retain Donetsk and Luhansk, no? .
It's a fantasy to believe there can be a free vote in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russians.
Edit: And besides, your talking point from a few days ago is that plebiscites do settle this issue for the long term, rather than creating the backwards and forwards conflict of war after war over the boundaries. You weren't arguing for every generation to redraw the borders with new plebiscites.
You are embarrassingly all over the place with this, because you refuse to stand up to Russian aggression, and so you are casting around for any sort of figleaf to explain how it could easily have been avoided.
There are ~ 20 million Russians in the Ukraine. That is a large minority. Whatever Ukraine does, it has to take that minority into account -- if it wishes to be a country drawn on the boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR.
Plebiscites are conducted at a district or town level
You can see the patchwork of Danish and German areas. You draw a new boundary with that detailed information. The historic region of the Duchy of Schleswig/Slesvig was split.
That was *not* done in 1991 for the Ukraine-Russia boundary, nor was it even what was asked.
What I strongly object to in your post is the statement that I "refuse to stand up to Russian aggression,"
Unless you propose to join the pb.com International Brigades, you are also not "standing up to Russian aggression "either.
We are all just posting words on a blog.
Objection: Russian speakers ≠ Russians, just as English speakers ≠ English.
I understand that. I am not English myself.
I used the demographics data of the Ukraine on wiki.
And, as has been pointed out, large numbers of those Russian speakers want to be in Ukraine, not Russia.
They voted that way in 1991 and the poll (below) shows that things haven't changed much.
A big part of the reason for this invasion was that Putins attempts at "uprisings" in Ukraine kept not working due to lack of local support.
And as has been pointed out, what better way to show that than by a plebiscite.
Given you endlessly post a crappy CNN poll, why not check the quality of the data by doing a proper job?
I understand it would not have been easy, but it might have been easier than what we are now going to have to endure.
It would have made not one blind but of difference.
Firstly every single region of Ukraine voted for independence in 1991 - including Crimea. How would you suggest they had separated out little pockets of Crimea to give to the Russians?
Secondly Putin is not interested in just the majority Russian areas. He wants the whole of Ukraine. He would still have launched this war and we would still be in the same place.
This is an academic question on another level, if you stop for a moment simply to consider that all the people in Crimea and the occupied portions of Donetsk and Luhansk who didn't want to live under Putin's jackboot have already left - or, especially in the case of the tinpot Donbas statelets, been mutilated, raped and murdered by separatist forces and some of the nastiest regiments in the Russian army.
Invading territory, expelling or murdering all the occupants who resist, and then holding a referendum that returns a rather suspicious 96.77% result in favour of union with the glorious motherland (as per Crimea in 2014) should not be accepted as fair excuse for annexation.
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
You really need to get the angle of the bullet right, if you want to avoid damage to the face.
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
Problem is there is no face saving way out and one wasn’t possible from the moment he sent the first troop across the border.
Agreed Putin is all in now....and he still has many cards to play...
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
You really need to get the angle of the bullet right, if you want to avoid damage to the face.
Perhaps up through the back of the mouth? That way the entry wound is hidden in the mouth, and the exit would is only at the back.
Kharkiv now totally controlled by Ukraine again, acc to local administration. Local head Oleg Sinegubov says Russian soldiers "abandoning vehicles and surrendering in groups"
Took a little drive round Kharkiv. Current situation: - streets deserted - some kind of fight/operation still going on around Shevchenko avenue/Hidropark. - city in Ukrainian hands
Every time I was to dislike the Telegraph, I am reminded that it still has some vestiges of the excellent foreign coverage of the old days (I never liked the editorial line but I read it for that).
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Yes, strange that a plebiscite is the way to settle an issue, and yet the votes in 1991 can be ignored if doing so further's Russian interests.
As I recollect, John Major was in power in 1991. He is not still in power because there have been elections. The world is not frozen in 1991.
Yet, you don't think a boundary can ever be revisited.
If there is an overwhelming majority in every part of the Ukraine for the present boundaries, surely a plebsicite will confirm that ?
A powerful argument that the Ukrainian state can use to retain Donetsk and Luhansk, no? .
It's a fantasy to believe there can be a free vote in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russians.
Edit: And besides, your talking point from a few days ago is that plebiscites do settle this issue for the long term, rather than creating the backwards and forwards conflict of war after war over the boundaries. You weren't arguing for every generation to redraw the borders with new plebiscites.
You are embarrassingly all over the place with this, because you refuse to stand up to Russian aggression, and so you are casting around for any sort of figleaf to explain how it could easily have been avoided.
There are ~ 20 million Russians in the Ukraine. That is a large minority. Whatever Ukraine does, it has to take that minority into account -- if it wishes to be a country drawn on the boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR.
Plebiscites are conducted at a district or town level
You can see the patchwork of Danish and German areas. You draw a new boundary with that detailed information. The historic region of the Duchy of Schleswig/Slesvig was split.
That was *not* done in 1991 for the Ukraine-Russia boundary, nor was it even what was asked.
What I strongly object to in your post is the statement that I "refuse to stand up to Russian aggression,"
Unless you propose to join the pb.com International Brigades, you are also not "standing up to Russian aggression "either.
We are all just posting words on a blog.
Objection: Russian speakers ≠ Russians, just as English speakers ≠ English.
I understand that. I am not English myself.
I used the demographics data of the Ukraine on wiki.
And, as has been pointed out, large numbers of those Russian speakers want to be in Ukraine, not Russia.
They voted that way in 1991 and the poll (below) shows that things haven't changed much.
A big part of the reason for this invasion was that Putins attempts at "uprisings" in Ukraine kept not working due to lack of local support.
And as has been pointed out, what better way to show that by a plebiscite.
Given you endlessly post a crappy CNN poll, why not check the quality of the data by doing a proper job?
I understand it would not have been easy, but it might have been easier than what we are now going to have to endure.
Complaining when someone posts legitimate polling data on PB.... That's an interesting approach.
The CNN poll used the standard methodologies for good polling - I did look. Interesting that you think it was "crappy" - why?
I suppose we are back to "Any poll you don't like the result of, is an outlier"....
Well, do you not accept that the regions in that map are rather big?
Like the Crimea, which has a Russian majority, is absorbed into some gigantic (& arbitrary) region of south/central Ukraine.
If you want to demonstrate that there was no appetite for Scottish independence, you could join Scotland with NE England and NW England and carry out a poll.
It would give you the misleading result you want.
Based on your criteria, the most "impossible" state in Europe is Russia itself. Do you think it should give independence to all the ethnic republics it contains?
Yes. I do. If there is an ethnic grouping in Russia that wishes to be independent, then of course.
I agree that Russia is an "impossible" state as well.
And we know you're open to moving the borders around, so how would you feel about partitioning Wales and giving bits of it to England?
Sadly, I suspect Ukrainian bravery and resistance are only delaying, not overcoming, Russia's immediate war aims. This raises the question of what is likely to happen once Russia has eliminated the Ukrainian government.
Here I think the parallel is with Iraq, not Afghanistan. Both programmes suffered optimism bias, believing the invaders would be at least accepted if not welcomed. Also little apparent planning for day 2. It is probably worse for Russia than the Iraq invasion was for America. Russia can less afford it; Ukraine appears to have a shallower support from citizens; the Ukrainian opposition is likely to be more unified.
So I suppose Russia can set up "Green Zone" in Kiev with a puppet government with someone like Victor Medvedchuk (worth a read) . Then what?
Yes Ukrainians resistance comes with a heavy cost in terms of people lost and potential war atrocities...its very easy to be an armchair general in the uk
Do you think Zelensky should travel to Belarus?
Peace is the best option for all we don't know how far this will escalate
It needs to continue until Putin falls.
Yes but don't underestimate Putin...he has a very tight inner circle who will defend him to the last
Such a tight inner circle he will only sit 20m away from them?
Sadly, I suspect Ukrainian bravery and resistance are only delaying, not overcoming, Russia's immediate war aims. This raises the question of what is likely to happen once Russia has eliminated the Ukrainian government.
Here I think the parallel is with Iraq, not Afghanistan. Both programmes suffered optimism bias, believing the invaders would be at least accepted if not welcomed. Also little apparent planning for day 2. It is probably worse for Russia than the Iraq invasion was for America. Russia can less afford it; Ukraine appears to have a shallower support from citizens; the Ukrainian opposition is likely to be more unified.
So I suppose Russia can set up "Green Zone" in Kiev with a puppet government with someone like Victor Medvedchuk (worth a read) . Then what?
Yes Ukrainians resistance comes with a heavy cost in terms of people lost and potential war atrocities...its very easy to be an armchair general in the uk
Russia is the one doing all the war atrocities, and I am sure you agree that Putin should be tried in the Hague for war crimes
I doubt he does. Please don't go clip clopping over @PJohnson 's bridge.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Yes, strange that a plebiscite is the way to settle an issue, and yet the votes in 1991 can be ignored if doing so further's Russian interests.
As I recollect, John Major was in power in 1991. He is not still in power because there have been elections. The world is not frozen in 1991.
Yet, you don't think a boundary can ever be revisited.
If there is an overwhelming majority in every part of the Ukraine for the present boundaries, surely a plebsicite will confirm that ?
A powerful argument that the Ukrainian state can use to retain Donetsk and Luhansk, no? .
It's a fantasy to believe there can be a free vote in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russians.
Edit: And besides, your talking point from a few days ago is that plebiscites do settle this issue for the long term, rather than creating the backwards and forwards conflict of war after war over the boundaries. You weren't arguing for every generation to redraw the borders with new plebiscites.
You are embarrassingly all over the place with this, because you refuse to stand up to Russian aggression, and so you are casting around for any sort of figleaf to explain how it could easily have been avoided.
There are ~ 20 million Russians in the Ukraine. That is a large minority. Whatever Ukraine does, it has to take that minority into account -- if it wishes to be a country drawn on the boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR.
Plebiscites are conducted at a district or town level
You can see the patchwork of Danish and German areas. You draw a new boundary with that detailed information. The historic region of the Duchy of Schleswig/Slesvig was split.
That was *not* done in 1991 for the Ukraine-Russia boundary, nor was it even what was asked.
What I strongly object to in your post is the statement that I "refuse to stand up to Russian aggression,"
Unless you propose to join the pb.com International Brigades, you are also not "standing up to Russian aggression "either.
