Jesus. The images from Karkhiv, where Russia are extensively and enthusiastically breaking the Geneva convention via cluster munitions targeted at civilians are just horrific.
Not exactly what you imagine when somebody says they are liberating a country....
Interesting that the paid pb propagandist has gone quiet today.
He has been banned.
That's very weird about your radio incident
Well that would explain it.
Yes I had put the radio thing out my mind. Normally I use DAB, haven’t used AM for years and put it down to it being old fashioned tech. And then I saw that BBC1-5 were down on FM yesterday morning?
AM at night (when Biden was speaking it would have been dark in the UK) can travel vast distances, often across continents or seas, so it's quite likely that it was just interference.
It's why you can often hear French, German and Dutch AM radio after dark very easily, but with fewer AM stations existing now, it'll be easier for ones from further away to interfere.
In your case, it was probably interference from Romania, but it's pretty rare and strange for it to happen right at the beginning of a speech from the US President.
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades and now someone else is doing it and we are so bewildered that we are relying on those go-to western liberal fallbacks of morality, decency, apple pie, values, usw to try to explain why it is "wrong".
And as to your other point of course we should do something about it and we seem to be. As I also said earlier, it will be interesting to see how much pain the EU for example is willing to inflict on its citizens via refusing to buy Russian gas.
But we never behaved like this, despite your whataboutism which you seem ever keener on for some reason, we never invaded a peaceful democracy.
Peaceful democracy is as you accept entirely a @BartholomewRoberts construct in the context of who should invade whom. You believe it is a critical factor. Others don't. It is of course fantastic that you should think this but then I am speaking as citizen of a western liberal democracy. In the real world, however, and while acknowledging that it allows people to "take sides" more easily, it makes no difference whatsoever.
You don't believe in god but you are arguing like the most religiously fervent of believers. You must understand that not everyone and not everyone outside of western liberal democracies places such a value on "peaceful democracies". Then you will begin to understand the dynamics at play here.
What you are missing is this is indeed a conflict between two utterly exclusive ideologies.
One - the current order - believes that countries should not oppress and kill their citizens to maintain power, should not wage unprovoked war on other free countries and should support the right to self determination.
The other believes that they have the right to maintain power at all costs, to treat their citizens as serfs and to invade other countries just because they think they can get away with it.
We have to choose sides and there is no room for cultural or moral relativism because the systems are, as I say, mutually exclusive.
Of course we choose sides and you will be delighted to know that I choose the side of western liberal democracy. Not one of my posts has ever said otherwise or condoned the actions of Russia. I have, however, sought to put the actions of Russia into historical and yes geopolitical context.
Many on here are throwing their hands up and saying how awful which of course it is but I would have hoped for more incisive analysis from PB.
The point is surely, that climate policies and lockdown were sold to us as reductions to the risks in our lives.
In the event, all they did was shift the balance of the risk.
Nobody told us that giving up gas drilling might give a madman who controls a lot of gas supply the upper hand.
I think you have to join up about 50 dots, some of which are not only on different pages but completely different books, in order to link Greta Thornberg to the invasion of Ukraine.
This is a rabbit hole which only the Far Right could manage to find itself going down.
You really don't and I suspect you know that.
Someone posted here a report in the Guardian from a few years ago about Putin encouraging anti-drilling groups in Britain, its not difficult to see why.
Greta is anti-Russian gas and anti-British gas. I don't see her as a natural Putin ally (or rather useful idiot),.
For the record, its not Greta's fault.
It is our fault for listening to her.
Oh do drop it ffs. It's pathetic.
We obviously need to get our energy sitz sorted out. As you know, although I consider myself in part a Green supporter, and have sometimes voted for them, I believe in the greenest form of energy of them all: nuclear power.
But your reductionism of the Ukraine conflict to a cause and effect about gas, and then to Greta T, is so beyond simplistic that it doesn't deserve the time of day, let alone you reposting it every 5 minutes.
If you have a problem with Greta that's fine but just spare us the stupid link to Putin's evil invasion of Ukraine.
Makes sense for China to allow some anti-war stuff. They'll have better leverage in any deals with Russia if they can point to there being a bit of a domestic cost.
They might also have eyes on being able to exert more influence on some of the Russian sphere states. Support from China has to look like a better bet for them.
What we could hope for though is that they also see what a mess this all is and that reduces their enthusiasm to do anything rash in Taiwan.
Jesus. The images from Karkhiv, where Russia are extensively and enthusiastically breaking the Geneva convention via cluster munitions targeted at civilians are just horrific.
Not exactly what you imagine when somebody says they are liberating a country....
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Trump is a traitor who has just been praising Putin. He will never win a US Presidential Election again.
Americans love to waive the stars and stripes, not the Триколор
That's a remarkably complacent view imho. All signs are that the GOP will back any enemy of Biden, anywhere, at any time.
The GOP might, the American public as a whole will not.
Trump already lost an election once, becoming only the second President since the start of the 20th Century (after Carter) to fail to be re-elected when it was their parties first term in power.
Trump coming out unequivocally as pro-Putin at a time when America is against Russia is not going to win him support from flag waving Americans.
What should the Ukrainian position be in the negotiations today?
A week ago I thought realpolitik might mean Ukraine would be in a position where it could be forced to let go of attempts to control Donbas, if not an entire overthrow of the Ukrainian government and a puppet regime installed.
But now? I think Ukraine's position to Russia ought to be comparable to that of Arkell v. Pressdram
That famous case has been superseded by Snake Island v Russian Navy.
The point is surely, that climate policies and lockdown were sold to us as reductions to the risks in our lives.
In the event, all they did was shift the balance of the risk.
Nobody told us that giving up gas drilling might give a madman who controls a lot of gas supply the upper hand.
I think you have to join up about 50 dots, some of which are not only on different pages but completely different books, in order to link Greta Thornberg to the invasion of Ukraine.
This is a rabbit hole which only the Far Right could manage to find itself going down.
You really don't and I suspect you know that.
Someone posted here a report in the Guardian from a few years ago about Putin encouraging anti-drilling groups in Britain, its not difficult to see why.
I don't think fracking was ever a sustainable proposition in this country anyway, owing to the fact that potential fracking sites are all so close to population centres and the threat (real or imagined) of subsidence, falling house prices and compromised water supplies loomed large in voters' minds. It was good old British NIMBYism that killed fracking here, not the green movement. The reality is that nobody on this site would have been happy to see a fracking rig set up next to their house - I certainly wouldn't.
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Russian nuclear alert Truss's fault says Kremlin: MOSCOW. Feb 28 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to put the deterrence forces on high alert, in particular, after the statements made by the British foreign secretary, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says https://twitter.com/DominicWaghorn/status/1498260827807404033
Of al the shitty excuses that have been trotted out by all sides so far, "Liz Truss made me do it" is the poorest by a long shot.
Well yes, but Putin's regime has clearly identified The Truss and the photo-shoot stuff as the weakest link and has decided to feed the narrative. We should never have got ourselves into the position to allow them to do this.
That is what happens when you have useless clowns as government minister's.
I think what is coming out of this whole episode is that as the West has sowed, now is it reaping. For 30 years the West defined the world order. Someone out of line? Invade, depose, install a favourable regime. That was realpolitik. No one could or wanted to do anything about it.
I noticed @HYUFD getting a lot of stick on here last night when he was one of the few people who made sense. Yes indeed we are in a world of realpolitik when Russia as is can shout the odds and people have no choice but to listen. This is what the West has done since Desert Storm (and of course before).
So is Putin a madman? Was George W Bush? Was Obama? Perhaps. Each had a vision of a world order which had certain components and wherein actors behaved as they ought to have done and that vision was enforced by force if not voluntarily. And it's Putin's turn now.
I don't know if you're thinking about the perception of what used to be called the 3rd world but I think equating Obama with Putin is madness. Did he sometimes use force unnecessarily? Perhaps. If people want to compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban fine. But values do matter to some people.
I don't agree with what Putin is doing ... but let's make the cases equivalent.
Suppose the South-Western section of the US wanted to secede. The land was after all captured from Mexico comparatively recently in a bloody war. Chicano people are a majority in parts of it & there are certainly political movements that don't want a border separating people in Mexico & the US who share much common heritage & history.
What do you think the response of the US President would be?
And in fact, Trump's comments are very revealing in this regard. He obviously sees the analogy between Russia/Ukraine and US/Mexico.
I think Trump -- and actually many US presidents -- would act just as Putin is acting. They would prevent the secession (as they see it).
Of course this is a thought experiment. But, I think the forces that motivate Putin are not that far from the surface in many Western democracies.
The cases might be equivalent if the "South Western section of the US" had been an independent country, recognised by the rump US, for the past thirty years.
Why 30 years. We just passed the 100th anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. Are you saying there is a statute of limitations on people's national aspirations?
Simply because that's the case with Ukraine, and @YBarddCwsc was setting up an 'equivalence'. His comparison, not mine, so I don't know why you're asking me about castles you're building on it.
Obviously, a precise equivalence is impossible, I said it was a thought experiment.
There is no reason to accept your rather arbitrary 30 years limit.
If a large part of the US wanted to secede (as might well be the case in 50 years due to changing demographics), most US Presidents would act as Putin is doing now.
Just as if a large part of China wanted to secede, we would see the same.
And when there was a threat that a large part of Canada would secede, rendering rump Canada split into two pieces and probably unviable, there were many people in Anglophone Canada who were very keen to redraw the boundaries of Quebec.
In fact, I think if Quebec had voted to seceded, then the bits that voted Non would have been taken by rump Canada to retain a land bridge to the Maritimes.
"If they wanted to secede" is not an equivalence. And the three decades isn't arbitrary - it's simply the time which Ukraine has been an independent country. There's nothing magical about the number; it's just pointing out that Russia has recognised Ukraine for a long time, and is now waging a war of aggression against it.
Again, the distinction is in law, between the domestic and the international. This isn't complicated.
The point is surely, that climate policies and lockdown were sold to us as reductions to the risks in our lives.
In the event, all they did was shift the balance of the risk.
Nobody told us that giving up gas drilling might give a madman who controls a lot of gas supply the upper hand.
I think you have to join up about 50 dots, some of which are not only on different pages but completely different books, in order to link Greta Thornberg to the invasion of Ukraine.
This is a rabbit hole which only the Far Right could manage to find itself going down.
You really don't and I suspect you know that.
No you really do and I suspect you know that.
Look I know leftists are desperate for the 'green lobby created Putin' narrative not to get out, hence the IPCC's very convenient report today.
I would suggest to you that you are too late. Its already out there.
Levelling Stalingrad didn't help the City get taken. Quite the opposite in fact.
Three errors made Stalingrad the destruction of 6th army. 1) Weak flank support from entirely uncommited allies. 2) Not attacking down the river bank from both ends to encircle the Russians in the city, instead of replicating the battle of the Somme, or Verdun approach. 3) Attacking Stalingrad at all - reach the river and close its use by artilliary fire.
What should the Ukrainian position be in the negotiations today?
A week ago I thought realpolitik might mean Ukraine would be in a position where it could be forced to let go of attempts to control Donbas, if not an entire overthrow of the Ukrainian government and a puppet regime installed.
But now? I think Ukraine's position to Russia ought to be comparable to that of Arkell v. Pressdram
It would be astonishing if anything will come of the negotiations today.
Russia's position is: continue to resist and we will bombard the country until not a single brick lies atop another.
I think what is coming out of this whole episode is that as the West has sowed, now is it reaping. For 30 years the West defined the world order. Someone out of line? Invade, depose, install a favourable regime. That was realpolitik. No one could or wanted to do anything about it.
I noticed @HYUFD getting a lot of stick on here last night when he was one of the few people who made sense. Yes indeed we are in a world of realpolitik when Russia as is can shout the odds and people have no choice but to listen. This is what the West has done since Desert Storm (and of course before).
So is Putin a madman? Was George W Bush? Was Obama? Perhaps. Each had a vision of a world order which had certain components and wherein actors behaved as they ought to have done and that vision was enforced by force if not voluntarily. And it's Putin's turn now.
I don't know if you're thinking about the perception of what used to be called the 3rd world but I think equating Obama with Putin is madness. Did he sometimes use force unnecessarily? Perhaps. If people want to compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban fine. But values do matter to some people.
I don't agree with what Putin is doing ... but let's make the cases equivalent.
Suppose the South-Western section of the US wanted to secede. The land was after all captured from Mexico comparatively recently in a bloody war. Chicano people are a majority in parts of it & there are certainly political movements that don't want a border separating people in Mexico & the US who share much common heritage & history.
What do you think the response of the US President would be?
And in fact, Trump's comments are very revealing in this regard. He obviously sees the analogy between Russia/Ukraine and US/Mexico.
I think Trump -- and actually many US presidents -- would act just as Putin is acting. They would prevent the secession (as they see it).
Of course this is a thought experiment. But, I think the forces that motivate Putin are not that far from the surface in many Western democracies.
A change from the Shetlands theories we usually get on here.
The point is surely, that climate policies and lockdown were sold to us as reductions to the risks in our lives.
In the event, all they did was shift the balance of the risk.
Nobody told us that giving up gas drilling might give a madman who controls a lot of gas supply the upper hand.
I think you have to join up about 50 dots, some of which are not only on different pages but completely different books, in order to link Greta Thornberg to the invasion of Ukraine.
This is a rabbit hole which only the Far Right could manage to find itself going down.
You really don't and I suspect you know that.
No you really do and I suspect you know that.
Look I know leftists are desperate for the 'green lobby created Putin' narrative not to get out, hence the IPCC's very convenient report today.
I would suggest to you that you are too late. Its already out there.
On the list of stuff worrying me, quite a long way down, tbh.
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
The point is surely, that climate policies and lockdown were sold to us as reductions to the risks in our lives.
In the event, all they did was shift the balance of the risk.
Nobody told us that giving up gas drilling might give a madman who controls a lot of gas supply the upper hand.
I think you have to join up about 50 dots, some of which are not only on different pages but completely different books, in order to link Greta Thornberg to the invasion of Ukraine.
This is a rabbit hole which only the Far Right could manage to find itself going down.
You really don't and I suspect you know that.
Someone posted here a report in the Guardian from a few years ago about Putin encouraging anti-drilling groups in Britain, its not difficult to see why.
Greta is anti-Russian gas and anti-British gas. I don't see her as a natural Putin ally (or rather useful idiot),.
Yes, but the Russian government will just ignore her. Our government actually listens to its public, at least occasionally.
How much coverage does Greta get in Russia? A lot? A little?
Concern about climate change has increased how much energy we generate from wind and other green sources, and increased focus on energy efficiency. Both of these things are Very Good when facing conflict with a fossil fuel exporter.
Our precarity with respect to gas supplies is because we ignored national security concerns and spent too long leaning on gas-powered electricity generating stations, and because we cut national gas storage. It is not because we aren’t fracking.
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades...
Which independent countries did we annexe ?
We annexed whichever the hell countries we wanted to.
Name one.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Grenada, the Levant, just about all of sub-saharan Africa, plenty of the Magreb also, Palestine, etc
I don't recall us annexing Iraq, or any of the others.
Which of those nations were annexed in the past 30 years? Who by and when?
Didn't we invade Iraq and depose the leader there? Same for Afgan? Did I miss something or is this going to be one of those he did not send the letter things.
Miss Cyclefree, agree on Rus, but Orthodox Christianity is of Constantinople, is it not?
Yes. I meant Russian Orthodoxy. Wasn't that started in ca. 1088? In K'viv?
For those of you in London their cathedral in Ennismore Gardens is rather lovely.
And although considered slightly outre for actual worship, if you ever get the chance to listen to Rachmaninov's Vespers (the All Night Vigil) then do. I heard it performed once at Keble College Chapel by candlelight. It remains to this day one of the moments of my life when the veil between here and the divine seemed very thin. What Rudolph Otto called the numinous. In fact I was with a chemistry graduate, an empiricist with a fine mind, and after our lengthy stunned silence at the end he turned to me and said that it was 'quite difficult not to believe that there's something in it after that'.
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Trump is a traitor who has just been praising Putin. He will never win a US Presidential Election again.
Americans love to waive the stars and stripes, not the Триколор
That's a remarkably complacent view imho. All signs are that the GOP will back any enemy of Biden, anywhere, at any time.
The GOP might, the American public as a whole will not.
Trump already lost an election once, becoming only the second President since the start of the 20th Century (after Carter) to fail to be re-elected when it was their parties first term in power.
Trump coming out unequivocally as pro-Putin at a time when America is against Russia is not going to win him support from flag waving Americans.
So. There will be two candidates in 2024. One an ancient guy with a dreadfully shafted economy. The other a Putinite. With control of the electoral register, counting and verification in many swing States. That scenario doesn't concern you in the least cos you know the results?
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades...
Which independent countries did we annexe ?
We annexed whichever the hell countries we wanted to.
Name one.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Grenada, the Levant, just about all of sub-saharan Africa, plenty of the Magreb also, Palestine, etc
I don't recall us annexing Iraq, or any of the others.
Which of those nations were annexed in the past 30 years? Who by and when?
Didn't we invade Iraq and depose the leader there? Same for Afgan? Did I miss something or is this going to be one of those he did not send the letter things.
The point is surely, that climate policies and lockdown were sold to us as reductions to the risks in our lives.
In the event, all they did was shift the balance of the risk.
Nobody told us that giving up gas drilling might give a madman who controls a lot of gas supply the upper hand.
I think you have to join up about 50 dots, some of which are not only on different pages but completely different books, in order to link Greta Thornberg to the invasion of Ukraine.
This is a rabbit hole which only the Far Right could manage to find itself going down.
You really don't and I suspect you know that.
Someone posted here a report in the Guardian from a few years ago about Putin encouraging anti-drilling groups in Britain, its not difficult to see why.
Greta is anti-Russian gas and anti-British gas. I don't see her as a natural Putin ally (or rather useful idiot),.
Yes, but the Russian government will just ignore her. Our government actually listens to its public, at least occasionally.
How much coverage does Greta get in Russia? A lot? A little?
Concern about climate change has increased how much energy we generate from wind and other green sources, and increased focus on energy efficiency. Both of these things are Very Good when facing conflict with a fossil fuel exporter.
Our precarity with respect to gas supplies is because we ignored national security concerns and spent too long leaning on gas-powered electricity generating stations, and because we cut national gas storage. It is not because we aren’t fracking.
To be fair, I asked none of that, and I agree with much of it.
The question was how much Greta is known, and listened to, in Russia.
The point is surely, that climate policies and lockdown were sold to us as reductions to the risks in our lives.
In the event, all they did was shift the balance of the risk.
Nobody told us that giving up gas drilling might give a madman who controls a lot of gas supply the upper hand.
I think you have to join up about 50 dots, some of which are not only on different pages but completely different books, in order to link Greta Thornberg to the invasion of Ukraine.
This is a rabbit hole which only the Far Right could manage to find itself going down.
You really don't and I suspect you know that.
Someone posted here a report in the Guardian from a few years ago about Putin encouraging anti-drilling groups in Britain, its not difficult to see why.
Greta is anti-Russian gas and anti-British gas. I don't see her as a natural Putin ally (or rather useful idiot),.
Yes, but the Russian government will just ignore her. Our government actually listens to its public, at least occasionally.
How much coverage does Greta get in Russia? A lot? A little?
Concern about climate change has increased how much energy we generate from wind and other green sources, and increased focus on energy efficiency. Both of these things are Very Good when facing conflict with a fossil fuel exporter.
Our precarity with respect to gas supplies is because we ignored national security concerns and spent too long leaning on gas-powered electricity generating stations, and because we cut national gas storage. It is not because we aren’t fracking.
I will add that we cut national gas storage because it reached EOL rather than other reasons. Turns out that it may have been worth keeping it but it probably would have only delayed the inevitable.
Reason for posting the above is because I said exactly what you said previously and then discovered that the devil was in the detail.
Jesus. The images from Karkhiv, where Russia are extensively and enthusiastically breaking the Geneva convention via cluster munitions targeted at civilians are just horrific.
Not exactly what you imagine when somebody says they are liberating a country....
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
I think what is coming out of this whole episode is that as the West has sowed, now is it reaping. For 30 years the West defined the world order. Someone out of line? Invade, depose, install a favourable regime. That was realpolitik. No one could or wanted to do anything about it.
I noticed @HYUFD getting a lot of stick on here last night when he was one of the few people who made sense. Yes indeed we are in a world of realpolitik when Russia as is can shout the odds and people have no choice but to listen. This is what the West has done since Desert Storm (and of course before).
So is Putin a madman? Was George W Bush? Was Obama? Perhaps. Each had a vision of a world order which had certain components and wherein actors behaved as they ought to have done and that vision was enforced by force if not voluntarily. And it's Putin's turn now.
I don't know if you're thinking about the perception of what used to be called the 3rd world but I think equating Obama with Putin is madness. Did he sometimes use force unnecessarily? Perhaps. If people want to compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban fine. But values do matter to some people.
I don't agree with what Putin is doing ... but let's make the cases equivalent.
Suppose the South-Western section of the US wanted to secede. The land was after all captured from Mexico comparatively recently in a bloody war. Chicano people are a majority in parts of it & there are certainly political movements that don't want a border separating people in Mexico & the US who share much common heritage & history.
What do you think the response of the US President would be?
And in fact, Trump's comments are very revealing in this regard. He obviously sees the analogy between Russia/Ukraine and US/Mexico.
I think Trump -- and actually many US presidents -- would act just as Putin is acting. They would prevent the secession (as they see it).
Of course this is a thought experiment. But, I think the forces that motivate Putin are not that far from the surface in many Western democracies.
The cases might be equivalent if the "South Western section of the US" had been an independent country, recognised by the rump US, for the past thirty years.
Why 30 years. We just passed the 100th anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. Are you saying there is a statute of limitations on people's national aspirations?
Simply because that's the case with Ukraine, and @YBarddCwsc was setting up an 'equivalence'. His comparison, not mine, so I don't know why you're asking me about castles you're building on it.
Obviously, a precise equivalence is impossible, I said it was a thought experiment.
There is no reason to accept your rather arbitrary 30 years limit.
If a large part of the US wanted to secede (as might well be the case in 50 years due to changing demographics), most US Presidents would act as Putin is doing now.
Just as if a large part of China wanted to secede, we would see the same.
And when there was a threat that a large part of Canada would secede, rendering rump Canada split into two pieces and probably unviable, there were many people in Anglophone Canada who were very keen to redraw the boundaries of Quebec.
In fact, I think if Quebec had voted to seceded, then the bits that voted Non would have been taken by rump Canada to retain a land bridge to the Maritimes.
Doesn’t Quebec disprove your hypothetical? Many in Quebec sought independence. Two peaceful and democratic referendums were held. No armies got involved. No militia sprung up. If Quebec swung behind independence again, there is every reason to believe that there would be a peaceful separation.
Russian nuclear alert Truss's fault says Kremlin: MOSCOW. Feb 28 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to put the deterrence forces on high alert, in particular, after the statements made by the British foreign secretary, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says https://twitter.com/DominicWaghorn/status/1498260827807404033
They should be told it was an OLD photo.
Well, Truss is having a fascinating conflict.
Trying to be impartial for a moment and jettisoning my leftie-green hat, I would say that:
Boris Johnson has done okay. Shown support: the kind of thing he does best. Short on detail and a bit botched in places but has done pretty well.
Ben Wallace is beginning to come across as a heavyweight. His 'full tonto' was great because it got the correct message across (even to people like me). A real prospect for the leadership?
Liz Truss is totally out of her depth
Sir Keir Starmer, very good, very solid, statesmanlike. Slapped down the loony left too.
p.s. As for Priti Patel, showing her real colours. What a nasty piece of work she is.
Yep I think I would agree with all of that. Although Johnson has fallen down at least a couple of times - most notably over scoffing at MPs with military experience.
I don't see much of Johnson in our response. It seems like a very establishment route so far. No major breaks with doctrine.
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Well, just under three, since inauguration will be January 2025, but, yes. An urgent and necessary task.
I'm sure many may not share your optimism that 'Europe' can achieve this.
The Italians for example are more worried about carve outs for designer gear that resisting Vladimir Putin.
I think you and Topping both need to catch up on the news of the past week.
The world is moving on without you both. The Western World has stood up to Russia, all of the Western World including Italy and Germany now. Credit to the West for that.
You're still sharing memes from a week ago that are dead and buried now. The past is a different country.
Jesus. The images from Karkhiv, where Russia are extensively and enthusiastically breaking the Geneva convention via cluster munitions targeted at civilians are just horrific.
Not exactly what you imagine when somebody says they are liberating a country....
This blog, whether from left or right minded posters, has a real blind spot for Boris and chums. In the same way that I think the prevailing wisdom here massively underestimates the chances of Boris recovering and leading his party to another election win in two years; theres a very limited understanding of the fact that Truss will LOVE being named by the Kremlin. Wait for the “the new Iron Lady” line. It’ll come.
I think what is coming out of this whole episode is that as the West has sowed, now is it reaping. For 30 years the West defined the world order. Someone out of line? Invade, depose, install a favourable regime. That was realpolitik. No one could or wanted to do anything about it.
I noticed @HYUFD getting a lot of stick on here last night when he was one of the few people who made sense. Yes indeed we are in a world of realpolitik when Russia as is can shout the odds and people have no choice but to listen. This is what the West has done since Desert Storm (and of course before).
So is Putin a madman? Was George W Bush? Was Obama? Perhaps. Each had a vision of a world order which had certain components and wherein actors behaved as they ought to have done and that vision was enforced by force if not voluntarily. And it's Putin's turn now.
I don't know if you're thinking about the perception of what used to be called the 3rd world but I think equating Obama with Putin is madness. Did he sometimes use force unnecessarily? Perhaps. If people want to compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban fine. But values do matter to some people.
I don't agree with what Putin is doing ... but let's make the cases equivalent.
Suppose the South-Western section of the US wanted to secede. The land was after all captured from Mexico comparatively recently in a bloody war. Chicano people are a majority in parts of it & there are certainly political movements that don't want a border separating people in Mexico & the US who share much common heritage & history.
What do you think the response of the US President would be?
And in fact, Trump's comments are very revealing in this regard. He obviously sees the analogy between Russia/Ukraine and US/Mexico.
I think Trump -- and actually many US presidents -- would act just as Putin is acting. They would prevent the secession (as they see it).
Of course this is a thought experiment. But, I think the forces that motivate Putin are not that far from the surface in many Western democracies.
The cases might be equivalent if the "South Western section of the US" had been an independent country, recognised by the rump US, for the past thirty years.