We are all just posting words on a blog.
Objection: Russian speakers ≠ Russians, just as English speakers ≠ English.
I understand that. I am not English myself.
I used the demographics data of the Ukraine on wiki.
And, as has been pointed out, large numbers of those Russian speakers want to be in Ukraine, not Russia.
They voted that way in 1991 and the poll (below) shows that things haven't changed much.
A big part of the reason for this invasion was that Putins attempts at "uprisings" in Ukraine kept not working due to lack of local support.
And as has been pointed out, what better way to show that by a plebiscite.
Given you endlessly post a crappy CNN poll, why not check the quality of the data by doing a proper job?
I understand it would not have been easy, but it might have been easier than what we are now going to have to endure.
Complaining when someone posts legitimate polling data on PB.... That's an interesting approach.
The CNN poll used the standard methodologies for good polling - I did look. Interesting that you think it was "crappy" - why?
I suppose we are back to "Any poll you don't like the result of, is an outlier"....
Well, do you not accept that the regions in that map are rather big?
Like the Crimea, which has a Russian majority, is absorbed into some gigantic (& arbitrary) region of south/central Ukraine.
If you want to demonstrate that there was no appetite for Scottish independence, you could join Scotland with NE England and NW England and carry out a poll.
It would give you the misleading result you want.
Based on your criteria, the most "impossible" state in Europe is Russia itself. Do you think it should give independence to all the ethnic republics it contains?
Yes. I do. If there is an ethnic grouping in Russia that wishes to be independent, then of course.
I agree that Russia is an "impossible" state as well.
Switzerland is an impossible state by that criteria. The country where the French, Italians and Germans live together.
I don't know if I am supremely overjoyed that Germany is going to be spending a lot more on its military.
I would be happy for the UK to spend more, if we do so primarily on sea power. That's where success lies for us. Always has been, always will be. We should support our allies by Naval means, not getting bogged down in continental conflicts.
Question. With all those airspace closures, how does Putin sustain Kaliningrad….?
Well, it's not that far through the Baltic for a sea connection. I'm not sure what the airspace boundaries are over the Baltic.
And then the gap between Belarus and Kaliningrad over Poland/Lithuania is pretty short. Are they going to start shooting down Russian aircraft bridging the gap?
I don't think it puts Kaliningrad under any more of a blockade than Moscow is.
Kharkiv now totally controlled by Ukraine again, acc to local administration. Local head Oleg Sinegubov says Russian soldiers "abandoning vehicles and surrendering in groups"
Took a little drive round Kharkiv. Current situation: - streets deserted - some kind of fight/operation still going on around Shevchenko avenue/Hidropark. - city in Ukrainian hands
Every time I was to dislike the Telegraph, I am reminded that it still has some vestiges of the excellent foreign coverage of the old days (I never liked the editorial line but I read it for that).
Yes.
It would be useful if journalists tweeted as their respective papers when on official biz, hence my post to clarify this isn't an iffy bit of news management from Ukr govt.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Yes, strange that a plebiscite is the way to settle an issue, and yet the votes in 1991 can be ignored if doing so further's Russian interests.
As I recollect, John Major was in power in 1991. He is not still in power because there have been elections. The world is not frozen in 1991.
Yet, you don't think a boundary can ever be revisited.
If there is an overwhelming majority in every part of the Ukraine for the present boundaries, surely a plebsicite will confirm that ?
A powerful argument that the Ukrainian state can use to retain Donetsk and Luhansk, no? .
It's a fantasy to believe there can be a free vote in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russians.
Edit: And besides, your talking point from a few days ago is that plebiscites do settle this issue for the long term, rather than creating the backwards and forwards conflict of war after war over the boundaries. You weren't arguing for every generation to redraw the borders with new plebiscites.
You are embarrassingly all over the place with this, because you refuse to stand up to Russian aggression, and so you are casting around for any sort of figleaf to explain how it could easily have been avoided.
There are ~ 20 million Russians in the Ukraine. That is a large minority. Whatever Ukraine does, it has to take that minority into account -- if it wishes to be a country drawn on the boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR.
Plebiscites are conducted at a district or town level
You can see the patchwork of Danish and German areas. You draw a new boundary with that detailed information. The historic region of the Duchy of Schleswig/Slesvig was split.
That was *not* done in 1991 for the Ukraine-Russia boundary, nor was it even what was asked.
What I strongly object to in your post is the statement that I "refuse to stand up to Russian aggression,"
Unless you propose to join the pb.com International Brigades, you are also not "standing up to Russian aggression "either.
We are all just posting words on a blog.
Objection: Russian speakers ≠ Russians, just as English speakers ≠ English.
I understand that. I am not English myself.
I used the demographics data of the Ukraine on wiki.
And, as has been pointed out, large numbers of those Russian speakers want to be in Ukraine, not Russia.
They voted that way in 1991 and the poll (below) shows that things haven't changed much.
A big part of the reason for this invasion was that Putins attempts at "uprisings" in Ukraine kept not working due to lack of local support.
And as has been pointed out, what better way to show that by a plebiscite.
Given you endlessly post a crappy CNN poll, why not check the quality of the data by doing a proper job?
I understand it would not have been easy, but it might have been easier than what we are now going to have to endure.
Complaining when someone posts legitimate polling data on PB.... That's an interesting approach.
The CNN poll used the standard methodologies for good polling - I did look. Interesting that you think it was "crappy" - why?
I suppose we are back to "Any poll you don't like the result of, is an outlier"....
Well, do you not accept that the regions in that map are rather big?
Like the Crimea, which has a Russian majority, is absorbed into some gigantic (& arbitrary) region of south/central Ukraine.
If you want to demonstrate that there was no appetite for Scottish independence, you could join Scotland with NE England and NW England and carry out a poll.
It would give you the misleading result you want.
Based on your criteria, the most "impossible" state in Europe is Russia itself. Do you think it should give independence to all the ethnic republics it contains?
Yes. I do. If there is an ethnic grouping in Russia that wishes to be independent, then of course.
I agree that Russia is an "impossible" state as well.
It's just lazy, pessimistic thinking. A 21st Century world shouldn't have to depend on the creation of borders and the building of walls to maintain peace.
The Kenyan ambassador to the UN made this point beautifully a few days ago. A country with arrow straight borders, like much of the Middle East.
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
Problem is there is no face saving way out and one wasn’t possible from the moment he sent the first troop across the border.
Agreed Putin is all in now....and he still has many cards to play...
If ever there was a man a long way short of a full deck ...
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Yes, strange that a plebiscite is the way to settle an issue, and yet the votes in 1991 can be ignored if doing so further's Russian interests.
As I recollect, John Major was in power in 1991. He is not still in power because there have been elections. The world is not frozen in 1991.
Yet, you don't think a boundary can ever be revisited.
If there is an overwhelming majority in every part of the Ukraine for the present boundaries, surely a plebsicite will confirm that ?
A powerful argument that the Ukrainian state can use to retain Donetsk and Luhansk, no? .
It's a fantasy to believe there can be a free vote in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russians.
Edit: And besides, your talking point from a few days ago is that plebiscites do settle this issue for the long term, rather than creating the backwards and forwards conflict of war after war over the boundaries. You weren't arguing for every generation to redraw the borders with new plebiscites.
You are embarrassingly all over the place with this, because you refuse to stand up to Russian aggression, and so you are casting around for any sort of figleaf to explain how it could easily have been avoided.
There are ~ 20 million Russians in the Ukraine. That is a large minority. Whatever Ukraine does, it has to take that minority into account -- if it wishes to be a country drawn on the boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR.
Plebiscites are conducted at a district or town level
You can see the patchwork of Danish and German areas. You draw a new boundary with that detailed information. The historic region of the Duchy of Schleswig/Slesvig was split.
That was *not* done in 1991 for the Ukraine-Russia boundary, nor was it even what was asked.
What I strongly object to in your post is the statement that I "refuse to stand up to Russian aggression,"
Unless you propose to join the pb.com International Brigades, you are also not "standing up to Russian aggression "either.
We are all just posting words on a blog.
Objection: Russian speakers ≠ Russians, just as English speakers ≠ English.
I understand that. I am not English myself.
I used the demographics data of the Ukraine on wiki.
And, as has been pointed out, large numbers of those Russian speakers want to be in Ukraine, not Russia.
They voted that way in 1991 and the poll (below) shows that things haven't changed much.
A big part of the reason for this invasion was that Putins attempts at "uprisings" in Ukraine kept not working due to lack of local support.
And as has been pointed out, what better way to show that by a plebiscite.
Given you endlessly post a crappy CNN poll, why not check the quality of the data by doing a proper job?
I understand it would not have been easy, but it might have been easier than what we are now going to have to endure.
Complaining when someone posts legitimate polling data on PB.... That's an interesting approach.
The CNN poll used the standard methodologies for good polling - I did look. Interesting that you think it was "crappy" - why?
I suppose we are back to "Any poll you don't like the result of, is an outlier"....
Well, do you not accept that the regions in that map are rather big?
Like the Crimea, which has a Russian majority, is absorbed into some gigantic (& arbitrary) region of south/central Ukraine.
If you want to demonstrate that there was no appetite for Scottish independence, you could join Scotland with NE England and NW England and carry out a poll.
It would give you the misleading result you want.
Based on your criteria, the most "impossible" state in Europe is Russia itself. Do you think it should give independence to all the ethnic republics it contains?
Yes. I do. If there is an ethnic grouping in Russia that wishes to be independent, then of course.
I agree that Russia is an "impossible" state as well.
And we know you're open to moving the borders around, so how would you feel about partitioning Wales and giving bits of it to England?
This is probably more relevant to the case of Scotland.
Personally, I'd be very unhappy about partitioning Scotland if it voted for independent (cf N. Ireland). The boundaries of England and Scotland have been reasonably stable for a long time.
I personally think the same is true of Wales.
The boundaries of the Ukraine have not been fixed for hundreds of years.
Abramovich could do worse than donate, say, £100m to Ukraine Govt
He'd face 20 years in a Russian prison for doing that.
All his relatives in Russia would be dead or counting trees within a week.
Or: that was the case until a week ago. Bear in mind his daughter went public against putin a few days back. High stakes stuff if Putin is to retain power, what with all this polonium and novichok going round
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
Problem is there is no face saving way out and one wasn’t possible from the moment he sent the first troop across the border.