Why 30 years. We just passed the 100th anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. Are you saying there is a statute of limitations on people's national aspirations?
Simply because that's the case with Ukraine, and @YBarddCwsc was setting up an 'equivalence'. His comparison, not mine, so I don't know why you're asking me about castles you're building on it.
Obviously, a precise equivalence is impossible, I said it was a thought experiment.
There is no reason to accept your rather arbitrary 30 years limit.
If a large part of the US wanted to secede (as might well be the case in 50 years due to changing demographics), most US Presidents would act as Putin is doing now.
Just as if a large part of China wanted to secede, we would see the same.
And when there was a threat that a large part of Canada would secede, rendering rump Canada split into two pieces and probably unviable, there were many people in Anglophone Canada who were very keen to redraw the boundaries of Quebec.
In fact, I think if Quebec had voted to seceded, then the bits that voted Non would have been taken by rump Canada to retain a land bridge to the Maritimes.
"If they wanted to secede" is not an equivalence. And the three decades isn't arbitrary - it's simply the time which Ukraine has been an independent country. There's nothing magical about the number; it's just pointing out that Russia has recognised Ukraine for a long time, and is now waging a war of aggression against it.
Again, the distinction is in law, between the domestic and the international. This isn't complicated.
I think if you want an absolutely precise equivalence, there are none. I have given you rough equivalences.
Truth to tell, because of the behaviour of both the Ukraine and Russia, the situation a few weeks ago was a fucking mess.
It is now a fucking, fucking, fucking mess, wholly due to Russia.
And I am mainly now concerned to prevent it become a fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking mess.
I'd much rather we tried to sort it , without any more deaths, than adopt the ridiculous Manichean posturing that you seem to love.
And that requires some understanding of the positions of both parties.
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Trump is a traitor who has just been praising Putin. He will never win a US Presidential Election again.
Americans love to waive the stars and stripes, not the Триколор
That's a remarkably complacent view imho. All signs are that the GOP will back any enemy of Biden, anywhere, at any time.
The GOP might, the American public as a whole will not.
Trump already lost an election once, becoming only the second President since the start of the 20th Century (after Carter) to fail to be re-elected when it was their parties first term in power.
Trump coming out unequivocally as pro-Putin at a time when America is against Russia is not going to win him support from flag waving Americans.
Trump did say Putin would not have invaded Ukraine on his watch.
Note Trump is the only US President alive who did not see Russia invade a neighbour or near neighbour on his watch for all his faults.
Breshnev invaded Afghanistan when Carter was President. Yeltsin invaded Chechyna when Bill Clinton was President. Putin invaded Georgia when George W Bush was President and Putin invaded the Crimea when Obama was President and now Putin has invaded Ukraine while Biden is President
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades...
Which independent countries did we annexe ?
We annexed whichever the hell countries we wanted to.
Name one.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Grenada, the Levant, just about all of sub-saharan Africa, plenty of the Magreb also, Palestine, etc
I don't recall us annexing Iraq, or any of the others.
Which of those nations were annexed in the past 30 years? Who by and when?
Didn't we invade Iraq and depose the leader there? Same for Afgan? Did I miss something or is this going to be one of those he did not send the letter things.
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades and now someone else is doing it and we are so bewildered that we are relying on those go-to western liberal fallbacks of morality, decency, apple pie, values, usw to try to explain why it is "wrong".
And as to your other point of course we should do something about it and we seem to be. As I also said earlier, it will be interesting to see how much pain the EU for example is willing to inflict on its citizens via refusing to buy Russian gas.
But we never behaved like this, despite your whataboutism which you seem ever keener on for some reason, we never invaded a peaceful democracy.
Peaceful democracy is as you accept entirely a @BartholomewRoberts construct in the context of who should invade whom. You believe it is a critical factor. Others don't. It is of course fantastic that you should think this but then I am speaking as citizen of a western liberal democracy. In the real world, however, and while acknowledging that it allows people to "take sides" more easily, it makes no difference whatsoever.
You don't believe in god but you are arguing like the most religiously fervent of believers. You must understand that not everyone and not everyone outside of western liberal democracies places such a value on "peaceful democracies". Then you will begin to understand the dynamics at play here.
What you are missing is this is indeed a conflict between two utterly exclusive ideologies.
One - the current order - believes that countries should not oppress and kill their citizens to maintain power, should not wage unprovoked war on other free countries and should support the right to self determination.
The other believes that they have the right to maintain power at all costs, to treat their citizens as serfs and to invade other countries just because they think they can get away with it.
We have to choose sides and there is no room for cultural or moral relativism because the systems are, as I say, mutually exclusive.
Of course we choose sides and you will be delighted to know that I choose the side of western liberal democracy. Not one of my posts has ever said otherwise or condoned the actions of Russia. I have, however, sought to put the actions of Russia into historical and yes geopolitical context.
Many on here are throwing their hands up and saying how awful which of course it is but I would have hoped for more incisive analysis from PB.
I don't think it is awful and I actually modified my last post before I sent it to remove accusations of you 'siding' with the dictators.
But I do think it is wrong. Both logically and morally. There is a fundamental difference between acts against dictatorships and acts against democratic states. If anything I would suggest you could accuse the West of being hypocrites because of who they don't attack - Saudi being a good example. And no I am not advocating that only saying it is a natural extension of the logic.
But that does not in any way give Russia an excuse to attack an independent democratic state who they recognised and helped to form 30 years ago. Comparisons with Iraq or Afghanistan are simply wrong.
Jesus. The images from Karkhiv, where Russia are extensively and enthusiastically breaking the Geneva convention via cluster munitions targeted at civilians are just horrific.
Not exactly what you imagine when somebody says they are liberating a country....
I think what is coming out of this whole episode is that as the West has sowed, now is it reaping. For 30 years the West defined the world order. Someone out of line? Invade, depose, install a favourable regime. That was realpolitik. No one could or wanted to do anything about it.
I noticed @HYUFD getting a lot of stick on here last night when he was one of the few people who made sense. Yes indeed we are in a world of realpolitik when Russia as is can shout the odds and people have no choice but to listen. This is what the West has done since Desert Storm (and of course before).
So is Putin a madman? Was George W Bush? Was Obama? Perhaps. Each had a vision of a world order which had certain components and wherein actors behaved as they ought to have done and that vision was enforced by force if not voluntarily. And it's Putin's turn now.
I don't know if you're thinking about the perception of what used to be called the 3rd world but I think equating Obama with Putin is madness. Did he sometimes use force unnecessarily? Perhaps. If people want to compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban fine. But values do matter to some people.
I don't agree with what Putin is doing ... but let's make the cases equivalent.
Suppose the South-Western section of the US wanted to secede. The land was after all captured from Mexico comparatively recently in a bloody war. Chicano people are a majority in parts of it & there are certainly political movements that don't want a border separating people in Mexico & the US who share much common heritage & history.
What do you think the response of the US President would be?
And in fact, Trump's comments are very revealing in this regard. He obviously sees the analogy between Russia/Ukraine and US/Mexico.
I think Trump -- and actually many US presidents -- would act just as Putin is acting. They would prevent the secession (as they see it).
Of course this is a thought experiment. But, I think the forces that motivate Putin are not that far from the surface in many Western democracies.
The cases might be equivalent if the "South Western section of the US" had been an independent country, recognised by the rump US, for the past thirty years.
Why 30 years. We just passed the 100th anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. Are you saying there is a statute of limitations on people's national aspirations?
Simply because that's the case with Ukraine, and @YBarddCwsc was setting up an 'equivalence'. His comparison, not mine, so I don't know why you're asking me about castles you're building on it.
Obviously, a precise equivalence is impossible, I said it was a thought experiment.
There is no reason to accept your rather arbitrary 30 years limit.
If a large part of the US wanted to secede (as might well be the case in 50 years due to changing demographics), most US Presidents would act as Putin is doing now.
Just as if a large part of China wanted to secede, we would see the same.
And when there was a threat that a large part of Canada would secede, rendering rump Canada split into two pieces and probably unviable, there were many people in Anglophone Canada who were very keen to redraw the boundaries of Quebec.
In fact, I think if Quebec had voted to seceded, then the bits that voted Non would have been taken by rump Canada to retain a land bridge to the Maritimes.
"If they wanted to secede" is not an equivalence. And the three decades isn't arbitrary - it's simply the time which Ukraine has been an independent country. There's nothing magical about the number; it's just pointing out that Russia has recognised Ukraine for a long time, and is now waging a war of aggression against it.
Again, the distinction is in law, between the domestic and the international. This isn't complicated.
I think if you want an absolutely precise equivalence, there are none. I have given you rough equivalences.
Truth to tell, because of the behaviour of both the Ukraine and Russia, the situation a few weeks ago was a fucking mess.
It is now a fucking, fucking, fucking mess, wholly due to Russia.
And I am mainly now concerned to prevent it become a fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking mess.
I'd much rather we tried to sort it , without any more deaths, than adopt the ridiculous Manichean posturing that you seem to love.
And that requires some understanding of the positions of both parties.
There is no understanding of the Russian position. It was simply Putin's delusions of grandeur and revanchism.
Ukraine is not a part of Russia seeking to secede, it is an independent, peaceful, sovereign nation that can determine its own future.
What's worrying me, apart from the nukes of course, is that the opposition Party in the US is showing signs of going full on Putinite. This has been little discussed on here, nor in the broader media. But it is happening. Right now.
Yep. Massive worry. As I posted just now: we all need to wake up to what is going to happen in 2024.
GOP is no longer a democratic party. It is now a vehicle to deliver an authoritarian, strongman into the WH who will dismantle US democracy and wreck what is left of the world order.
Three GOP Congressional representative just spoke at a conference run by a holocaust denying white supremacist.
What has the GOP done about these people? Nothing.
Miss Cyclefree, agree on Rus, but Orthodox Christianity is of Constantinople, is it not?
Yes. I meant Russian Orthodoxy. Wasn't that started in ca. 1088? In K'viv?
For those of you in London their cathedral in Ennismore Gardens is rather lovely.
And although considered slightly outre for actual worship, if you ever get the chance to listen to Rachmaninov's Vespers (the All Night Vigil) then do. I heard it performed once at Keble College Chapel by candlelight. It remains to this day one of the moments of my life when the veil between here and the divine seemed very thin. What Rudolph Otto called the numinous. In fact I was with a chemistry graduate, an empiricist with a fine mind, and after our lengthy stunned silence at the end he turned to me and said that it was 'quite difficult not to believe that there's something in it after that'.
In danger of going all Leon here.
Reuniting the various Orthodox churches was the mystical obsession of Greater Russian Nationalists under the Tsars - take Constantinople back, and re-crown the Tsar in the St Sofia as the head of the reborn Roman Empire etc etc....
I think what is coming out of this whole episode is that as the West has sowed, now is it reaping. For 30 years the West defined the world order. Someone out of line? Invade, depose, install a favourable regime. That was realpolitik. No one could or wanted to do anything about it.
I noticed @HYUFD getting a lot of stick on here last night when he was one of the few people who made sense. Yes indeed we are in a world of realpolitik when Russia as is can shout the odds and people have no choice but to listen. This is what the West has done since Desert Storm (and of course before).
So is Putin a madman? Was George W Bush? Was Obama? Perhaps. Each had a vision of a world order which had certain components and wherein actors behaved as they ought to have done and that vision was enforced by force if not voluntarily. And it's Putin's turn now.
I don't know if you're thinking about the perception of what used to be called the 3rd world but I think equating Obama with Putin is madness. Did he sometimes use force unnecessarily? Perhaps. If people want to compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban fine. But values do matter to some people.
I don't agree with what Putin is doing ... but let's make the cases equivalent.
Suppose the South-Western section of the US wanted to secede. The land was after all captured from Mexico comparatively recently in a bloody war. Chicano people are a majority in parts of it & there are certainly political movements that don't want a border separating people in Mexico & the US who share much common heritage & history.
What do you think the response of the US President would be?
And in fact, Trump's comments are very revealing in this regard. He obviously sees the analogy between Russia/Ukraine and US/Mexico.
I think Trump -- and actually many US presidents -- would act just as Putin is acting. They would prevent the secession (as they see it).
Of course this is a thought experiment. But, I think the forces that motivate Putin are not that far from the surface in many Western democracies.
The cases might be equivalent if the "South Western section of the US" had been an independent country, recognised by the rump US, for the past thirty years.
Why 30 years. We just passed the 100th anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. Are you saying there is a statute of limitations on people's national aspirations?
Simply because that's the case with Ukraine, and @YBarddCwsc was setting up an 'equivalence'. His comparison, not mine, so I don't know why you're asking me about castles you're building on it.
Obviously, a precise equivalence is impossible, I said it was a thought experiment.
There is no reason to accept your rather arbitrary 30 years limit.
If a large part of the US wanted to secede (as might well be the case in 50 years due to changing demographics), most US Presidents would act as Putin is doing now.
Just as if a large part of China wanted to secede, we would see the same.
And when there was a threat that a large part of Canada would secede, rendering rump Canada split into two pieces and probably unviable, there were many people in Anglophone Canada who were very keen to redraw the boundaries of Quebec.
In fact, I think if Quebec had voted to seceded, then the bits that voted Non would have been taken by rump Canada to retain a land bridge to the Maritimes.
Doesn’t Quebec disprove your hypothetical? Many in Quebec sought independence. Two peaceful and democratic referendums were held. No armies got involved. No militia sprung up. If Quebec swung behind independence again, there is every reason to believe that there would be a peaceful separation.