Agreed Putin is all in now....and he still has many cards to play...
Belarus is one, frying himself is another .. I'm not sure how many others there are.
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
Problem is there is no face saving way out and one wasn’t possible from the moment he sent the first troop across the border.
It’s not likely, but Putin could offer to withdraw if he gets a guarantee in Ukraine’s constitution that it will not join NATO/EU
Putin could just about sell that as a win, and it might just be acceptable to Kyiv, to spare further suffering
I agree this is improbable. More likely is that the maddened Putin will double down, and use overwhelming force to ‘defeat’ Ukraine, killing thousands - as it is now clear the Ukrainians are going to fight for every street. Putin then imposes a puppet regime which immediately collapses under constant insurrections, with arms supplied by the west, and Ukraine becomes a Slavic version of Iraq, but worse for Russia as it is right next door
Fcuk, Oxfordshire is the 'frontline', the Rooshians are here!
Would Johnson in military fatigues have worked better?
Did that plane actually deliver anything? The reports I heard is it got to Poland and turned back rather than landing in Poland and emptying things out ready for delivery across the border by land.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Yes, strange that a plebiscite is the way to settle an issue, and yet the votes in 1991 can be ignored if doing so further's Russian interests.
As I recollect, John Major was in power in 1991. He is not still in power because there have been elections. The world is not frozen in 1991.
Yet, you don't think a boundary can ever be revisited.
If there is an overwhelming majority in every part of the Ukraine for the present boundaries, surely a plebsicite will confirm that ?
A powerful argument that the Ukrainian state can use to retain Donetsk and Luhansk, no? .
It's a fantasy to believe there can be a free vote in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russians.
Edit: And besides, your talking point from a few days ago is that plebiscites do settle this issue for the long term, rather than creating the backwards and forwards conflict of war after war over the boundaries. You weren't arguing for every generation to redraw the borders with new plebiscites.
You are embarrassingly all over the place with this, because you refuse to stand up to Russian aggression, and so you are casting around for any sort of figleaf to explain how it could easily have been avoided.
There are ~ 20 million Russians in the Ukraine. That is a large minority. Whatever Ukraine does, it has to take that minority into account -- if it wishes to be a country drawn on the boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR.
Plebiscites are conducted at a district or town level
You can see the patchwork of Danish and German areas. You draw a new boundary with that detailed information. The historic region of the Duchy of Schleswig/Slesvig was split.
That was *not* done in 1991 for the Ukraine-Russia boundary, nor was it even what was asked.
What I strongly object to in your post is the statement that I "refuse to stand up to Russian aggression,"
Unless you propose to join the pb.com International Brigades, you are also not "standing up to Russian aggression "either.
We are all just posting words on a blog.
Objection: Russian speakers ≠ Russians, just as English speakers ≠ English.
I understand that. I am not English myself.
I used the demographics data of the Ukraine on wiki.
And, as has been pointed out, large numbers of those Russian speakers want to be in Ukraine, not Russia.
They voted that way in 1991 and the poll (below) shows that things haven't changed much.
A big part of the reason for this invasion was that Putins attempts at "uprisings" in Ukraine kept not working due to lack of local support.
And as has been pointed out, what better way to show that by a plebiscite.
Given you endlessly post a crappy CNN poll, why not check the quality of the data by doing a proper job?
I understand it would not have been easy, but it might have been easier than what we are now going to have to endure.
Complaining when someone posts legitimate polling data on PB.... That's an interesting approach.
The CNN poll used the standard methodologies for good polling - I did look. Interesting that you think it was "crappy" - why?
I suppose we are back to "Any poll you don't like the result of, is an outlier"....
Well, do you not accept that the regions in that map are rather big?
Like the Crimea, which has a Russian majority, is absorbed into some gigantic (& arbitrary) region of south/central Ukraine.
If you want to demonstrate that there was no appetite for Scottish independence, you could join Scotland with NE England and NW England and carry out a poll.
It would give you the misleading result you want.
Based on your criteria, the most "impossible" state in Europe is Russia itself. Do you think it should give independence to all the ethnic republics it contains?
Yes. I do. If there is an ethnic grouping in Russia that wishes to be independent, then of course.
I agree that Russia is an "impossible" state as well.
And we know you're open to moving the borders around, so how would you feel about partitioning Wales and giving bits of it to England?
This is probably more relevant to the case of Scotland.
Personally, I'd be very unhappy about partitioning Scotland if it voted for independent (cf N. Ireland). The boundaries of England and Scotland have been reasonably stable for a long time.
I personally think the same is true of Wales.
The boundaries of the Ukraine have not been fixed for hundreds of years.
We'll send Tank Boy. And since Wales has no tanks, the Man in the Covenanter will win. Realpolitik's a bitch when the sacrifice is...... you.....
Sadly, I suspect Ukrainian bravery and resistance are only delaying, not overcoming, Russia's immediate war aims. This raises the question of what is likely to happen once Russia has eliminated the Ukrainian government.
Here I think the parallel is with Iraq, not Afghanistan. Both programmes suffered optimism bias, believing the invaders would be at least accepted if not welcomed. Also little apparent planning for day 2. It is probably worse for Russia than the Iraq invasion was for America. Russia can less afford it; Ukraine appears to have a shallower support from citizens; the Ukrainian opposition is likely to be more unified.
So I suppose Russia can set up "Green Zone" in Kiev with a puppet government with someone like Victor Medvedchuk (worth a read) . Then what?
Yes Ukrainians resistance comes with a heavy cost in terms of people lost and potential war atrocities...its very easy to be an armchair general in the uk
Do you think Zelensky should travel to Belarus?
Peace is the best option for all we don't know how far this will escalate
It needs to continue until Putin falls.
Yes but don't underestimate Putin...he has a very tight inner circle who will defend him to the last
Such a tight inner circle he will only sit 20m away from them?
Kharkiv now totally controlled by Ukraine again, acc to local administration. Local head Oleg Sinegubov says Russian soldiers "abandoning vehicles and surrendering in groups"
Took a little drive round Kharkiv. Current situation: - streets deserted - some kind of fight/operation still going on around Shevchenko avenue/Hidropark. - city in Ukrainian hands
Mr. Eabhal, most of Western Europe's contribution is defensive weaponry.
And helmets. Don’t downplay the helmets.
Okay. Not to down play helmets What if it’s those German ones with a pointy spike thing on top? That clearly gives it an offensive capacity?
Obviously I’m not nearly the best Armchair General on PB (personally I think Yokes is having a good crisis from start - cool composed posts, what we need to pay attention now we may not have realised).
But I’ve got a few thoughts for discussion too.
They don’t seem to be in mad rush to enter Kyiv? The Russian tactic seems to be to surround city, control surrounding areas, before entering? Maybe the tactic isn’t lay siege or seal, but stretch defences into second guessing where attacks might come, like how hyenas surround and wear down a lion, sodefence can’t be waiting for direction of next attack.
I’ve thought deeply about handing out lots of rifles and machine guns to civilians, and I’m not convinced it’s such a good idea. It appears to be great idea on surface, theoretically anyone could point and pull a trigger? But there is a lot of professionalism in soldiering that helps in other ways. using and maintain the equipment effectively requires knowledge of it and practicing? much same way, how soldiers have been heavily working on working as a team against you, the civilians won’t have that? if they fired on them as a lone wolf, thats most likely leading to their death (or their fathers death as in movie battle of the bulge). And then even with so much training there is so sadly expect more without it, friendly fire. To shoot and kill and realise they were on your side would be tough to live with, but especially if you knew them or they were family ☹️ I was surprised by how many killed by friendly fire in Second World War just in the UK alone, that wasn’t even invaded - it’s that I’m thinking of with so many guns handed out to unprofessionals. Really the Ukrainians want and need professionals on the end of all the Gucci things we are supplying in there.
You sense with Swift it’s not full hearted or blanket ban from some? where we get told front door is closed, the back door may be open, especially where you have Russian money from a friend but not a Russian passport? The effectiveness of sanctions can only be known in the future. Yes, I sense things very very different this time for sure, but that only flags up how without continued resolve long after anger and it in news, those previous sanctions we thought were for real were far too easily “worked round” by all parties?
of course please flag up the points I’ve got wrong in this post, I won’t mind being wrong about all these things I don’t know much about.
Wow - Chancellor Scholz has just announced that Germany will be spending 2% plus of its GDP on defence every year from now on. That is huge news. It means that the German defence budget becomes the biggest in Europe in purely monetary terms.
If Europe is to tool up instead of relying on America it makes it all the more important imo that the EU survives and prospers rather than fractures into competing nationalistic countries all thinking they're special and trying to make themselves great.
Sigh. No it really doesn't. Europe can very easily 'tool up' within the NATO structure and rely less upon the US without any overarching need for the EU.
This is not a call for the EU to disappear but a recognition that if you tie military cooperation to the EU then you will get fewer countries willing to take part because of all the rest of the rubbish that comes with it. Keep the EU for its political and trade links if you want and keep NATO as the military structure since it was specifically created for exactly this role and is ideally suited to it.
The essence of NATO is America defending Europe. The scenario I'm talking about (possible if not probable) is Europe deciding they can no longer be relied upon (eg since they've gone isolationist and/or got obsessed with China) and therefore building a top tier 'superpower' military itself. A different animal to NATO has thus emerged.
This new 'hard power' could be shared under an integrated European foreign & defence policy or (other extreme) the EU could break up as national populist parties such as AfD and Front National and (insert for other countries, there's loads, they all have one) gain traction. Then we'd have an EU-less Europe of aggressively competing nationalistic nation states with all of that military dispersed under different commands in the various capital cities of the continent. What I'm saying is this prospect doesn't appeal.
So if Europe is going to tool up (possible AND probable) it's more than ever important that it holds together - and the most obvious way it holds together is via its main joint enterprise and platform (the EU) staying in rude health.
Call me naive but I don't think anyone should bear an arbitrary tax of a hundred million pounds to pay for weapons killing slave soldiers of his countrymen. Much less that you get out of such a tax by saying something in line with the government's political position.
Just a thought - whilst everyone is naturally fearful for the Ukrainian population (and obviously they are already suffering deadly consequences) i wonder if even the Russians have a problem here because of their (even though it's flimsy) justification for what they are doing. Because they have been explicitly and vocally saying that they are "not targeting civilians/civilian areas" it does potentially limit their options. All their domestic propoganda has been about Ukrainians living oppressed under "Nazi" govt - that really can't be sustained if they switch tactics. And they can't ever portray victory in a situation where Ukrainian cities look like Grozny.