I know quite a bit about Quebec, I lived there.
I don't believe that if the vote had been Oui, the whole of the present province of Quebec would have been allowed to secede.
Rump Canada would have first used lawyers, but if the lawyers had failed ....
The problem for the rest of Canada is of course that the secession of Quebec divides the country into two disjoint parts.
To show how bad our news is - it's taken an american retweet of an american tweet to discover that the new Registry of Foreign Entities that was (quietly announced) earlier today goes back 20 years - and the only source of the original Registry news came from an email alert newsletter from an insolvency practitioner I know.
Robert Frank @robtfrank · 9h UK to create new “Registry of Foreign Entities” requiring anonymous buyers of real-estate over the past 20 years to disclose the name of true owner. Aimed at Putin’s oligarchs and money-laundering. #Oligarchs https://reut.rs/3vkohqV
This blog, whether from left or right minded posters, has a real blind spot for Boris and chums. In the same way that I think the prevailing wisdom here massively underestimates the chances of Boris recovering and leading his party to another election win in two years; theres a very limited understanding of the fact that Truss will LOVE being named by the Kremlin. Wait for the “the new Iron Lady” line. It’ll come.
You're half right: Boris and The Truss are probably doing what is necessary to endear themselves to the Tory membership. But I suspect that with the voting public the pair of them are shot.
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades...
Which independent countries did we annexe ?
We annexed whichever the hell countries we wanted to.
Name one.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Grenada, the Levant, just about all of sub-saharan Africa, plenty of the Magreb also, Palestine, etc
I don't recall us annexing Iraq, or any of the others.
Which of those nations were annexed in the past 30 years? Who by and when?
Didn't we invade Iraq and depose the leader there? Same for Afgan? Did I miss something or is this going to be one of those he did not send the letter things.
We invaded, we didn't annexe.
Do you know what the difference is?
Did the people of Iraq who died know? Or care?
Any conflict can be reduced to "what about the individual dead" and it's a valid perspective. But it doesn't talk to the geopolitics.
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades and now someone else is doing it and we are so bewildered that we are relying on those go-to western liberal fallbacks of morality, decency, apple pie, values, usw to try to explain why it is "wrong".
And as to your other point of course we should do something about it and we seem to be. As I also said earlier, it will be interesting to see how much pain the EU for example is willing to inflict on its citizens via refusing to buy Russian gas.
But we never behaved like this, despite your whataboutism which you seem ever keener on for some reason, we never invaded a peaceful democracy.
Peaceful democracy is as you accept entirely a @BartholomewRoberts construct in the context of who should invade whom. You believe it is a critical factor. Others don't. It is of course fantastic that you should think this but then I am speaking as citizen of a western liberal democracy. In the real world, however, and while acknowledging that it allows people to "take sides" more easily, it makes no difference whatsoever.
You don't believe in god but you are arguing like the most religiously fervent of believers. You must understand that not everyone and not everyone outside of western liberal democracies places such a value on "peaceful democracies". Then you will begin to understand the dynamics at play here.
What you are missing is this is indeed a conflict between two utterly exclusive ideologies.
One - the current order - believes that countries should not oppress and kill their citizens to maintain power, should not wage unprovoked war on other free countries and should support the right to self determination.
The other believes that they have the right to maintain power at all costs, to treat their citizens as serfs and to invade other countries just because they think they can get away with it.
We have to choose sides and there is no room for cultural or moral relativism because the systems are, as I say, mutually exclusive.
Of course we choose sides and you will be delighted to know that I choose the side of western liberal democracy. Not one of my posts has ever said otherwise or condoned the actions of Russia. I have, however, sought to put the actions of Russia into historical and yes geopolitical context.
Many on here are throwing their hands up and saying how awful which of course it is but I would have hoped for more incisive analysis from PB.
Topping the loonies here prefer swivelled eyed, frothing at the mouth rubbish rather than an intelligent thoughtful insight on the topic.
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Well, just under three, since inauguration will be January 2025, but, yes. An urgent and necessary task.
I'm sure many may not share your optimism that 'Europe' can achieve this.
The Italians for example are more worried about carve outs for designer gear that resisting Vladimir Putin.
I think you and Topping both need to catch up on the news of the past week.
The world is moving on without you both. The Western World has stood up to Russia, all of the Western World including Italy and Germany now. Credit to the West for that.
You're still sharing memes from a week ago that are dead and buried now. The past is a different country.
Fair point, but its a long way from there to Europe being able to replace NATO.
Its a shame the US can't offer a better president in 2024 than Trump, but I don't believe he will abandon NATO.
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades...
Which independent countries did we annexe ?
We annexed whichever the hell countries we wanted to.
Name one.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Grenada, the Levant, just about all of sub-saharan Africa, plenty of the Magreb also, Palestine, etc
I don't recall us annexing Iraq, or any of the others.
Which of those nations were annexed in the past 30 years? Who by and when?
Didn't we invade Iraq and depose the leader there? Same for Afgan? Did I miss something or is this going to be one of those he did not send the letter things.
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades...
Which independent countries did we annexe ?
We annexed whichever the hell countries we wanted to.
Name one.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Grenada, the Levant, just about all of sub-saharan Africa, plenty of the Magreb also, Palestine, etc
I don't recall us annexing Iraq, or any of the others.
Which of those nations were annexed in the past 30 years? Who by and when?
Didn't we invade Iraq and depose the leader there? Same for Afgan? Did I miss something or is this going to be one of those he did not send the letter things.
We invaded, we didn't annexe.
Do you know what the difference is?
Indistinguishable to the many thousands of dead Iraqis?
Miss Cyclefree, agree on Rus, but Orthodox Christianity is of Constantinople, is it not?
Correct. The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill, is a Putin Stooge who pulled it out of communion with the Eastern Orthodox Church of Constantinople after Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople recognised the independence of the Ukranian Orthodox Church from the Russian Orthodox Church
To show how bad our news is - it's taken an american retweet of an american tweet to discover that the new Registry of Foreign Entities that was (quietly announced) earlier today goes back 20 years - and the only source of the original Registry news came from an email alert newsletter from an insolvency practitioner I know.
Robert Frank @robtfrank · 9h UK to create new “Registry of Foreign Entities” requiring anonymous buyers of real-estate over the past 20 years to disclose the name of true owner. Aimed at Putin’s oligarchs and money-laundering. #Oligarchs https://reut.rs/3vkohqV
Our news isn't the best at all times, but I read that this morning. It goes back 20 years in England and Wales, but just over 7 years in Scotland. No idea why the difference: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60549927
The register also applies to property bought by overseas owners up to 20 years ago in England and Wales and from December 2014 for property in Scotland.
I think what is coming out of this whole episode is that as the West has sowed, now is it reaping. For 30 years the West defined the world order. Someone out of line? Invade, depose, install a favourable regime. That was realpolitik. No one could or wanted to do anything about it.
I noticed @HYUFD getting a lot of stick on here last night when he was one of the few people who made sense. Yes indeed we are in a world of realpolitik when Russia as is can shout the odds and people have no choice but to listen. This is what the West has done since Desert Storm (and of course before).
So is Putin a madman? Was George W Bush? Was Obama? Perhaps. Each had a vision of a world order which had certain components and wherein actors behaved as they ought to have done and that vision was enforced by force if not voluntarily. And it's Putin's turn now.
I don't know if you're thinking about the perception of what used to be called the 3rd world but I think equating Obama with Putin is madness. Did he sometimes use force unnecessarily? Perhaps. If people want to compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban fine. But values do matter to some people.
I don't agree with what Putin is doing ... but let's make the cases equivalent.
Suppose the South-Western section of the US wanted to secede. The land was after all captured from Mexico comparatively recently in a bloody war. Chicano people are a majority in parts of it & there are certainly political movements that don't want a border separating people in Mexico & the US who share much common heritage & history.
What do you think the response of the US President would be?
And in fact, Trump's comments are very revealing in this regard. He obviously sees the analogy between Russia/Ukraine and US/Mexico.
I think Trump -- and actually many US presidents -- would act just as Putin is acting. They would prevent the secession (as they see it).
Of course this is a thought experiment. But, I think the forces that motivate Putin are not that far from the surface in many Western democracies.
The cases might be equivalent if the "South Western section of the US" had been an independent country, recognised by the rump US, for the past thirty years.
Why 30 years. We just passed the 100th anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. Are you saying there is a statute of limitations on people's national aspirations?
Simply because that's the case with Ukraine, and @YBarddCwsc was setting up an 'equivalence'. His comparison, not mine, so I don't know why you're asking me about castles you're building on it.
Obviously, a precise equivalence is impossible, I said it was a thought experiment.
There is no reason to accept your rather arbitrary 30 years limit.
If a large part of the US wanted to secede (as might well be the case in 50 years due to changing demographics), most US Presidents would act as Putin is doing now.
Just as if a large part of China wanted to secede, we would see the same.
And when there was a threat that a large part of Canada would secede, rendering rump Canada split into two pieces and probably unviable, there were many people in Anglophone Canada who were very keen to redraw the boundaries of Quebec.
In fact, I think if Quebec had voted to seceded, then the bits that voted Non would have been taken by rump Canada to retain a land bridge to the Maritimes.
"If they wanted to secede" is not an equivalence. And the three decades isn't arbitrary - it's simply the time which Ukraine has been an independent country. There's nothing magical about the number; it's just pointing out that Russia has recognised Ukraine for a long time, and is now waging a war of aggression against it.
Again, the distinction is in law, between the domestic and the international. This isn't complicated.
I think if you want an absolutely precise equivalence, there are none. I have given you rough equivalences.
Truth to tell, because of the behaviour of both the Ukraine and Russia, the situation a few weeks ago was a fucking mess.
It is now a fucking, fucking, fucking mess, wholly due to Russia.
And I am mainly now concerned to prevent it become a fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking mess.
I'd much rather we tried to sort it , without any more deaths, than adopt the ridiculous Manichean posturing that you seem to love.
And that requires some understanding of the positions of both parties.
There is no understanding of the Russian position. It was simply Putin's delusions of grandeur and revanchism.
Ukraine is not a part of Russia seeking to secede, it is an independent, peaceful, sovereign nation that can determine its own future.
If only the same thoughts were given to Scotland, typical Tory with more faces than the town clock.
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Jesus. The images from Karkhiv, where Russia are extensively and enthusiastically breaking the Geneva convention via cluster munitions targeted at civilians are just horrific.
Not exactly what you imagine when somebody says they are liberating a country....
My feeling is that Putin is going to flatten Ukraine and he will "win" in the next few days, by sheer murderous power. There are scenes of Ukrainians looting shops, for food - and actually fighting over food. Also scenes of panic on trains as people try to flee the worst hit cities.
They have been brilliant in their disciplined resistance to date but no nation can coherently withstand carpet bombing by a vastly superior power with complete air control, the government will disperse, the Ukrainian troops will hide away - to fight another day
And that's when Putin's nightmare continues, and worsens. His barbarism ensures the Ukrainians will never endure Russian rule, or even puppet status. I foresee years of insurrection, probably ending in the Russians just giving up, as in Afghanistan. And it will all have been for nothing. Squalid
I think what is coming out of this whole episode is that as the West has sowed, now is it reaping. For 30 years the West defined the world order. Someone out of line? Invade, depose, install a favourable regime. That was realpolitik. No one could or wanted to do anything about it.
I noticed @HYUFD getting a lot of stick on here last night when he was one of the few people who made sense. Yes indeed we are in a world of realpolitik when Russia as is can shout the odds and people have no choice but to listen. This is what the West has done since Desert Storm (and of course before).
So is Putin a madman? Was George W Bush? Was Obama? Perhaps. Each had a vision of a world order which had certain components and wherein actors behaved as they ought to have done and that vision was enforced by force if not voluntarily. And it's Putin's turn now.
I don't know if you're thinking about the perception of what used to be called the 3rd world but I think equating Obama with Putin is madness. Did he sometimes use force unnecessarily? Perhaps. If people want to compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban fine. But values do matter to some people.
I don't agree with what Putin is doing ... but let's make the cases equivalent.
Suppose the South-Western section of the US wanted to secede. The land was after all captured from Mexico comparatively recently in a bloody war. Chicano people are a majority in parts of it & there are certainly political movements that don't want a border separating people in Mexico & the US who share much common heritage & history.
What do you think the response of the US President would be?
And in fact, Trump's comments are very revealing in this regard. He obviously sees the analogy between Russia/Ukraine and US/Mexico.
I think Trump -- and actually many US presidents -- would act just as Putin is acting. They would prevent the secession (as they see it).
Of course this is a thought experiment. But, I think the forces that motivate Putin are not that far from the surface in many Western democracies.
The cases might be equivalent if the "South Western section of the US" had been an independent country, recognised by the rump US, for the past thirty years.
Why 30 years. We just passed the 100th anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. Are you saying there is a statute of limitations on people's national aspirations?
Simply because that's the case with Ukraine, and @YBarddCwsc was setting up an 'equivalence'. His comparison, not mine, so I don't know why you're asking me about castles you're building on it.
Obviously, a precise equivalence is impossible, I said it was a thought experiment.
There is no reason to accept your rather arbitrary 30 years limit.
If a large part of the US wanted to secede (as might well be the case in 50 years due to changing demographics), most US Presidents would act as Putin is doing now.
Just as if a large part of China wanted to secede, we would see the same.