Of course in desperation they may still go down that path.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Yes, strange that a plebiscite is the way to settle an issue, and yet the votes in 1991 can be ignored if doing so further's Russian interests.
As I recollect, John Major was in power in 1991. He is not still in power because there have been elections. The world is not frozen in 1991.
Yet, you don't think a boundary can ever be revisited.
If there is an overwhelming majority in every part of the Ukraine for the present boundaries, surely a plebsicite will confirm that ?
A powerful argument that the Ukrainian state can use to retain Donetsk and Luhansk, no? .
It's a fantasy to believe there can be a free vote in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russians.
Edit: And besides, your talking point from a few days ago is that plebiscites do settle this issue for the long term, rather than creating the backwards and forwards conflict of war after war over the boundaries. You weren't arguing for every generation to redraw the borders with new plebiscites.
You are embarrassingly all over the place with this, because you refuse to stand up to Russian aggression, and so you are casting around for any sort of figleaf to explain how it could easily have been avoided.
There are ~ 20 million Russians in the Ukraine. That is a large minority. Whatever Ukraine does, it has to take that minority into account -- if it wishes to be a country drawn on the boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR.
Plebiscites are conducted at a district or town level
You can see the patchwork of Danish and German areas. You draw a new boundary with that detailed information. The historic region of the Duchy of Schleswig/Slesvig was split.
That was *not* done in 1991 for the Ukraine-Russia boundary, nor was it even what was asked.
What I strongly object to in your post is the statement that I "refuse to stand up to Russian aggression,"
Unless you propose to join the pb.com International Brigades, you are also not "standing up to Russian aggression "either.
We are all just posting words on a blog.
Objection: Russian speakers ≠ Russians, just as English speakers ≠ English.
I understand that. I am not English myself.
I used the demographics data of the Ukraine on wiki.
And, as has been pointed out, large numbers of those Russian speakers want to be in Ukraine, not Russia.
They voted that way in 1991 and the poll (below) shows that things haven't changed much.
A big part of the reason for this invasion was that Putins attempts at "uprisings" in Ukraine kept not working due to lack of local support.
And as has been pointed out, what better way to show that by a plebiscite.
Given you endlessly post a crappy CNN poll, why not check the quality of the data by doing a proper job?
I understand it would not have been easy, but it might have been easier than what we are now going to have to endure.
Complaining when someone posts legitimate polling data on PB.... That's an interesting approach.
The CNN poll used the standard methodologies for good polling - I did look. Interesting that you think it was "crappy" - why?
I suppose we are back to "Any poll you don't like the result of, is an outlier"....
Well, do you not accept that the regions in that map are rather big?
Like the Crimea, which has a Russian majority, is absorbed into some gigantic (& arbitrary) region of south/central Ukraine.
If you want to demonstrate that there was no appetite for Scottish independence, you could join Scotland with NE England and NW England and carry out a poll.
It would give you the misleading result you want.
Based on your criteria, the most "impossible" state in Europe is Russia itself. Do you think it should give independence to all the ethnic republics it contains?
Yes. I do. If there is an ethnic grouping in Russia that wishes to be independent, then of course.
I agree that Russia is an "impossible" state as well.
It's just lazy, pessimistic thinking. A 21st Century world shouldn't have to depend on the creation of borders and the building of walls to maintain peace.
The Kenyan ambassador to the UN made this point beautifully a few days ago. A country with arrow straight borders, like much of the Middle East.
Just think, we could be part of a European community moving towards that..... OH
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Yes, strange that a plebiscite is the way to settle an issue, and yet the votes in 1991 can be ignored if doing so further's Russian interests.
As I recollect, John Major was in power in 1991. He is not still in power because there have been elections. The world is not frozen in 1991.
Yet, you don't think a boundary can ever be revisited.
If there is an overwhelming majority in every part of the Ukraine for the present boundaries, surely a plebsicite will confirm that ?
A powerful argument that the Ukrainian state can use to retain Donetsk and Luhansk, no? .
It's a fantasy to believe there can be a free vote in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russians.
Edit: And besides, your talking point from a few days ago is that plebiscites do settle this issue for the long term, rather than creating the backwards and forwards conflict of war after war over the boundaries. You weren't arguing for every generation to redraw the borders with new plebiscites.
You are embarrassingly all over the place with this, because you refuse to stand up to Russian aggression, and so you are casting around for any sort of figleaf to explain how it could easily have been avoided.
There are ~ 20 million Russians in the Ukraine. That is a large minority. Whatever Ukraine does, it has to take that minority into account -- if it wishes to be a country drawn on the boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR.
Plebiscites are conducted at a district or town level
You can see the patchwork of Danish and German areas. You draw a new boundary with that detailed information. The historic region of the Duchy of Schleswig/Slesvig was split.
That was *not* done in 1991 for the Ukraine-Russia boundary, nor was it even what was asked.
What I strongly object to in your post is the statement that I "refuse to stand up to Russian aggression,"
Unless you propose to join the pb.com International Brigades, you are also not "standing up to Russian aggression "either.
We are all just posting words on a blog.
Objection: Russian speakers ≠ Russians, just as English speakers ≠ English.
I understand that. I am not English myself.
I used the demographics data of the Ukraine on wiki.
And, as has been pointed out, large numbers of those Russian speakers want to be in Ukraine, not Russia.
They voted that way in 1991 and the poll (below) shows that things haven't changed much.
A big part of the reason for this invasion was that Putins attempts at "uprisings" in Ukraine kept not working due to lack of local support.
And as has been pointed out, what better way to show that by a plebiscite.
Given you endlessly post a crappy CNN poll, why not check the quality of the data by doing a proper job?
I understand it would not have been easy, but it might have been easier than what we are now going to have to endure.
Complaining when someone posts legitimate polling data on PB.... That's an interesting approach.
The CNN poll used the standard methodologies for good polling - I did look. Interesting that you think it was "crappy" - why?
I suppose we are back to "Any poll you don't like the result of, is an outlier"....
Well, do you not accept that the regions in that map are rather big?
Like the Crimea, which has a Russian majority, is absorbed into some gigantic (& arbitrary) region of south/central Ukraine.
If you want to demonstrate that there was no appetite for Scottish independence, you could join Scotland with NE England and NW England and carry out a poll.
It would give you the misleading result you want.
Based on your criteria, the most "impossible" state in Europe is Russia itself. Do you think it should give independence to all the ethnic republics it contains?
Yes. I do. If there is an ethnic grouping in Russia that wishes to be independent, then of course.
I agree that Russia is an "impossible" state as well.
Switzerland is an impossible state by that criteria. The country where the French, Italians and Germans live together.
It has tensions, but it has very good ways of dealing with the tensions, evolved over hundreds of years..
As usual with a Malmesbury post, you have forgotten something!
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Yes, strange that a plebiscite is the way to settle an issue, and yet the votes in 1991 can be ignored if doing so further's Russian interests.
As I recollect, John Major was in power in 1991. He is not still in power because there have been elections. The world is not frozen in 1991.
Yet, you don't think a boundary can ever be revisited.
If there is an overwhelming majority in every part of the Ukraine for the present boundaries, surely a plebsicite will confirm that ?
A powerful argument that the Ukrainian state can use to retain Donetsk and Luhansk, no? .
It's a fantasy to believe there can be a free vote in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russians.
Edit: And besides, your talking point from a few days ago is that plebiscites do settle this issue for the long term, rather than creating the backwards and forwards conflict of war after war over the boundaries. You weren't arguing for every generation to redraw the borders with new plebiscites.
You are embarrassingly all over the place with this, because you refuse to stand up to Russian aggression, and so you are casting around for any sort of figleaf to explain how it could easily have been avoided.
There are ~ 20 million Russians in the Ukraine. That is a large minority. Whatever Ukraine does, it has to take that minority into account -- if it wishes to be a country drawn on the boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR.
Plebiscites are conducted at a district or town level
You can see the patchwork of Danish and German areas. You draw a new boundary with that detailed information. The historic region of the Duchy of Schleswig/Slesvig was split.
That was *not* done in 1991 for the Ukraine-Russia boundary, nor was it even what was asked.
What I strongly object to in your post is the statement that I "refuse to stand up to Russian aggression,"
Unless you propose to join the pb.com International Brigades, you are also not "standing up to Russian aggression "either.
We are all just posting words on a blog.
Fortunately, we know how that large Russian minority votes, because Ukraine has regular, reasonably free, elections.
In the 2019 President election, the Opposition Bloc candidate got... counts... 4.15% of the vote. They have six seats in the 450 seat Ukrainian parliament.
Now, it is true that if there had been elections in the Russian administered separatist regions, they would have probably done slightly better. Maybe they could have made it to, I don't know, 6% of the vote.
Most ethnic Russians and Russian speakers voted for non-Rusophile political parties. And ethnic Russians and Russian speakers overwhelmingly chose independence from the Soviet Union and Russia when last asked the question.
Now, could there be a little more of the East where there's a majority for leaving Ukraine and either forming breakaway states or Russia itself? Absolutely.
But it is not a large portion of the Ukraine, and it is not a large portion of the Ukrainian people.
[Translated from Russian] Last night I asked Alexander Lukashenko to ensure the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of his country. The brotherhood between the Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples should push Belarus to refuse to become a vassal and an actual accomplice of Russia in the war against Ukraine.
Good. Macron is playing a vital role here and should be commended.
If nothing else it will provide evidence for The Hague, not that either Lukashenko or Putin will live to see it. The only question is “will they die of old age?”
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
Problem is there is no face saving way out and one wasn’t possible from the moment he sent the first troop across the border.
It’s not likely, but Putin could offer to withdraw if he gets a guarantee in Ukraine’s constitution that it will not join NATO/EU
Putin could just about sell that as a win, and it might just be acceptable to Kyiv, to spare further suffering
I agree this is improbable. More likely is that the maddened Putin will double down, and use overwhelming force to ‘defeat’ Ukraine, killing thousands - as it is now clear the Ukrainians are going to fight for every street. Putin then imposes a puppet regime which immediately collapses under constant insurrections, with arms supplied by the west, and Ukraine becomes a Slavic version of Iraq, but worse for Russia as it is right next door
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
You really need to get the angle of the bullet right, if you want to avoid damage to the face.
Perhaps up through the back of the mouth? That way the entry wound is hidden in the mouth, and the exit would is only at the back.
Genuinely not sure whether it's safer to leave that bit of misinfo out there, or correct it. For the most conclusive result shoot yourself in the mouth *horizontally* to get the brainstem. There's any number of survivors out there who have angled upwards and missed asnything important..
Deutsche Bahn has just announced it is offering free travel on all long-distance trains from Poland to Germany to anyone with a Ukraine passport, effective immediately. Also working with Polish railways to make services more frequent.
This makes me wonder how the Cold War rules hold up when faced with weapons that are basically robots.
Like traditionally NATO and the Soviets avoid fighting each other directly because that's WW3, but it's normal and accepted to fund and arm other people fighting against the other side. So US troops aren't going to Ukraine to fight the Russians, but they'll send guns for Ukrainians to shoot the Russians with.
Now instead of a gun shooting at a tank, it's a drone bombing the tank. (OK in this case it's Turkey sending it not the US but bear with me.) I guess it has to take off from Ukraine, if they let it take off from Poland that would be WW3. But say as well as the drone being made by the US, the intelligence about where the tank is also comes direct from the US. And having been given a thing to bomb, it can use its software to get there and bomb it. And if it needs a software update it downloads that from the US. Is that all OK on Cold War rules, provided there's a Ukrainian in the Ukraine with a laptop pressing enter? What's the point where we say we're starting WW3, because the US just sent a killer robot to kill Russians?
yes and its why I am nervous of this Dads Army gung ho lets all chip in to kill russians attitude. Its admirable and understandable and justified -is it wise given the practicalities of the world?
Absolutely...never forget the Russians could nuke London in an instant...thousands of years of history instantly vapourised
I don't know if I am supremely overjoyed that Germany is going to be spending a lot more on its military.
I would be happy for the UK to spend more, if we do so primarily on sea power. That's where success lies for us. Always has been, always will be. We should support our allies by Naval means, not getting bogged down in continental conflicts.
For the past 100 years the go to approach for land battles was the tank yet they can now be destroyed by a single $20,000 missile.
The idea that the sea is any better off in the 21st century May be equally false.
Kharkiv now totally controlled by Ukraine again, acc to local administration. Local head Oleg Sinegubov says Russian soldiers "abandoning vehicles and surrendering in groups"
Took a little drive round Kharkiv. Current situation: - streets deserted - some kind of fight/operation still going on around Shevchenko avenue/Hidropark. - city in Ukrainian hands
Just a thought - whilst everyone is naturally fearful for the Ukrainian population (and obviously they are already suffering deadly consequences) i wonder if even the Russians have a problem here because of their (even though it's flimsy) justification for what they are doing. Because they have been explicitly and vocally saying that they are "not targeting civilians/civilian areas" it does potentially limit their options. All their domestic propoganda has been about Ukrainians living oppressed under "Nazi" govt - that really can't be sustained if they switch tactics. And they can't ever portray victory in a situation where Ukrainian cities look like Grozny.
Of course in desperation they may still go down that path.
I think Ukrainians realize this is the only card they have to play . Putin has boxed himself in. So even if it means lots of destruction to cities and casualties the very existence of their nation relies on taking this gamble and hoping that Putin loses public support and some coup takes place .
https://twitter.com/HenryJFoy/status/1497899431370309633 first of the big Russian oligarchs breaks ranks with Putin as Ukrainian-born billionaire banker Mikhail Fridman says war in Ukraine a “tragedy” & calls for “bloodshed” to end …
Has managed to avoid damage from Russia’s various disasters since the Russian financial crisis in 1998. Sniffs which way the wind is blowing ?
Mr. Eabhal, most of Western Europe's contribution is defensive weaponry.
And helmets. Don’t downplay the helmets.
Okay. Not to down play helmets What if it’s those German ones with a pointy spike thing on top? That clearly gives it an offensive capacity?
Obviously I’m not nearly the best Armchair General on PB (personally I think Yokes is having a good crisis from start - cool composed posts, what we need to pay attention now we may not have realised).
But I’ve got a few thoughts for discussion too.
They don’t seem to be in mad rush to enter Kyiv? The Russian tactic seems to be to surround city, control surrounding areas, before entering? Maybe the tactic isn’t lay siege or seal, but stretch defences into second guessing where attacks might come, like how hyenas surround and wear down a lion, sodefence can’t be waiting for direction of next attack.
I’ve thought deeply about handing out lots of rifles and machine guns to civilians, and I’m not convinced it’s such a good idea. It appears to be great idea on surface, theoretically anyone could point and pull a trigger? But there is a lot of professionalism in soldiering that helps in other ways. using and maintain the equipment effectively requires knowledge of it and practicing? much same way, how soldiers have been heavily working on working as a team against you, the civilians won’t have that? if they fired on them as a lone wolf, thats most likely leading to their death (or their fathers death as in movie battle of the bulge). And then even with so much training there is so sadly expect more without it, friendly fire. To shoot and kill and realise they were on your side would be tough to live with, but especially if you knew them or they were family ☹️ I was surprised by how many killed by friendly fire in Second World War just in the UK alone, that wasn’t even invaded - it’s that I’m thinking of with so many guns handed out to unprofessionals. Really the Ukrainians want and need professionals on the end of all the Gucci things we are supplying in there.
You sense with Swift it’s not full hearted or blanket ban from some? where we get told front door is closed, the back door may be open, especially where you have Russian money from a friend but not a Russian passport? The effectiveness of sanctions can only be known in the future. Yes, I sense things very very different this time for sure, but that only flags up how without continued resolve long after anger and it in news, those previous sanctions we thought were for real were far too easily “worked round” by all parties?
of course please flag up the points I’ve got wrong in this post, I won’t mind being wrong about all these things I don’t know much about.
Well Pickelhauben gained a reputation - and not a good one. It became the symbol of the German Empire...
The Russians seem to be trying a bunch of things - helicopter assaults, paratroops, infiltration and your classic armoured columns. None of these seem to be going well around Kyiv.
We were told that they were gong to Grozny Kyiv last night - that turned out to be much less than some predicted. It is starting to look like there is a big gap between Russian capabilities and intentions.
Yes - civilians with a few days training will take a lot of casualties. Very much in the line of the UK Home Guard in WWII - "You can always take one with you"....
My guess is that the SWFT ban was achieved by watering it down until the exclusions made each of the hold out countries happy. In this as in many things, it needs to be the start, not the end. As I was saying yesterday, it is a bit like the Allied blockade of various vital materials in WWII - they didn't stop the war, but degraded Germany's ability to fight, more and more, over time.
. Now, could there be a little more of the East where there's a majority for leaving Ukraine and either forming breakaway states or Russia itself? Absolutely.
But it is not a large portion of the Ukraine, and it is not a large portion of the Ukrainian people.
We are in agreement.
So, there is no real problem in acknowledging this and redrawing the borders, right?
Of course, I completely accept the situation has now moved on. The boundaries will now be decided by the war.
Whether that is good or bad for Ukraine (and the rest of us), we will have to wait and see.
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
Problem is there is no face saving way out and one wasn’t possible from the moment he sent the first troop across the border.
It’s not likely, but Putin could offer to withdraw if he gets a guarantee in Ukraine’s constitution that it will not join NATO/EU
Putin could just about sell that as a win, and it might just be acceptable to Kyiv, to spare further suffering
I agree this is improbable. More likely is that the maddened Putin will double down, and use overwhelming force to ‘defeat’ Ukraine, killing thousands - as it is now clear the Ukrainians are going to fight for every street. Putin then imposes a puppet regime which immediately collapses under constant insurrections, with arms supplied by the west, and Ukraine becomes a Slavic version of Iraq, but worse for Russia as it is right next door
Don't think Kyiv will accept those terms.
That is something that we should discuss, because an external-enforced agreement for a neutrality zone, by China and Brazil, say ; and clearly not only excluding the EU or NATO but any parameters of Russian interference or presence Kyiv might want to specify, anywhere ; could still save a lot of lives, at this stage.
I don't know if I am supremely overjoyed that Germany is going to be spending a lot more on its military.
I would be happy for the UK to spend more, if we do so primarily on sea power. That's where success lies for us. Always has been, always will be. We should support our allies by Naval means, not getting bogged down in continental conflicts.
For the past 100 years the go to approach for land battles was the tank yet they can now be destroyed by a single $20,000 missile.
The idea that the sea is any better off in the 21st century May be equally false.
Yes. Look what’s happening to Russian armour against ‘cheap’ Turkish drones. How long can big lumbering ships remain relevant? They are just tanks at sea
AI, cyberwarfare, robot soldiers, drones of all sizes, hypersonic missiles - that’s the future.
And intelligence. One of the ‘heartening’ aspects of this awful nightmare is that US/UK intel has been bang on
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
You really need to get the angle of the bullet right, if you want to avoid damage to the face.
Perhaps up through the back of the mouth? That way the entry wound is hidden in the mouth, and the exit would is only at the back.
Genuinely not sure whether it's safer to leave that bit of misinfo out there, or correct it. For the most conclusive result shoot yourself in the mouth *horizontally* to get the brainstem. There's any number of survivors out there who have angled upwards and missed asnything important..
But don't do any of this at home
Surely Putin deserves his own special brand of polonium laced tea and a slow, painful death?
This makes me wonder how the Cold War rules hold up when faced with weapons that are basically robots.
Like traditionally NATO and the Soviets avoid fighting each other directly because that's WW3, but it's normal and accepted to fund and arm other people fighting against the other side. So US troops aren't going to Ukraine to fight the Russians, but they'll send guns for Ukrainians to shoot the Russians with.
Now instead of a gun shooting at a tank, it's a drone bombing the tank. (OK in this case it's Turkey sending it not the US but bear with me.) I guess it has to take off from Ukraine, if they let it take off from Poland that would be WW3. But say as well as the drone being made by the US, the intelligence about where the tank is also comes direct from the US. And having been given a thing to bomb, it can use its software to get there and bomb it. And if it needs a software update it downloads that from the US. Is that all OK on Cold War rules, provided there's a Ukrainian in the Ukraine with a laptop pressing enter? What's the point where we say we're starting WW3, because the US just sent a killer robot to kill Russians?
yes and its why I am nervous of this Dads Army gung ho lets all chip in to kill russians attitude. Its admirable and understandable and justified -is it wise given the practicalities of the world?