And when there was a threat that a large part of Canada would secede, rendering rump Canada split into two pieces and probably unviable, there were many people in Anglophone Canada who were very keen to redraw the boundaries of Quebec.
In fact, I think if Quebec had voted to seceded, then the bits that voted Non would have been taken by rump Canada to retain a land bridge to the Maritimes.
"If they wanted to secede" is not an equivalence. And the three decades isn't arbitrary - it's simply the time which Ukraine has been an independent country. There's nothing magical about the number; it's just pointing out that Russia has recognised Ukraine for a long time, and is now waging a war of aggression against it.
Again, the distinction is in law, between the domestic and the international. This isn't complicated.
I think if you want an absolutely precise equivalence, there are none. I have given you rough equivalences.
Truth to tell, because of the behaviour of both the Ukraine and Russia, the situation a few weeks ago was a fucking mess.
It is now a fucking, fucking, fucking mess, wholly due to Russia.
And I am mainly now concerned to prevent it become a fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking mess.
I'd much rather we tried to sort it , without any more deaths, than adopt the ridiculous Manichean posturing that you seem to love.
And that requires some understanding of the positions of both parties.
There is no understanding of the Russian position. It was simply Putin's delusions of grandeur and revanchism.
Ukraine is not a part of Russia seeking to secede, it is an independent, peaceful, sovereign nation that can determine its own future.
If only the same thoughts were given to Scotland, typical Tory with more faces than the town clock.
I support Scotland determining its own future, you thick bore.
However Scotland is not an independent sovereign nation because your compatriots turned that opportunity down last time.
I think what is coming out of this whole episode is that as the West has sowed, now is it reaping. For 30 years the West defined the world order. Someone out of line? Invade, depose, install a favourable regime. That was realpolitik. No one could or wanted to do anything about it.
I noticed @HYUFD getting a lot of stick on here last night when he was one of the few people who made sense. Yes indeed we are in a world of realpolitik when Russia as is can shout the odds and people have no choice but to listen. This is what the West has done since Desert Storm (and of course before).
So is Putin a madman? Was George W Bush? Was Obama? Perhaps. Each had a vision of a world order which had certain components and wherein actors behaved as they ought to have done and that vision was enforced by force if not voluntarily. And it's Putin's turn now.
I don't know if you're thinking about the perception of what used to be called the 3rd world but I think equating Obama with Putin is madness. Did he sometimes use force unnecessarily? Perhaps. If people want to compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban fine. But values do matter to some people.
I don't agree with what Putin is doing ... but let's make the cases equivalent.
Suppose the South-Western section of the US wanted to secede. The land was after all captured from Mexico comparatively recently in a bloody war. Chicano people are a majority in parts of it & there are certainly political movements that don't want a border separating people in Mexico & the US who share much common heritage & history.
What do you think the response of the US President would be?
And in fact, Trump's comments are very revealing in this regard. He obviously sees the analogy between Russia/Ukraine and US/Mexico.
I think Trump -- and actually many US presidents -- would act just as Putin is acting. They would prevent the secession (as they see it).
Of course this is a thought experiment. But, I think the forces that motivate Putin are not that far from the surface in many Western democracies.
The cases might be equivalent if the "South Western section of the US" had been an independent country, recognised by the rump US, for the past thirty years.
Why 30 years. We just passed the 100th anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. Are you saying there is a statute of limitations on people's national aspirations?
Simply because that's the case with Ukraine, and @YBarddCwsc was setting up an 'equivalence'. His comparison, not mine, so I don't know why you're asking me about castles you're building on it.
Obviously, a precise equivalence is impossible, I said it was a thought experiment.
There is no reason to accept your rather arbitrary 30 years limit.
If a large part of the US wanted to secede (as might well be the case in 50 years due to changing demographics), most US Presidents would act as Putin is doing now.
Just as if a large part of China wanted to secede, we would see the same.
And when there was a threat that a large part of Canada would secede, rendering rump Canada split into two pieces and probably unviable, there were many people in Anglophone Canada who were very keen to redraw the boundaries of Quebec.
In fact, I think if Quebec had voted to seceded, then the bits that voted Non would have been taken by rump Canada to retain a land bridge to the Maritimes.
"If they wanted to secede" is not an equivalence. And the three decades isn't arbitrary - it's simply the time which Ukraine has been an independent country. There's nothing magical about the number; it's just pointing out that Russia has recognised Ukraine for a long time, and is now waging a war of aggression against it.
Again, the distinction is in law, between the domestic and the international. This isn't complicated.
I think if you want an absolutely precise equivalence, there are none. I have given you rough equivalences.
Truth to tell, because of the behaviour of both the Ukraine and Russia, the situation a few weeks ago was a fucking mess.
It is now a fucking, fucking, fucking mess, wholly due to Russia.
And I am mainly now concerned to prevent it become a fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking mess.
I'd much rather we tried to sort it , without any more deaths, than adopt the ridiculous Manichean posturing that you seem to love.
And that requires some understanding of the positions of both parties.
There is no understanding of the Russian position. It was simply Putin's delusions of grandeur and revanchism.
Ukraine is not a part of Russia seeking to secede, it is an independent, peaceful, sovereign nation that can determine its own future.
If only the same thoughts were given to Scotland, typical Tory with more faces than the town clock.
Scotland is part of the UK.
It is not an independent sovereign nation like Ukraine which has been invaded by another
We can confirm that Russian-back separatists appear to have used cadavers and faked explosive damage to create the impression that Ukrainian forces had killed civilians in Donetsk in an IED on 22 February.
The point is surely, that climate policies and lockdown were sold to us as reductions to the risks in our lives.
In the event, all they did was shift the balance of the risk.
Nobody told us that giving up gas drilling might give a madman who controls a lot of gas supply the upper hand.
I think you have to join up about 50 dots, some of which are not only on different pages but completely different books, in order to link Greta Thornberg to the invasion of Ukraine.
This is a rabbit hole which only the Far Right could manage to find itself going down.
You really don't and I suspect you know that.
Someone posted here a report in the Guardian from a few years ago about Putin encouraging anti-drilling groups in Britain, its not difficult to see why.
I don't think fracking was ever a sustainable proposition in this country anyway, owing to the fact that potential fracking sites are all so close to population centres and the threat (real or imagined) of subsidence, falling house prices and compromised water supplies loomed large in voters' minds. It was good old British NIMBYism that killed fracking here, not the green movement. The reality is that nobody on this site would have been happy to see a fracking rig set up next to their house - I certainly wouldn't.
Thinking about it, you may be right.
I must admit I've been thinking of you as a troll, best ignored, but I've never seen a troll say that on reflection someone else might be right. At the very least it's a good tip for trolls! And apologies, provisionally, for mistaking you for one.
I think what is coming out of this whole episode is that as the West has sowed, now is it reaping. For 30 years the West defined the world order. Someone out of line? Invade, depose, install a favourable regime. That was realpolitik. No one could or wanted to do anything about it.
I noticed @HYUFD getting a lot of stick on here last night when he was one of the few people who made sense. Yes indeed we are in a world of realpolitik when Russia as is can shout the odds and people have no choice but to listen. This is what the West has done since Desert Storm (and of course before).
So is Putin a madman? Was George W Bush? Was Obama? Perhaps. Each had a vision of a world order which had certain components and wherein actors behaved as they ought to have done and that vision was enforced by force if not voluntarily. And it's Putin's turn now.
I don't know if you're thinking about the perception of what used to be called the 3rd world but I think equating Obama with Putin is madness. Did he sometimes use force unnecessarily? Perhaps. If people want to compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban fine. But values do matter to some people.
I don't agree with what Putin is doing ... but let's make the cases equivalent.
Suppose the South-Western section of the US wanted to secede. The land was after all captured from Mexico comparatively recently in a bloody war. Chicano people are a majority in parts of it & there are certainly political movements that don't want a border separating people in Mexico & the US who share much common heritage & history.
What do you think the response of the US President would be?
And in fact, Trump's comments are very revealing in this regard. He obviously sees the analogy between Russia/Ukraine and US/Mexico.
I think Trump -- and actually many US presidents -- would act just as Putin is acting. They would prevent the secession (as they see it).
Of course this is a thought experiment. But, I think the forces that motivate Putin are not that far from the surface in many Western democracies.
The cases might be equivalent if the "South Western section of the US" had been an independent country, recognised by the rump US, for the past thirty years.
Why 30 years. We just passed the 100th anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. Are you saying there is a statute of limitations on people's national aspirations?
Simply because that's the case with Ukraine, and @YBarddCwsc was setting up an 'equivalence'. His comparison, not mine, so I don't know why you're asking me about castles you're building on it.
Obviously, a precise equivalence is impossible, I said it was a thought experiment.
There is no reason to accept your rather arbitrary 30 years limit.
If a large part of the US wanted to secede (as might well be the case in 50 years due to changing demographics), most US Presidents would act as Putin is doing now.
Just as if a large part of China wanted to secede, we would see the same.
And when there was a threat that a large part of Canada would secede, rendering rump Canada split into two pieces and probably unviable, there were many people in Anglophone Canada who were very keen to redraw the boundaries of Quebec.
In fact, I think if Quebec had voted to seceded, then the bits that voted Non would have been taken by rump Canada to retain a land bridge to the Maritimes.
"If they wanted to secede" is not an equivalence. And the three decades isn't arbitrary - it's simply the time which Ukraine has been an independent country. There's nothing magical about the number; it's just pointing out that Russia has recognised Ukraine for a long time, and is now waging a war of aggression against it.
Again, the distinction is in law, between the domestic and the international. This isn't complicated.
I think if you want an absolutely precise equivalence, there are none. I have given you rough equivalences.
Truth to tell, because of the behaviour of both the Ukraine and Russia, the situation a few weeks ago was a fucking mess.
It is now a fucking, fucking, fucking mess, wholly due to Russia.
And I am mainly now concerned to prevent it become a fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking mess.
I'd much rather we tried to sort it , without any more deaths, than adopt the ridiculous Manichean posturing that you seem to love.
And that requires some understanding of the positions of both parties.
There is no understanding of the Russian position. It was simply Putin's delusions of grandeur and revanchism.
Ukraine is not a part of Russia seeking to secede, it is an independent, peaceful, sovereign nation that can determine its own future.
If only the same thoughts were given to Scotland, typical Tory with more faces than the town clock.
A position that Mr Roberts, to be fair, has often said he agrees with, you flatulent bore.
Miss Cyclefree, I'd have to check the date but it sounds about right.
Surprised by the Chinese move. I wonder if the clusterbombs in residential areas made them realise this is only going to look terrible if they support Russia.
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Putin is not taking any chances with his economic team.
That button under his left elbow drops the fuckers into the shark tank.
hahahahahahahaha
He is genuinely and completely fucking crackers. Which is quite frightening, as the OTHER button sets off the ICBMSs
On the other hand, the image
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
It is also intriguing from a PR perspective. Putin's team must know this photo makes him look even crazier than before, yet it is released. Are they subtly trying to undermine him?
This blog, whether from left or right minded posters, has a real blind spot for Boris and chums. In the same way that I think the prevailing wisdom here massively underestimates the chances of Boris recovering and leading his party to another election win in two years; theres a very limited understanding of the fact that Truss will LOVE being named by the Kremlin. Wait for the “the new Iron Lady” line. It’ll come.
You're half right: Boris and The Truss are probably doing what is necessary to endear themselves to the Tory membership. But I suspect that with the voting public the pair of them are shot.
I dunno. You might be right but I think that if he can get the good times rolling (and Biden is going to want to engineer a boom) then all (well, “enough” if not “all”) will be forgiven for Boris in the right places for him to squeak a majority.
Speaking purely of the politics, he’s once again lucky. He can blame gas prices on Putin and dodge responsibility like he could blame Brexit disruption on Covid. This crisis will give him a platform to relaunch from, so long as plod doesn’t sanction him.
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades and now someone else is doing it and we are so bewildered that we are relying on those go-to western liberal fallbacks of morality, decency, apple pie, values, usw to try to explain why it is "wrong".
And as to your other point of course we should do something about it and we seem to be. As I also said earlier, it will be interesting to see how much pain the EU for example is willing to inflict on its citizens via refusing to buy Russian gas.
But we never behaved like this, despite your whataboutism which you seem ever keener on for some reason, we never invaded a peaceful democracy.
Peaceful democracy is as you accept entirely a @BartholomewRoberts construct in the context of who should invade whom. You believe it is a critical factor. Others don't. It is of course fantastic that you should think this but then I am speaking as citizen of a western liberal democracy. In the real world, however, and while acknowledging that it allows people to "take sides" more easily, it makes no difference whatsoever.
You don't believe in god but you are arguing like the most religiously fervent of believers. You must understand that not everyone and not everyone outside of western liberal democracies places such a value on "peaceful democracies". Then you will begin to understand the dynamics at play here.
What you are missing is this is indeed a conflict between two utterly exclusive ideologies.
One - the current order - believes that countries should not oppress and kill their citizens to maintain power, should not wage unprovoked war on other free countries and should support the right to self determination.
The other believes that they have the right to maintain power at all costs, to treat their citizens as serfs and to invade other countries just because they think they can get away with it.
We have to choose sides and there is no room for cultural or moral relativism because the systems are, as I say, mutually exclusive.
Of course we choose sides and you will be delighted to know that I choose the side of western liberal democracy. Not one of my posts has ever said otherwise or condoned the actions of Russia. I have, however, sought to put the actions of Russia into historical and yes geopolitical context.
Many on here are throwing their hands up and saying how awful which of course it is but I would have hoped for more incisive analysis from PB.
I don't think it is awful and I actually modified my last post before I sent it to remove accusations of you 'siding' with the dictators.
But I do think it is wrong. Both logically and morally. There is a fundamental difference between acts against dictatorships and acts against democratic states. If anything I would suggest you could accuse the West of being hypocrites because of who they don't attack - Saudi being a good example. And no I am not advocating that only saying it is a natural extension of the logic.
But that does not in any way give Russia an excuse to attack an independent democratic state who they recognised and helped to form 30 years ago. Comparisons with Iraq or Afghanistan are simply wrong.
You answer the question with your Saudi example. My point is that we, the West, have "run the world" according to our principles which thankfully have included democracy and other nice stuff. But it didn't have to. And now we are meeting a player whose principles don't include all that. And we are going to have to live with that and them. Yes of course we'll try to penalise them but as I keep saying, we also have to accept that there is very likely a new world order emerging and it isn't being written along the lines that we would want.
Miss Cyclefree, I'd have to check the date but it sounds about right.
Surprised by the Chinese move. I wonder if the clusterbombs in residential areas made them realise this is only going to look terrible if they support Russia.
This war is bad for world business.....its the wrong time for them for a long drawn out war in Eastern Europe. The supply chain problems are causing their own economic output to be reduced, plus that bad debt real estate problem. Patrick Boyle guy explained how many really important raw material come from Russia and Ukraine, that are key for certain manufacturing.
Is not the big problem here that the whole Putin schtick is about being revenged for the national humiliation of the break-up of the USSR and all that followed?
And now he's faced with the Mother Of All Humiliations.
Someone who is, literally, a comedian, raising two fingers, and saying "F*ck you, Vladimir". And the rest of the world providing an avid audience for the come down.
This is looking pretty bad.
Talk this morning is that Putin has so far only sent in mainly Russian conscripts with limited air support to see if he can get a low cost, easy victory.
He has held back from sending in the most elite Russian troops and heavy armour and tanks but they are on standby ready to move towards Kyiv suppported by a massive bombing campaign from the Russian airforce if it has not fallen within a week or so
😂
And you really believe that facesaving bollox?
It is chillingly credible. It is precisely why I predicted yesterday afternoon that things were going to get much, much nastier overnight. There is solid evidence that there were conscripts in the Russian invasion force last week, contrary to usual policy and the law, and this explains that evidence.
What's worrying me, apart from the nukes of course, is that the opposition Party in the US is showing signs of going full on Putinite. This has been little discussed on here, nor in the broader media. But it is happening. Right now.
Yes, that softhead Trump/MAGA nonsense prevailing in America has long been my idea of the worst prospect out there as regards global harm. It's been knocked off the top slot now, of course, but it's taken something very special from Vladimir Putin to do that.
Jesus. The images from Karkhiv, where Russia are extensively and enthusiastically breaking the Geneva convention via cluster munitions targeted at civilians are just horrific.
Not exactly what you imagine when somebody says they are liberating a country....
My feeling is that Putin is going to flatten Ukraine and he will "win" in the next few days, by sheer murderous power. There are scenes of Ukrainians looting shops, for food - and actually fighting over food. Also scenes of panic on trains as people try to flee the worst hit cities.
They have been brilliant in their disciplined resistance to date but no nation can coherently withstand carpet bombing by a vastly superior power with complete air control, the government will disperse, the Ukrainian troops will hide away - to fight another day
And that's when Putin's nightmare continues, and worsens. His barbarism ensures the Ukrainians will never endure Russian rule, or even puppet status. I foresee years of insurrection, probably ending in the Russians just giving up, as in Afghanistan. And it will all have been for nothing. Squalid
Which is why everything should be done to get him out now.
We should be very clear that we still have cards to play. If he hasn't got the message yet - further sanctions on those close to Putin. Cutting off the gas in time. He musn't think we're done or outrage has peaked.
Jesus. The images from Karkhiv, where Russia are extensively and enthusiastically breaking the Geneva convention via cluster munitions targeted at civilians are just horrific.
Not exactly what you imagine when somebody says they are liberating a country....
My feeling is that Putin is going to flatten Ukraine and he will "win" in the next few days, by sheer murderous power. There are scenes of Ukrainians looting shops, for food - and actually fighting over food. Also scenes of panic on trains as people try to flee the worst hit cities.
They have been brilliant in their disciplined resistance to date but no nation can coherently withstand carpet bombing by a vastly superior power with complete air control, the government will disperse, the Ukrainian troops will hide away - to fight another day
And that's when Putin's nightmare continues, and worsens. His barbarism ensures the Ukrainians will never endure Russian rule, or even puppet status. I foresee years of insurrection, probably ending in the Russians just giving up, as in Afghanistan. And it will all have been for nothing. Squalid
I hope you and I are wrong. But I fear this too.
This has been and still is a huge catastrophe -- a long-term disaster for Russia, Ukraine & the whole region.
My Russian friends almost all have family in the Ukraine as well. They can barely begin to talk about it without crying.
Like the US Civil War, the trauma will remain for centuries.
I think what is coming out of this whole episode is that as the West has sowed, now is it reaping. For 30 years the West defined the world order. Someone out of line? Invade, depose, install a favourable regime. That was realpolitik. No one could or wanted to do anything about it.
I noticed @HYUFD getting a lot of stick on here last night when he was one of the few people who made sense. Yes indeed we are in a world of realpolitik when Russia as is can shout the odds and people have no choice but to listen. This is what the West has done since Desert Storm (and of course before).
So is Putin a madman? Was George W Bush? Was Obama? Perhaps. Each had a vision of a world order which had certain components and wherein actors behaved as they ought to have done and that vision was enforced by force if not voluntarily. And it's Putin's turn now.
I don't know if you're thinking about the perception of what used to be called the 3rd world but I think equating Obama with Putin is madness. Did he sometimes use force unnecessarily? Perhaps. If people want to compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban fine. But values do matter to some people.
I don't agree with what Putin is doing ... but let's make the cases equivalent.
Suppose the South-Western section of the US wanted to secede. The land was after all captured from Mexico comparatively recently in a bloody war. Chicano people are a majority in parts of it & there are certainly political movements that don't want a border separating people in Mexico & the US who share much common heritage & history.
What do you think the response of the US President would be?
And in fact, Trump's comments are very revealing in this regard. He obviously sees the analogy between Russia/Ukraine and US/Mexico.
I think Trump -- and actually many US presidents -- would act just as Putin is acting. They would prevent the secession (as they see it).
Of course this is a thought experiment. But, I think the forces that motivate Putin are not that far from the surface in many Western democracies.
The cases might be equivalent if the "South Western section of the US" had been an independent country, recognised by the rump US, for the past thirty years.
Why 30 years. We just passed the 100th anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. Are you saying there is a statute of limitations on people's national aspirations?
Simply because that's the case with Ukraine, and @YBarddCwsc was setting up an 'equivalence'. His comparison, not mine, so I don't know why you're asking me about castles you're building on it.
Obviously, a precise equivalence is impossible, I said it was a thought experiment.
There is no reason to accept your rather arbitrary 30 years limit.
If a large part of the US wanted to secede (as might well be the case in 50 years due to changing demographics), most US Presidents would act as Putin is doing now.
Just as if a large part of China wanted to secede, we would see the same.
And when there was a threat that a large part of Canada would secede, rendering rump Canada split into two pieces and probably unviable, there were many people in Anglophone Canada who were very keen to redraw the boundaries of Quebec.
In fact, I think if Quebec had voted to seceded, then the bits that voted Non would have been taken by rump Canada to retain a land bridge to the Maritimes.
"If they wanted to secede" is not an equivalence. And the three decades isn't arbitrary - it's simply the time which Ukraine has been an independent country. There's nothing magical about the number; it's just pointing out that Russia has recognised Ukraine for a long time, and is now waging a war of aggression against it.
Again, the distinction is in law, between the domestic and the international. This isn't complicated.
I think if you want an absolutely precise equivalence, there are none. I have given you rough equivalences.
Truth to tell, because of the behaviour of both the Ukraine and Russia, the situation a few weeks ago was a fucking mess.
It is now a fucking, fucking, fucking mess, wholly due to Russia.
And I am mainly now concerned to prevent it become a fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking mess.
I'd much rather we tried to sort it , without any more deaths, than adopt the ridiculous Manichean posturing that you seem to love.
And that requires some understanding of the positions of both parties.
There is no understanding of the Russian position. It was simply Putin's delusions of grandeur and revanchism.
Ukraine is not a part of Russia seeking to secede, it is an independent, peaceful, sovereign nation that can determine its own future.
If only the same thoughts were given to Scotland, typical Tory with more faces than the town clock.
I support Scotland determining its own future, you thick bore.
However Scotland is not an independent sovereign nation because your compatriots turned that opportunity down last time.
PMSL, dumbo having the effrontery to call anyone thick or boring. The world is upside down.
Jesus. The images from Karkhiv, where Russia are extensively and enthusiastically breaking the Geneva convention via cluster munitions targeted at civilians are just horrific.
Not exactly what you imagine when somebody says they are liberating a country....
My feeling is that Putin is going to flatten Ukraine and he will "win" in the next few days, by sheer murderous power. There are scenes of Ukrainians looting shops, for food - and actually fighting over food. Also scenes of panic on trains as people try to flee the worst hit cities.
They have been brilliant in their disciplined resistance to date but no nation can coherently withstand carpet bombing by a vastly superior power with complete air control, the government will disperse, the Ukrainian troops will hide away - to fight another day
And that's when Putin's nightmare continues, and worsens. His barbarism ensures the Ukrainians will never endure Russian rule, or even puppet status. I foresee years of insurrection, probably ending in the Russians just giving up, as in Afghanistan. And it will all have been for nothing. Squalid
Yep, as great as the Ukrainians have been and as brave and inspiring as the President of Ukraine has been, his chances of getting out of this are pretty slim.
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades and now someone else is doing it and we are so bewildered that we are relying on those go-to western liberal fallbacks of morality, decency, apple pie, values, usw to try to explain why it is "wrong".
And as to your other point of course we should do something about it and we seem to be. As I also said earlier, it will be interesting to see how much pain the EU for example is willing to inflict on its citizens via refusing to buy Russian gas.
But we never behaved like this, despite your whataboutism which you seem ever keener on for some reason, we never invaded a peaceful democracy.
Peaceful democracy is as you accept entirely a @BartholomewRoberts construct in the context of who should invade whom. You believe it is a critical factor. Others don't. It is of course fantastic that you should think this but then I am speaking as citizen of a western liberal democracy. In the real world, however, and while acknowledging that it allows people to "take sides" more easily, it makes no difference whatsoever.
You don't believe in god but you are arguing like the most religiously fervent of believers. You must understand that not everyone and not everyone outside of western liberal democracies places such a value on "peaceful democracies". Then you will begin to understand the dynamics at play here.
What you are missing is this is indeed a conflict between two utterly exclusive ideologies.
One - the current order - believes that countries should not oppress and kill their citizens to maintain power, should not wage unprovoked war on other free countries and should support the right to self determination.
The other believes that they have the right to maintain power at all costs, to treat their citizens as serfs and to invade other countries just because they think they can get away with it.
We have to choose sides and there is no room for cultural or moral relativism because the systems are, as I say, mutually exclusive.
Of course we choose sides and you will be delighted to know that I choose the side of western liberal democracy. Not one of my posts has ever said otherwise or condoned the actions of Russia. I have, however, sought to put the actions of Russia into historical and yes geopolitical context.
Many on here are throwing their hands up and saying how awful which of course it is but I would have hoped for more incisive analysis from PB.
I don't think it is awful and I actually modified my last post before I sent it to remove accusations of you 'siding' with the dictators.
But I do think it is wrong. Both logically and morally. There is a fundamental difference between acts against dictatorships and acts against democratic states. If anything I would suggest you could accuse the West of being hypocrites because of who they don't attack - Saudi being a good example. And no I am not advocating that only saying it is a natural extension of the logic.
But that does not in any way give Russia an excuse to attack an independent democratic state who they recognised and helped to form 30 years ago. Comparisons with Iraq or Afghanistan are simply wrong.
You answer the question with your Saudi example. My point is that we, the West, have "run the world" according to our principles which thankfully have included democracy and other nice stuff. But it didn't have to. And now we are meeting a player whose principles don't include all that. And we are going to have to live with that and them. Yes of course we'll try to penalise them but as I keep saying, we also have to accept that there is very likely a new world order emerging and it isn't being written along the lines that we would want.
We're not going to have to "live with that and them", we will punish them and stand up for our own beliefs.
And the point is that Russia is so weak that they are long-term going to lose this. Heck, short-term they don't seem to be winning either.
People were saying when this began that China would be watching and if Russia could invade Ukraine without the West responding and get away with it, then Taiwan might be next. If anything, the Taiwanese leadership are probably rather relieved at how this is playing out.
If anything Russia's failing adventure is reinforcing the West's vision of the world.
I think what is coming out of this whole episode is that as the West has sowed, now is it reaping. For 30 years the West defined the world order. Someone out of line? Invade, depose, install a favourable regime. That was realpolitik. No one could or wanted to do anything about it.
I noticed @HYUFD getting a lot of stick on here last night when he was one of the few people who made sense. Yes indeed we are in a world of realpolitik when Russia as is can shout the odds and people have no choice but to listen. This is what the West has done since Desert Storm (and of course before).