Absolutely...never forget the Russians could nuke London in an instant...thousands of years of history instantly vapourised
Трахнуть обратно в Москву
Москва слезам не верит.
You two are obviously spies. I'm going to report you to the village constable.
I don't know if I am supremely overjoyed that Germany is going to be spending a lot more on its military.
I would be happy for the UK to spend more, if we do so primarily on sea power. That's where success lies for us. Always has been, always will be. We should support our allies by Naval means, not getting bogged down in continental conflicts.
For the past 100 years the go to approach for land battles was the tank yet they can now be destroyed by a single $20,000 missile.
The idea that the sea is any better off in the 21st century May be equally false.
Yes. Look what’s happening to Russian armour against ‘cheap’ Turkish drones. How long can big lumbering ships remain relevant? They are just tanks at sea
AI, cyberwarfare, robot soldiers, drones of all sizes, hypersonic missiles - that’s the future.
And intelligence. One of the ‘heartening’ aspects of this awful nightmare is that US/UK intel has been bang on
Ships are different. There’s a lot of ocean to get lost in, and to launch missiles and air attacks from afar. Think of them as platforms rather than combatants, unless it goes wrong.
This makes me wonder how the Cold War rules hold up when faced with weapons that are basically robots.
Like traditionally NATO and the Soviets avoid fighting each other directly because that's WW3, but it's normal and accepted to fund and arm other people fighting against the other side. So US troops aren't going to Ukraine to fight the Russians, but they'll send guns for Ukrainians to shoot the Russians with.
Now instead of a gun shooting at a tank, it's a drone bombing the tank. (OK in this case it's Turkey sending it not the US but bear with me.) I guess it has to take off from Ukraine, if they let it take off from Poland that would be WW3. But say as well as the drone being made by the US, the intelligence about where the tank is also comes direct from the US. And having been given a thing to bomb, it can use its software to get there and bomb it. And if it needs a software update it downloads that from the US. Is that all OK on Cold War rules, provided there's a Ukrainian in the Ukraine with a laptop pressing enter? What's the point where we say we're starting WW3, because the US just sent a killer robot to kill Russians?
yes and its why I am nervous of this Dads Army gung ho lets all chip in to kill russians attitude. Its admirable and understandable and justified -is it wise given the practicalities of the world?
Absolutely...never forget the Russians could nuke London in an instant...thousands of years of history instantly vapourised
Трахнуть обратно в Москву
Москва слезам не верит.
Or very much else that pertains to humanity under its current ruler.
. Now, could there be a little more of the East where there's a majority for leaving Ukraine and either forming breakaway states or Russia itself? Absolutely.
But it is not a large portion of the Ukraine, and it is not a large portion of the Ukrainian people.
We are in agreement.
So, there is no real problem in acknowledging this and redrawing the borders, right?
Of course, I completely accept the situation has now moved on. The boundaries will now be decided by the war.
Whether that is good or bad for Ukraine (and the rest of us), we will have to wait and see.
Probably bad. Dunno if you've seen any of the footage, but there are people dying and everything.
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
Problem is there is no face saving way out and one wasn’t possible from the moment he sent the first troop across the border.
Agreed Putin is all in now....and he still has many cards to play...
Belarus is one, frying himself is another .. I'm not sure how many others there are.
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
Problem is there is no face saving way out and one wasn’t possible from the moment he sent the first troop across the border.
Agreed Putin is all in now....and he still has many cards to play...
Belarus is one, frying himself is another .. I'm not sure how many others there are.
Cutting off European gas supplies...using more deadly weapons in Ukraine....cutting off the supply of important world commodities....the man has the potential to cause serious damage...
I know there is a lot of interest in opinion polls and whether Starmer with win through, but how the world will have changed since GE19
Brexit happened, covid happened, and unbelievably war in Europe happened, and this changes everything and in view of the lavish promises of additional billions for the NHS, education, law and order, climate change, and now military sprending has anyone stopped for a minute to ask where is all the money coming from
Wealth taxes are possible but they will not touch this increased spending, and what if we have, as likely, much higher interest rates
I am completely on the fence for GE 24 as I could vote for any of the three main parties( not Plaid though) and how this shakes out will be fascinating, and of course Boris is more than likely to be gone
Belarussian media is reporting that a Ukrainian delegation is going to come to Gomel for talks with Moscow.
I trust Belarus state media even less than Rus
Wonder if the next we get is pictures of a fake Ukrainian delegation shortly followed by the release of a “agreement” on the documented terms of surrender…
"whole groups of 5-10 people surrender to Ukrainian troops. As soon as they see at least one representative of the Ukrainian armed forces, they surrender."
I don't know if I am supremely overjoyed that Germany is going to be spending a lot more on its military.
I would be happy for the UK to spend more, if we do so primarily on sea power. That's where success lies for us. Always has been, always will be. We should support our allies by Naval means, not getting bogged down in continental conflicts.
For the past 100 years the go to approach for land battles was the tank yet they can now be destroyed by a single $20,000 missile.
The idea that the sea is any better off in the 21st century May be equally false.
Yes. Look what’s happening to Russian armour against ‘cheap’ Turkish drones. How long can big lumbering ships remain relevant? They are just tanks at sea
AI, cyberwarfare, robot soldiers, drones of all sizes, hypersonic missiles - that’s the future.
And intelligence. One of the ‘heartening’ aspects of this awful nightmare is that US/UK intel has been bang on
Ships are different. There’s a lot of ocean to get lost in, and to launch missiles and air attacks from afar. Think of them as platforms rather than combatants, unless it goes wrong.
Belarussian media is reporting that a Ukrainian delegation is going to come to Gomel for talks with Moscow.
I trust Belarus state media even less than Rus
Wonder if the next we get is pictures of a fake Ukrainian delegation shortly followed by the release of a “agreement” on the documented terms of surrender…
All takes us back to the Ukrainian comms excellence. Any such crap can be dispelled in seconds if the President or one of his ministers, amongst their own people, says it’s bollocks.
Great article by Liam hallinan in telegraph about how well prepared putin is
The West's cost of living crisis gave Vladimir Putin impetus to strike
Imposing harsh sanctions on Russia is tough when Britain and US are struggling with inflation
LIAM HALLIGAN27 February 2022 • 6:00am
Why did Vladimir Putin decide now was the time to conquer Ukraine? Russia has for years resented the Western leanings of this country of 44 million, which covers an area bigger than France.
Last week, the Russian President surprised many when he suddenly forced the issue, bringing his festering sense of grievance over Ukraine to a head in the most ruthless fashion.
But consider the global economic backdrop, and various energy supply deals the Kremlin has cut over recent months and years – particularly with China – and the timing of this Russian incursion, from Putin’s perspective, makes brutal sense.
Russia provides around 40pc of the natural gas used across Western Europe, while accounting for 10pc of the world’s oil supply. These stark facts, previously of interest only to energy industry insiders, are suddenly common knowledge. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the issue of Western energy security into sharp relief.
Strident statement from Kharkiv governor after today’s seemingly botched Russian assault: “Control over Kharkiv is completely ours. The city is being cleansed of the enemy. Dozens of Russian soldiers surrendered, speak of complete exhaustion and demoralisation” https://twitter.com/jacklosh/status/1497904232426573825
I don't know if I am supremely overjoyed that Germany is going to be spending a lot more on its military.
I would be happy for the UK to spend more, if we do so primarily on sea power. That's where success lies for us. Always has been, always will be. We should support our allies by Naval means, not getting bogged down in continental conflicts.
For the past 100 years the go to approach for land battles was the tank yet they can now be destroyed by a single $20,000 missile.
The idea that the sea is any better off in the 21st century May be equally false.
Yes. Look what’s happening to Russian armour against ‘cheap’ Turkish drones. How long can big lumbering ships remain relevant? They are just tanks at sea
AI, cyberwarfare, robot soldiers, drones of all sizes, hypersonic missiles - that’s the future.
And intelligence. One of the ‘heartening’ aspects of this awful nightmare is that US/UK intel has been bang on
Ships are different. There’s a lot of ocean to get lost in, and to launch missiles and air attacks from afar. Think of them as platforms rather than combatants, unless it goes wrong.
They can't get lost from prying eyes
The Americans regularly managed to lose Soviet tracking of whole Carrier Battle groups - and that was back when the Soviet Union had RORSATs. Nuclear powered radars in low Earth Orbit.....
Great article by Liam hallinan in telegraph about how well prepared putin is
The West's cost of living crisis gave Vladimir Putin impetus to strike
Imposing harsh sanctions on Russia is tough when Britain and US are struggling with inflation
LIAM HALLIGAN27 February 2022 • 6:00am
Why did Vladimir Putin decide now was the time to conquer Ukraine? Russia has for years resented the Western leanings of this country of 44 million, which covers an area bigger than France.
Last week, the Russian President surprised many when he suddenly forced the issue, bringing his festering sense of grievance over Ukraine to a head in the most ruthless fashion.
But consider the global economic backdrop, and various energy supply deals the Kremlin has cut over recent months and years – particularly with China – and the timing of this Russian incursion, from Putin’s perspective, makes brutal sense.
Russia provides around 40pc of the natural gas used across Western Europe, while accounting for 10pc of the world’s oil supply. These stark facts, previously of interest only to energy industry insiders, are suddenly common knowledge. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the issue of Western energy security into sharp relief.
Gas is the main tool. But it's an odd time to strike. It's nearly the end of winter.
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
Problem is there is no face saving way out and one wasn’t possible from the moment he sent the first troop across the border.
Agreed Putin is all in now....and he still has many cards to play...
Belarus is one, frying himself is another .. I'm not sure how many others there are.
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
Problem is there is no face saving way out and one wasn’t possible from the moment he sent the first troop across the border.
Agreed Putin is all in now....and he still has many cards to play...
Belarus is one, frying himself is another .. I'm not sure how many others there are.
Cutting off European gas supplies...using more deadly weapons in Ukraine....cutting off the supply of important world commodities....the man has the potential to cause serious damage...
In that case Putin should have invaded in the heart of winter and cut supplies then that would have had more impact . And they need the revenues from gas and oil.
Putin has miscalculated and once the bank runs start and the economic goes down the toilet his public support will drop.