So is Putin a madman? Was George W Bush? Was Obama? Perhaps. Each had a vision of a world order which had certain components and wherein actors behaved as they ought to have done and that vision was enforced by force if not voluntarily. And it's Putin's turn now.
I don't know if you're thinking about the perception of what used to be called the 3rd world but I think equating Obama with Putin is madness. Did he sometimes use force unnecessarily? Perhaps. If people want to compare Zelensky to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban fine. But values do matter to some people.
I don't agree with what Putin is doing ... but let's make the cases equivalent.
Suppose the South-Western section of the US wanted to secede. The land was after all captured from Mexico comparatively recently in a bloody war. Chicano people are a majority in parts of it & there are certainly political movements that don't want a border separating people in Mexico & the US who share much common heritage & history.
What do you think the response of the US President would be?
And in fact, Trump's comments are very revealing in this regard. He obviously sees the analogy between Russia/Ukraine and US/Mexico.
I think Trump -- and actually many US presidents -- would act just as Putin is acting. They would prevent the secession (as they see it).
Of course this is a thought experiment. But, I think the forces that motivate Putin are not that far from the surface in many Western democracies.
The cases might be equivalent if the "South Western section of the US" had been an independent country, recognised by the rump US, for the past thirty years.
Why 30 years. We just passed the 100th anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. Are you saying there is a statute of limitations on people's national aspirations?
Simply because that's the case with Ukraine, and @YBarddCwsc was setting up an 'equivalence'. His comparison, not mine, so I don't know why you're asking me about castles you're building on it.
Obviously, a precise equivalence is impossible, I said it was a thought experiment.
There is no reason to accept your rather arbitrary 30 years limit.
If a large part of the US wanted to secede (as might well be the case in 50 years due to changing demographics), most US Presidents would act as Putin is doing now.
Just as if a large part of China wanted to secede, we would see the same.
And when there was a threat that a large part of Canada would secede, rendering rump Canada split into two pieces and probably unviable, there were many people in Anglophone Canada who were very keen to redraw the boundaries of Quebec.
In fact, I think if Quebec had voted to seceded, then the bits that voted Non would have been taken by rump Canada to retain a land bridge to the Maritimes.
"If they wanted to secede" is not an equivalence. And the three decades isn't arbitrary - it's simply the time which Ukraine has been an independent country. There's nothing magical about the number; it's just pointing out that Russia has recognised Ukraine for a long time, and is now waging a war of aggression against it.
Again, the distinction is in law, between the domestic and the international. This isn't complicated.
I think if you want an absolutely precise equivalence, there are none. I have given you rough equivalences.
Truth to tell, because of the behaviour of both the Ukraine and Russia, the situation a few weeks ago was a fucking mess.
It is now a fucking, fucking, fucking mess, wholly due to Russia.
And I am mainly now concerned to prevent it become a fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking mess.
I'd much rather we tried to sort it , without any more deaths, than adopt the ridiculous Manichean posturing that you seem to love.
And that requires some understanding of the positions of both parties.
If we've descended to insults "ridiculous Manichean posturing", we'll just have to agree to disagree.
The point is surely, that climate policies and lockdown were sold to us as reductions to the risks in our lives.
In the event, all they did was shift the balance of the risk.
Nobody told us that giving up gas drilling might give a madman who controls a lot of gas supply the upper hand.
I think you have to join up about 50 dots, some of which are not only on different pages but completely different books, in order to link Greta Thornberg to the invasion of Ukraine.
This is a rabbit hole which only the Far Right could manage to find itself going down.
You really don't and I suspect you know that.
No you really do and I suspect you know that.
Look I know leftists are desperate for the 'green lobby created Putin' narrative not to get out, hence the IPCC's very convenient report today.
I would suggest to you that you are too late. Its already out there.
It is certainly out there that's for sure.
Doesn't mean anyone sensible believes it. And anyway, surely the correct response is to prioritise even more investment in renewables so we can move away from Russion gas.
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Trump is a traitor who has just been praising Putin. He will never win a US Presidential Election again.
Americans love to waive the stars and stripes, not the Триколор
Yup. Picture the primaries. Universal condemnation for siding with Russia.
If Trump tries, hopefully someone like Mitt Romney will contest the Republican primaries, on a kind of kamikaze mission, with the goal of doing so much damage to Trump, that he loses the actual election. But hardly ideal. The Dems really do need to find a credible candidate for 2024.
There's a rumour down that thread which says Putin is having chemo-therapy, is immuno-compromised, hence the absolute paranoia about Covid infection. And in one of the close-up photos of his weird, puffy face, he does look decidedly ill
I have a friend doing chemo and with compromised immunity and she acts in a similar paranoid way. You can't share a room with her, even to chat at a distance.
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades and now someone else is doing it and we are so bewildered that we are relying on those go-to western liberal fallbacks of morality, decency, apple pie, values, usw to try to explain why it is "wrong".
And as to your other point of course we should do something about it and we seem to be. As I also said earlier, it will be interesting to see how much pain the EU for example is willing to inflict on its citizens via refusing to buy Russian gas.
But we never behaved like this, despite your whataboutism which you seem ever keener on for some reason, we never invaded a peaceful democracy.
Peaceful democracy is as you accept entirely a @BartholomewRoberts construct in the context of who should invade whom. You believe it is a critical factor. Others don't. It is of course fantastic that you should think this but then I am speaking as citizen of a western liberal democracy. In the real world, however, and while acknowledging that it allows people to "take sides" more easily, it makes no difference whatsoever.
You don't believe in god but you are arguing like the most religiously fervent of believers. You must understand that not everyone and not everyone outside of western liberal democracies places such a value on "peaceful democracies". Then you will begin to understand the dynamics at play here.
What you are missing is this is indeed a conflict between two utterly exclusive ideologies.
One - the current order - believes that countries should not oppress and kill their citizens to maintain power, should not wage unprovoked war on other free countries and should support the right to self determination.
The other believes that they have the right to maintain power at all costs, to treat their citizens as serfs and to invade other countries just because they think they can get away with it.
We have to choose sides and there is no room for cultural or moral relativism because the systems are, as I say, mutually exclusive.
Of course we choose sides and you will be delighted to know that I choose the side of western liberal democracy. Not one of my posts has ever said otherwise or condoned the actions of Russia. I have, however, sought to put the actions of Russia into historical and yes geopolitical context.
Many on here are throwing their hands up and saying how awful which of course it is but I would have hoped for more incisive analysis from PB.
I don't think it is awful and I actually modified my last post before I sent it to remove accusations of you 'siding' with the dictators.
But I do think it is wrong. Both logically and morally. There is a fundamental difference between acts against dictatorships and acts against democratic states. If anything I would suggest you could accuse the West of being hypocrites because of who they don't attack - Saudi being a good example. And no I am not advocating that only saying it is a natural extension of the logic.
But that does not in any way give Russia an excuse to attack an independent democratic state who they recognised and helped to form 30 years ago. Comparisons with Iraq or Afghanistan are simply wrong.
You answer the question with your Saudi example. My point is that we, the West, have "run the world" according to our principles which thankfully have included democracy and other nice stuff. But it didn't have to. And now we are meeting a player whose principles don't include all that. And we are going to have to live with that and them. Yes of course we'll try to penalise them but as I keep saying, we also have to accept that there is very likely a new world order emerging and it isn't being written along the lines that we would want.
We're not going to have to "live with that and them", we will punish them and stand up for our own beliefs.
And the point is that Russia is so weak that they are long-term going to lose this. Heck, short-term they don't seem to be winning either.
People were saying when this began that China would be watching and if Russia could invade Ukraine without the West responding and get away with it, then Taiwan might be next. If anything, the Taiwanese leadership are probably rather relieved at how this is playing out.
If anything Russia's failing adventure is reinforcing the West's vision of the world.
It is intriguing. Will Russia emerge stronger or weakened and what defines each of those positions. If it is a strategic masterstroke or not my point has always been that the terms of geopolitical actions have been defined by the West for decades. And now Russia wants a go. We will see if it can elbow itself onto the world stage or whether, as you suggest, it will fail and emerge structurally weakened.
Jesus. The images from Karkhiv, where Russia are extensively and enthusiastically breaking the Geneva convention via cluster munitions targeted at civilians are just horrific.
Not exactly what you imagine when somebody says they are liberating a country....
My feeling is that Putin is going to flatten Ukraine and he will "win" in the next few days, by sheer murderous power. There are scenes of Ukrainians looting shops, for food - and actually fighting over food. Also scenes of panic on trains as people try to flee the worst hit cities.
They have been brilliant in their disciplined resistance to date but no nation can coherently withstand carpet bombing by a vastly superior power with complete air control, the government will disperse, the Ukrainian troops will hide away - to fight another day
And that's when Putin's nightmare continues, and worsens. His barbarism ensures the Ukrainians will never endure Russian rule, or even puppet status. I foresee years of insurrection, probably ending in the Russians just giving up, as in Afghanistan. And it will all have been for nothing. Squalid
Which is why everything should be done to get him out now.
We should be very clear that we still have cards to play. If he hasn't got the message yet - further sanctions on those close to Putin. Cutting off the gas in time. He musn't think we're done or outrage has peaked.
"Cutting off the gas" = economic misery for much of western Europe and an energy supply boost for China. Not to say we shouldn't or won't do it.
There's a rumour down that thread which says Putin is having chemo-therapy, is immuno-compromised, hence the absolute paranoia about Covid infection. And in one of the close-up photos of his weird, puffy face, he does look decidedly ill
I have a friend doing chemo and with compromised immunity and she acts in a similar paranoid way. You can't share a room with her, even to chat at a distance.
Or given how Russian plans have leaked so easily to the West, perhaps he is just super paranoid that his own have it in for him. Remember the US / UK new about his invasion plans well ahead of time, they talked to the Chinese to try to get them to have a word and they blabbed to him the west know exactly what you are up to.
The point is surely, that climate policies and lockdown were sold to us as reductions to the risks in our lives.
In the event, all they did was shift the balance of the risk.
Nobody told us that giving up gas drilling might give a madman who controls a lot of gas supply the upper hand.
I think you have to join up about 50 dots, some of which are not only on different pages but completely different books, in order to link Greta Thornberg to the invasion of Ukraine.
This is a rabbit hole which only the Far Right could manage to find itself going down.
You really don't and I suspect you know that.
No you really do and I suspect you know that.
Look I know leftists are desperate for the 'green lobby created Putin' narrative not to get out, hence the IPCC's very convenient report today.
I would suggest to you that you are too late. Its already out there.
It is certainly out there that's for sure.
Doesn't mean anyone sensible believes it. And anyway, surely the correct response is to prioritise even more investment in renewables so we can move away from Russion gas.
Indeed. I don't quite follow how prioritising an alternative supply of energy (renewables), and campaigning to reduce the demand for, and use of, fossil fuels, somehow makes us more reliant on foreign gas. Surely the folk to blame are the ones who have said, progressively. Climate change doesn't exist/ isn't important/there's nowt we can do anyways. So keep flying, driving and denying subsidies for windmills. And planning permission. And don't you dare put taxes on any of it.
Jesus. The images from Karkhiv, where Russia are extensively and enthusiastically breaking the Geneva convention via cluster munitions targeted at civilians are just horrific.
Not exactly what you imagine when somebody says they are liberating a country....
My feeling is that Putin is going to flatten Ukraine and he will "win" in the next few days, by sheer murderous power. There are scenes of Ukrainians looting shops, for food - and actually fighting over food. Also scenes of panic on trains as people try to flee the worst hit cities.
They have been brilliant in their disciplined resistance to date but no nation can coherently withstand carpet bombing by a vastly superior power with complete air control, the government will disperse, the Ukrainian troops will hide away - to fight another day
And that's when Putin's nightmare continues, and worsens. His barbarism ensures the Ukrainians will never endure Russian rule, or even puppet status. I foresee years of insurrection, probably ending in the Russians just giving up, as in Afghanistan. And it will all have been for nothing. Squalid
Yes, this seems likely. It's the worst outcome for Ukraine. It is probably one of the worst outcomes for Russia, pretty awful for Belarus, and moderately good for NATO, the West and other ex-Soviet countries.
Worst for Ukraine because the country, the economy, infrastructure will all be ruined. The population will be depleted and militarised. Crime will soar. The black market will dominate the economy. If and when Russia finally leaves, they will leave something akin to Georgia in the early 1990s or Bosnia in the 2000s.
Bad for Russia because this presupposes Putin stays in power, crippling sanctions turn the economy into a basket case, the people get increasingly cut off from global networks and information. There is no big moment of national catharsis as there would be with a revolution, or a return to near-normality as there would be with a negotiated ceasefire.
Bad for Belarus because it remains indefinitely an impoverished, militarised client state and launching pad with something akin to martial law in place, and no doubt a thriving black market.
Moderately good for the West because it keeps Putin distracted, depletes his financial means or capacity to widen the attack to other neighbouring countries like Moldova or the Baltics.
Moderately good for countries like Azerbaijan or Georgia for the same reasons - they get left alone if the priority is Ukraine.