Russian friends sharing texts with me of their colleagues in Russia's public service resigning over this invasion. Widespread disgust among Russian government employees over Putin's decision. https://twitter.com/NeilPHauer/status/1497904638678470658
Great article by Liam hallinan in telegraph about how well prepared putin is
The West's cost of living crisis gave Vladimir Putin impetus to strike
Imposing harsh sanctions on Russia is tough when Britain and US are struggling with inflation
LIAM HALLIGAN27 February 2022 • 6:00am
Why did Vladimir Putin decide now was the time to conquer Ukraine? Russia has for years resented the Western leanings of this country of 44 million, which covers an area bigger than France.
Last week, the Russian President surprised many when he suddenly forced the issue, bringing his festering sense of grievance over Ukraine to a head in the most ruthless fashion.
But consider the global economic backdrop, and various energy supply deals the Kremlin has cut over recent months and years – particularly with China – and the timing of this Russian incursion, from Putin’s perspective, makes brutal sense.
Russia provides around 40pc of the natural gas used across Western Europe, while accounting for 10pc of the world’s oil supply. These stark facts, previously of interest only to energy industry insiders, are suddenly common knowledge. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the issue of Western energy security into sharp relief.
Posters are banned for infringement of copyright by pasting excessive amounts of newspaper copy.
On topic, I think the UK should focus on providing safe refuges for the women and children who are escaping Ukraine to well equipped and safe border zones inside the neighbouring EU states. We should be generous in building and funding these. Priorities for asylum in the UK should include the most vulnerable, those with family/personal links, and, crucially, the political and military leadership of the Ukrainian Government, in exile, should that become necessary.
This should be aimed as a temporary measure pending a restoration of independent Ukrainian Government.
All other efforts should be focused on helping them defeat the invasion, because none of them really want to leave - they want to go back home.
Ah yes, here it starts, ".... inside the neighbouring EU states."
What the bellicose are really frightened of is refugees in their pretty towns and villages.
Of course, people want to leave Ukraine. It is going to be a bloody & murderous place for some time, whatever happens.
If I was a young person in Ukraine, I'd want to get the feck out of there and have a decent life somewhere else.
War means refugees.
It is the inevitable excuse making for why they *always* have to go somewhere else. The Government will try it too, but it doesn't wash in this instance.
Asylum, as we all know, is a complex and contentious issue, and Britain doesn't have infinite room to accommodate all the people who might want to come here. However, the UK is also part of a large alliance taking concerted action to help Ukraine, and part of that is going to have to be giving shelter to refugees who, unless the Ukrainians somehow pull off a stellar victory against huge odds, are going to be exiled from home for years.
Simply dumping several million people in the laps of the governments of the border states under such circumstances isn't acceptable.
But, I also don't think we should encourage permanent resettlement (which is what that quickly becomes) that depopulates Ukraine and allows it to be colonised and pacified by Russia.
The fight for Ukraine's future is in Ukraine.
Ukraine is an impossible state, as presently constituted (its boundaries were drawn by a madman, Stalin).
My (wild) guess is that endpoint of all this is an Eastern/Southern Ukraine de facto absorbed into Russia proper and a Northern/Western bit that is a rump independent Ukrainian state.
I don't think Putin cares about the former bits of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This will be accompanied by ethnic cleansing, or at least very substantial population movements.
If you don't like which bit of the country you ended up in, you will move or be killed. All this happened in the West after WW2, it is just delayed in the East.
It was Kruschev who altered the boundaries by transferring Crimea in 1954, as part of his machinations to become boss.
It was formally ceded by Khruschev, but the idea was Stalin's.
The boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR changed quite a bit over its 72 year history.
As I believe the Kenyan ambassador to the UN remarked a few days back, virtually all of the borders in Africa were drawn by colonial powers, frequently cutting across linguistic and kinship boundaries that Africans, if left to their own devices, would've shown respect for. If they all started trying to steal parcels of land from one another on that basis, the whole continent would be consumed by warfare. If Russia is allowed to keep getting away with redrawing its boundaries based on historical grievances of this kind then it opens the door to total chaos.
Besides which, AIUI every region of Ukraine - including Crimea, albeit by a narrower margin than most of the others - voted in favour of Ukrainian independence in 1991.
Yes, strange that a plebiscite is the way to settle an issue, and yet the votes in 1991 can be ignored if doing so further's Russian interests.
As I recollect, John Major was in power in 1991. He is not still in power because there have been elections. The world is not frozen in 1991.
Yet, you don't think a boundary can ever be revisited.
If there is an overwhelming majority in every part of the Ukraine for the present boundaries, surely a plebsicite will confirm that ?
A powerful argument that the Ukrainian state can use to retain Donetsk and Luhansk, no? .
It's a fantasy to believe there can be a free vote in areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russians.
Edit: And besides, your talking point from a few days ago is that plebiscites do settle this issue for the long term, rather than creating the backwards and forwards conflict of war after war over the boundaries. You weren't arguing for every generation to redraw the borders with new plebiscites.
You are embarrassingly all over the place with this, because you refuse to stand up to Russian aggression, and so you are casting around for any sort of figleaf to explain how it could easily have been avoided.
There are ~ 20 million Russians in the Ukraine. That is a large minority. Whatever Ukraine does, it has to take that minority into account -- if it wishes to be a country drawn on the boundaries of the Ukrainian SSR.
Plebiscites are conducted at a district or town level
You can see the patchwork of Danish and German areas. You draw a new boundary with that detailed information. The historic region of the Duchy of Schleswig/Slesvig was split.
That was *not* done in 1991 for the Ukraine-Russia boundary, nor was it even what was asked.
What I strongly object to in your post is the statement that I "refuse to stand up to Russian aggression,"
Unless you propose to join the pb.com International Brigades, you are also not "standing up to Russian aggression "either.
We are all just posting words on a blog.
Objection: Russian speakers ≠ Russians, just as English speakers ≠ English.
I understand that. I am not English myself.
I used the demographics data of the Ukraine on wiki.
And, as has been pointed out, large numbers of those Russian speakers want to be in Ukraine, not Russia.
They voted that way in 1991 and the poll (below) shows that things haven't changed much.
A big part of the reason for this invasion was that Putins attempts at "uprisings" in Ukraine kept not working due to lack of local support.
And as has been pointed out, what better way to show that by a plebiscite.
Given you endlessly post a crappy CNN poll, why not check the quality of the data by doing a proper job?
I understand it would not have been easy, but it might have been easier than what we are now going to have to endure.
Complaining when someone posts legitimate polling data on PB.... That's an interesting approach.
The CNN poll used the standard methodologies for good polling - I did look. Interesting that you think it was "crappy" - why?
I suppose we are back to "Any poll you don't like the result of, is an outlier"....
Well, do you not accept that the regions in that map are rather big?
Like the Crimea, which has a Russian majority, is absorbed into some gigantic (& arbitrary) region of south/central Ukraine.
If you want to demonstrate that there was no appetite for Scottish independence, you could join Scotland with NE England and NW England and carry out a poll.
It would give you the misleading result you want.
Based on your criteria, the most "impossible" state in Europe is Russia itself. Do you think it should give independence to all the ethnic republics it contains?
Yes. I do. If there is an ethnic grouping in Russia that wishes to be independent, then of course.
I agree that Russia is an "impossible" state as well.
Does that count for the UK then? Should Bradford be able to declare itself an independent Pakistani state?
Wow - Chancellor Scholz has just announced that Germany will be spending 2% plus of its GDP on defence every year from now on. That is huge news. It means that the German defence budget becomes the biggest in Europe in purely monetary terms.
If Europe is to tool up instead of relying on America it makes it all the more important imo that the EU survives and prospers rather than fractures into competing nationalistic countries all thinking they're special and trying to make themselves great.
Sigh. No it really doesn't. Europe can very easily 'tool up' within the NATO structure and rely less upon the US without any overarching need for the EU.
This is not a call for the EU to disappear but a recognition that if you tie military cooperation to the EU then you will get fewer countries willing to take part because of all the rest of the rubbish that comes with it. Keep the EU for its political and trade links if you want and keep NATO as the military structure since it was specifically created for exactly this role and is ideally suited to it.
The essence of NATO is America defending Europe. The scenario I'm talking about (possible if not probable) is Europe deciding they can no longer be relied upon (eg since they've gone isolationist and/or got obsessed with China) and therefore building a top tier 'superpower' military itself. A different animal to NATO has thus emerged.
This new 'hard power' could be shared under an integrated European foreign & defence policy or (other extreme) the EU could break up as national populist parties such as AfD and Front National and (insert for other countries, there's loads, they all have one) gain traction. Then we'd have an EU-less Europe of aggressively competing nationalistic nation states with all of that military dispersed under different commands in the various capital cities of the continent. What I'm saying is this prospect doesn't appeal.
So if Europe is going to tool up (possible AND probable) it's more than ever important that it holds together - and the most obvious way it holds together is via its main joint enterprise and platform (the EU) staying in rude health.
Nope. It is perfectly possible for Europe to defend itself within the NATO structure if it chooses to. It just needs to spend a huge amount more money to do so. Adding in the EU with all its political issues just makes it all a lot more difficult and ensures that other countries also vital to European defence stay out. How do you integrate Turkey, Norway, Iceland and the UK in an EU controlled military system?
Besides even without NATO there are already perfectly good military alliances involving countries outside the EU - The JEF being a good example.
"Speaking just as a media consumer, I've been kind of surprised by the inefficacy of Russia's propaganda efforts so far. People who know more about this than I do: Are the Russians just not even trying to shape Western perceptions of the war, or are they shockingly bad at it?"
A valid point, where is the ruthlessly effective social media op which put Trump in the WH, preserved the Union and got us out of the other one? Because all I am seeing anywhere is @PJohnson. Perhaps i have the wrong sort of twitter feed.
Comments
https://twitter.com/militarylens/status/1497900423419621379?s=21
The point has been made before but it’s worth making again. How can there be any ‘victory’ over Ukraine, now? Putin has unified all of Ukraine against him, they will never forget or forgive. He cannot permanently police, repress and occupy a nation of 44m, twice the size of France
He desperately needs a face-saving way out
Marcel Dirsus
@marceldirsus
This is like that meme when people say has anyone tried turning Germany off and on again but then it actually happened and now it works
https://twitter.com/marceldirsus/status/1497904405345193984
Anyway talking about Germany's Eastern border the author said..... it is impossible to draw a line and say all to the East of that line are Polish and all to the West are Germans.
There has been so much population movement all over Eastern Europe that there are all sorts of communities and individuals which don't fit in to a nice clean pattern.
And, especially given the history, there may well be 'Russians' who would prefer to be Ukrainian, and indeed, vice versa. And I very much doubt if the borders of the current Ukrainian state were drawn with much care as to the wishes of the people then living there.
I agree that Russia is an "impossible" state as well.
Invading territory, expelling or murdering all the occupants who resist, and then holding a referendum that returns a rather suspicious 96.77% result in favour of union with the glorious motherland (as per Crimea in 2014) should not be accepted as fair excuse for annexation.
I would be happy for the UK to spend more, if we do so primarily on sea power. That's where success lies for us. Always has been, always will be. We should support our allies by Naval means, not getting bogged down in continental conflicts.
And then the gap between Belarus and Kaliningrad over Poland/Lithuania is pretty short. Are they going to start shooting down Russian aircraft bridging the gap?
I don't think it puts Kaliningrad under any more of a blockade than Moscow is.
It would be useful if journalists tweeted as their respective papers when on official biz, hence my post to clarify this isn't an iffy bit of news management from Ukr govt.
The Kenyan ambassador to the UN made this point beautifully a few days ago. A country with arrow straight borders, like much of the Middle East.
Personally, I'd be very unhappy about partitioning Scotland if it voted for independent (cf N. Ireland). The boundaries of England and Scotland have been reasonably stable for a long time.
I personally think the same is true of Wales.
The boundaries of the Ukraine have not been fixed for hundreds of years.
Putin could just about sell that as a win, and it might just be acceptable to Kyiv, to spare further suffering
I agree this is improbable. More likely is that the maddened Putin will double down, and use overwhelming force to ‘defeat’ Ukraine, killing thousands - as it is now clear the Ukrainians are going to fight for every street. Putin then imposes a puppet regime which immediately collapses under constant insurrections, with arms supplied by the west, and Ukraine becomes a Slavic version of Iraq, but worse for Russia as it is right next door
Obviously I’m not nearly the best Armchair General on PB (personally I think Yokes is having a good crisis from start - cool composed posts, what we need to pay attention now we may not have realised).
But I’ve got a few thoughts for discussion too.
They don’t seem to be in mad rush to enter Kyiv? The Russian tactic seems to be to surround city, control surrounding areas, before entering? Maybe the tactic isn’t lay siege or seal, but stretch defences into second guessing where attacks might come, like how hyenas surround and wear down a lion, sodefence can’t be waiting for direction of next attack.
I’ve thought deeply about handing out lots of rifles and machine guns to civilians, and I’m not convinced it’s such a good idea. It appears to be great idea on surface, theoretically anyone could point and pull a trigger? But there is a lot of professionalism in soldiering that helps in other ways. using and maintain the equipment effectively requires knowledge of it and practicing? much same way, how soldiers have been heavily working on working as a team against you, the civilians won’t have that? if they fired on them as a lone wolf, thats most likely leading to their death (or their fathers death as in movie battle of the bulge). And then even with so much training there is so sadly expect more without it, friendly fire. To shoot and kill and realise they were on your side would be tough to live with, but especially if you knew them or they were family ☹️
I was surprised by how many killed by friendly fire in Second World War just in the UK alone, that wasn’t even invaded - it’s that I’m thinking of with so many guns handed out to unprofessionals. Really the Ukrainians want and need professionals on the end of all the Gucci things we are supplying in there.
You sense with Swift it’s not full hearted or blanket ban from some? where we get told front door is closed, the back door may be open, especially where you have Russian money from a friend but not a Russian passport? The effectiveness of sanctions can only be known in the future. Yes, I sense things very very different this time for sure, but that only flags up how without continued resolve long after anger and it in news, those previous sanctions we thought were for real were far too easily “worked round” by all parties?
of course please flag up the points I’ve got wrong in this post, I won’t mind being wrong about all these things I don’t know much about.
This new 'hard power' could be shared under an integrated European foreign & defence policy or (other extreme) the EU could break up as national populist parties such as AfD and Front National and (insert for other countries, there's loads, they all have one) gain traction. Then we'd have an EU-less Europe of aggressively competing nationalistic nation states with all of that military dispersed under different commands in the various capital cities of the continent. What I'm saying is this prospect doesn't appeal.
So if Europe is going to tool up (possible AND probable) it's more than ever important that it holds together - and the most obvious way it holds together is via its main joint enterprise and platform (the EU) staying in rude health.
Of course in desperation they may still go down that path.
As usual with a Malmesbury post, you have forgotten something!
The Romansh canton of Grisons/Graubünden
The main Russian supporting party in the Ukraine is Opposition Bloc (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_Bloc_(2019)).
In the 2019 President election, the Opposition Bloc candidate got... counts... 4.15% of the vote. They have six seats in the 450 seat Ukrainian parliament.
Now, it is true that if there had been elections in the Russian administered separatist regions, they would have probably done slightly better. Maybe they could have made it to, I don't know, 6% of the vote.
Most ethnic Russians and Russian speakers voted for non-Rusophile political parties. And ethnic Russians and Russian speakers overwhelmingly chose independence from the Soviet Union and Russia when last asked the question.
Now, could there be a little more of the East where there's a majority for leaving Ukraine and either forming breakaway states or Russia itself? Absolutely.
But it is not a large portion of the Ukraine, and it is not a large portion of the Ukrainian people.
#StandWithUkraine https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1497903640777998341/photo/1
But don't do any of this at home
https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/presse/pressestart_zentrales_uebersicht/Deutsche-Bahn-erleichtert-Gefluechteten-aus-der-Ukraine-Weiterreise-nach-Deutschland-7311236
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20220227/k10013504411000.html
The idea that the sea is any better off in the 21st century May be equally false.
Also your metaphor subroutines could do with debugging, all in is poker, many cards to play is whist or bridge
I think Ukrainians realize this is the only card they have to play . Putin has boxed himself in. So even if it means lots of destruction to cities and casualties the very existence of their nation relies on taking this gamble and hoping that Putin loses public support and some coup takes place .
first of the big Russian oligarchs breaks ranks with Putin as Ukrainian-born billionaire banker Mikhail Fridman says war in Ukraine a “tragedy” & calls for “bloodshed” to end …
Has managed to avoid damage from Russia’s various disasters since the Russian financial crisis in 1998.
Sniffs which way the wind is blowing ?
The Russians seem to be trying a bunch of things - helicopter assaults, paratroops, infiltration and your classic armoured columns. None of these seem to be going well around Kyiv.
We were told that they were gong to Grozny Kyiv last night - that turned out to be much less than some predicted. It is starting to look like there is a big gap between Russian capabilities and intentions.
Yes - civilians with a few days training will take a lot of casualties. Very much in the line of the UK Home Guard in WWII - "You can always take one with you"....
My guess is that the SWFT ban was achieved by watering it down until the exclusions made each of the hold out countries happy. In this as in many things, it needs to be the start, not the end. As I was saying yesterday, it is a bit like the Allied blockade of various vital materials in WWII - they didn't stop the war, but degraded Germany's ability to fight, more and more, over time.
So, there is no real problem in acknowledging this and redrawing the borders, right?
Of course, I completely accept the situation has now moved on. The boundaries will now be decided by the war.
Whether that is good or bad for Ukraine (and the rest of us), we will have to wait and see.
AI, cyberwarfare, robot soldiers, drones of all sizes, hypersonic missiles - that’s the future.
And intelligence. One of the ‘heartening’ aspects of this awful nightmare is that US/UK intel has been bang on
"GET YER BLOODY HAIR CUT!"
Brexit happened, covid happened, and unbelievably war in Europe happened, and this changes everything and in view of the lavish promises of additional billions for the NHS, education, law and order, climate change, and now military sprending has anyone stopped for a minute to ask where is all the money coming from
Wealth taxes are possible but they will not touch this increased spending, and what if we have, as likely, much higher interest rates
I am completely on the fence for GE 24 as I could vote for any of the three main parties( not Plaid though) and how this shakes out will be fascinating, and of course Boris is more than likely to be gone
But there were similar crass remarks over Croatia, How could this sort of thing happen in places we have featured in our travel section?
Telegraph
The West's cost of living crisis gave Vladimir Putin impetus to strike
Imposing harsh sanctions on Russia is tough when Britain and US are struggling with inflation
LIAM HALLIGAN27 February 2022 • 6:00am
Why did Vladimir Putin decide now was the time to conquer Ukraine? Russia has for years resented the Western leanings of this country of 44 million, which covers an area bigger than France.
Last week, the Russian President surprised many when he suddenly forced the issue, bringing his festering sense of grievance over Ukraine to a head in the most ruthless fashion.
But consider the global economic backdrop, and various energy supply deals the Kremlin has cut over recent months and years – particularly with China – and the timing of this Russian incursion, from Putin’s perspective, makes brutal sense.
Russia provides around 40pc of the natural gas used across Western Europe, while accounting for 10pc of the world’s oil supply. These stark facts, previously of interest only to energy industry insiders, are suddenly common knowledge. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the issue of Western energy security into sharp relief.
https://twitter.com/jacklosh/status/1497904232426573825
although I can't see the Spanish PM in the picture. must be some mistake...
Could be both of course.
In that case Putin should have invaded in the heart of winter and cut supplies then that would have had more impact . And they need the revenues from gas and oil.
Putin has miscalculated and once the bank runs start and the economic goes down the toilet his public support will drop.
https://twitter.com/FerdiGiugliano/status/1497908230676168709
https://twitter.com/NeilPHauer/status/1497904638678470658
And we walked past the FM transmitter, and there was a guy up there with a spanner mending it. Not that he's yet succeeded.
Besides even without NATO there are already perfectly good military alliances involving countries outside the EU - The JEF being a good example.
"Speaking just as a media consumer, I've been kind of surprised by the inefficacy of Russia's propaganda efforts so far. People who know more about this than I do: Are the Russians just not even trying to shape Western perceptions of the war, or are they shockingly bad at it?"
A valid point, where is the ruthlessly effective social media op which put Trump in the WH, preserved the Union and got us out of the other one? Because all I am seeing anywhere is @PJohnson. Perhaps i have the wrong sort of twitter feed.