Scenarios from best to worst all round:
1. Putin realises his mistake, apologizes and steps down into a quiet retirement in his dacha (yeah right), followed by orderly withdrawal from Ukraine. Crimea's future is negotiated peacefully. 2. Coup removes Putin, replaced with free democratic elections and withdrawal from Ukraine etc 3. The Afghanistan scenario described by Leon above 4. Coup removes Putin, replaced by chaos and collapse of governance in Russia 5. Negotiated ceasefire not dissimilar to Minsk, which pushes the issue back for a few years 6. Russia overruns Ukraine, instals a puppet and rules with a rod of iron. Next stop Moldova. 7. Global thermonuclear war
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Are we sure they are a long way away from Putin, as opposed to just being really little?
Those pictures of him at the end of a long table are scary, I reckon, because it shows how utterly paranoid he is. Presumably Covid had riddled his brain 🧠
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Trump is a traitor who has just been praising Putin. He will never win a US Presidential Election again.
Americans love to waive the stars and stripes, not the Триколор
That's a remarkably complacent view imho. All signs are that the GOP will back any enemy of Biden, anywhere, at any time.
And voters' memories are getting shorter by the month: Trump sort of pro vaccines, cutting military aid to Ukraine, devolving control of drone strikes to the US military, constructing the US plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan, who cares, that's all in the past.
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades and now someone else is doing it and we are so bewildered that we are relying on those go-to western liberal fallbacks of morality, decency, apple pie, values, usw to try to explain why it is "wrong".
And as to your other point of course we should do something about it and we seem to be. As I also said earlier, it will be interesting to see how much pain the EU for example is willing to inflict on its citizens via refusing to buy Russian gas.
But we never behaved like this, despite your whataboutism which you seem ever keener on for some reason, we never invaded a peaceful democracy.
Peaceful democracy is as you accept entirely a @BartholomewRoberts construct in the context of who should invade whom. You believe it is a critical factor. Others don't. It is of course fantastic that you should think this but then I am speaking as citizen of a western liberal democracy. In the real world, however, and while acknowledging that it allows people to "take sides" more easily, it makes no difference whatsoever.
You don't believe in god but you are arguing like the most religiously fervent of believers. You must understand that not everyone and not everyone outside of western liberal democracies places such a value on "peaceful democracies". Then you will begin to understand the dynamics at play here.
What you are missing is this is indeed a conflict between two utterly exclusive ideologies.
One - the current order - believes that countries should not oppress and kill their citizens to maintain power, should not wage unprovoked war on other free countries and should support the right to self determination.
The other believes that they have the right to maintain power at all costs, to treat their citizens as serfs and to invade other countries just because they think they can get away with it.
We have to choose sides and there is no room for cultural or moral relativism because the systems are, as I say, mutually exclusive.
Of course we choose sides and you will be delighted to know that I choose the side of western liberal democracy. Not one of my posts has ever said otherwise or condoned the actions of Russia. I have, however, sought to put the actions of Russia into historical and yes geopolitical context.
Many on here are throwing their hands up and saying how awful which of course it is but I would have hoped for more incisive analysis from PB.
I don't think it is awful and I actually modified my last post before I sent it to remove accusations of you 'siding' with the dictators.
But I do think it is wrong. Both logically and morally. There is a fundamental difference between acts against dictatorships and acts against democratic states. If anything I would suggest you could accuse the West of being hypocrites because of who they don't attack - Saudi being a good example. And no I am not advocating that only saying it is a natural extension of the logic.
But that does not in any way give Russia an excuse to attack an independent democratic state who they recognised and helped to form 30 years ago. Comparisons with Iraq or Afghanistan are simply wrong.
You answer the question with your Saudi example. My point is that we, the West, have "run the world" according to our principles which thankfully have included democracy and other nice stuff. But it didn't have to. And now we are meeting a player whose principles don't include all that. And we are going to have to live with that and them. Yes of course we'll try to penalise them but as I keep saying, we also have to accept that there is very likely a new world order emerging and it isn't being written along the lines that we would want.
We're not going to have to "live with that and them", we will punish them and stand up for our own beliefs.
And the point is that Russia is so weak that they are long-term going to lose this. Heck, short-term they don't seem to be winning either.
People were saying when this began that China would be watching and if Russia could invade Ukraine without the West responding and get away with it, then Taiwan might be next. If anything, the Taiwanese leadership are probably rather relieved at how this is playing out.
If anything Russia's failing adventure is reinforcing the West's vision of the world.
It is intriguing. Will Russia emerge stronger or weakened and what defines each of those positions. If it is a strategic masterstroke or not my point has always been that the terms of geopolitical actions have been defined by the West for decades. And now Russia wants a go. We will see if it can elbow itself onto the world stage or whether, as you suggest, it will fail and emerge structurally weakened.
Well indeed but just to clarify I have long held the belief that Russia is structurally very weak.
If Russia loses this conflict, then that will be exposing to the world their weakness, it won't be this conflict that made them weak.
But indeed revealing to the world just how weak and enfeebled the Russian state is now is in itself a kind of weakening.
@TOPPING is your entire argument basically “the west had it coming”? If so, christ.
No you dolt. It is that the West has behaved like this for decades...
Which independent countries did we annexe ?
We annexed whichever the hell countries we wanted to.
Name one.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Grenada, the Levant, just about all of sub-saharan Africa, plenty of the Magreb also, Palestine, etc
I don't recall us annexing Iraq, or any of the others.
Which of those nations were annexed in the past 30 years? Who by and when?
Didn't we invade Iraq and depose the leader there? Same for Afgan? Did I miss something or is this going to be one of those he did not send the letter things.
We invaded, we didn't annexe.
Do you know what the difference is?
Indistinguishable to the many thousands of dead Iraqis?
'I am sorry if you feel that you were annexed rather than invaded'
Jesus. The images from Karkhiv, where Russia are extensively and enthusiastically breaking the Geneva convention via cluster munitions targeted at civilians are just horrific.
Not exactly what you imagine when somebody says they are liberating a country....
My feeling is that Putin is going to flatten Ukraine and he will "win" in the next few days, by sheer murderous power. There are scenes of Ukrainians looting shops, for food - and actually fighting over food. Also scenes of panic on trains as people try to flee the worst hit cities.
They have been brilliant in their disciplined resistance to date but no nation can coherently withstand carpet bombing by a vastly superior power with complete air control, the government will disperse, the Ukrainian troops will hide away - to fight another day
And that's when Putin's nightmare continues, and worsens. His barbarism ensures the Ukrainians will never endure Russian rule, or even puppet status. I foresee years of insurrection, probably ending in the Russians just giving up, as in Afghanistan. And it will all have been for nothing. Squalid
I hope you and I are wrong. But I fear this too.
This has been and still is a huge catastrophe -- a long-term disaster for Russia, Ukraine & the whole region.
My Russian friends almost all have family in the Ukraine as well. They can barely begin to talk about it without crying.
Like the US Civil War, the trauma will remain for centuries.
At least the US Civil War was a just war, and led - eventually - to a much better world. This war is one of the most pointlessly, self-harmingly stupid I have witnessed. Possibly the stupidest war of my life
It was 99% certain to go wrong, in multiple ways. Yet Putin did not realise?
It all adds to the impression that he has lost it, mentally.
Europe has just two years to massively rearm to face Russia alone from 2024:
WSJ Politics @WSJPolitics CPAC organizers released results of a straw poll of attendees that showed Trump was the preferred 2024 GOP nominee among 59% of 2,574 voters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second at 28% and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was third at 2%
Trump is a traitor who has just been praising Putin. He will never win a US Presidential Election again.
Americans love to waive the stars and stripes, not the Триколор
Indeed, and agreed, he is a traitor.
I think he's probably a lay for the GOP nomination – his rivals will have an absolute field day quoting his pro-Putin, anti-American rants back at him.
Comments
It's why you can often hear French, German and Dutch AM radio after dark very easily, but with fewer AM stations existing now, it'll be easier for ones from further away to interfere.
In your case, it was probably interference from Romania, but it's pretty rare and strange for it to happen right at the beginning of a speech from the US President.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_medium_wave_transmitters
Many on here are throwing their hands up and saying how awful which of course it is but I would have hoped for more incisive analysis from PB.
We obviously need to get our energy sitz sorted out. As you know, although I consider myself in part a Green supporter, and have sometimes voted for them, I believe in the greenest form of energy of them all: nuclear power.
But your reductionism of the Ukraine conflict to a cause and effect about gas, and then to Greta T, is so beyond simplistic that it doesn't deserve the time of day, let alone you reposting it every 5 minutes.
If you have a problem with Greta that's fine but just spare us the stupid link to Putin's evil invasion of Ukraine.
They might also have eyes on being able to exert more influence on some of the Russian sphere states. Support from China has to look like a better bet for them.
What we could hope for though is that they also see what a mess this all is and that reduces their enthusiasm to do anything rash in Taiwan.
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1498255416203087872?s=20&t=l9TWq5M8m6xktFaQYo7kSw
Trump already lost an election once, becoming only the second President since the start of the 20th Century (after Carter) to fail to be re-elected when it was their parties first term in power.
Trump coming out unequivocally as pro-Putin at a time when America is against Russia is not going to win him support from flag waving Americans.
Which of those nations were annexed in the past 30 years? Who by and when?
And the three decades isn't arbitrary - it's simply the time which Ukraine has been an independent country. There's nothing magical about the number; it's just pointing out that Russia has recognised Ukraine for a long time, and is now waging a war of aggression against it.
Again, the distinction is in law, between the domestic and the international. This isn't complicated.
1) Weak flank support from entirely uncommited allies.
2) Not attacking down the river bank from both ends to encircle the Russians in the city, instead of replicating the battle of the Somme, or Verdun approach.
3) Attacking Stalingrad at all - reach the river and close its use by artilliary fire.
Russia's position is: continue to resist and we will bombard the country until not a single brick lies atop another.
Ukraine's is one of emboldened defiance.
A lot of dying left in this war.
Our precarity with respect to gas supplies is because we ignored national security concerns and spent too long leaning on gas-powered electricity generating stations, and because we cut national gas storage. It is not because we aren’t fracking.
And although considered slightly outre for actual worship, if you ever get the chance to listen to Rachmaninov's Vespers (the All Night Vigil) then do. I heard it performed once at Keble College Chapel by candlelight. It remains to this day one of the moments of my life when the veil between here and the divine seemed very thin. What Rudolph Otto called the numinous. In fact I was with a chemistry graduate, an empiricist with a fine mind, and after our lengthy stunned silence at the end he turned to me and said that it was 'quite difficult not to believe that there's something in it after that'.
In danger of going all Leon here.
The other a Putinite. With control of the electoral register, counting and verification in many swing States.
That scenario doesn't concern you in the least cos you know the results?
Do you know what the difference is?
The question was how much Greta is known, and listened to, in Russia.
Reason for posting the above is because I said exactly what you said previously and then discovered that the devil was in the detail.
This is beyond grim
The Italians for example are more worried about carve outs for designer gear that resisting Vladimir Putin.
The world is moving on without you both. The Western World has stood up to Russia, all of the Western World including Italy and Germany now. Credit to the West for that.
You're still sharing memes from a week ago that are dead and buried now. The past is a different country.
Truth to tell, because of the behaviour of both the Ukraine and Russia, the situation a few weeks ago was a fucking mess.
It is now a fucking, fucking, fucking mess, wholly due to Russia.
And I am mainly now concerned to prevent it become a fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking, fucking mess.
I'd much rather we tried to sort it , without any more deaths, than adopt the ridiculous Manichean posturing that you seem to love.
And that requires some understanding of the positions of both parties.
Note Trump is the only US President alive who did not see Russia invade a neighbour or near neighbour on his watch for all his faults.
Breshnev invaded Afghanistan when Carter was President. Yeltsin invaded Chechyna when Bill Clinton was President. Putin invaded Georgia when George W Bush was President and Putin invaded the Crimea when Obama was President and now Putin has invaded Ukraine while Biden is President
But I do think it is wrong. Both logically and morally. There is a fundamental difference between acts against dictatorships and acts against democratic states. If anything I would suggest you could accuse the West of being hypocrites because of who they don't attack - Saudi being a good example. And no I am not advocating that only saying it is a natural extension of the logic.
But that does not in any way give Russia an excuse to attack an independent democratic state who they recognised and helped to form 30 years ago. Comparisons with Iraq or Afghanistan are simply wrong.
It's victory or death now.
Ukraine is not a part of Russia seeking to secede, it is an independent, peaceful, sovereign nation that can determine its own future.
What has the GOP done about these people? Nothing.
I don't believe that if the vote had been Oui, the whole of the present province of Quebec would have been allowed to secede.
Rump Canada would have first used lawyers, but if the lawyers had failed ....
The problem for the rest of Canada is of course that the secession of Quebec divides the country into two disjoint parts.
https://twitter.com/robtfrank/status/1498133260941111298
Robert Frank
@robtfrank
·
9h
UK to create new “Registry of Foreign Entities” requiring anonymous buyers of real-estate over the past 20 years to disclose the name of true owner. Aimed at Putin’s oligarchs and money-laundering. #Oligarchs
https://reut.rs/3vkohqV
Its a shame the US can't offer a better president in 2024 than Trump, but I don't believe he will abandon NATO.
The register also applies to property bought by overseas owners up to 20 years ago in England and Wales and from December 2014 for property in Scotland.
They seem to be embracing the challenge!
He surely would have, given how sympathetic Trump is to Russia in your book.
They have been brilliant in their disciplined resistance to date but no nation can coherently withstand carpet bombing by a vastly superior power with complete air control, the government will disperse, the Ukrainian troops will hide away - to fight another day
And that's when Putin's nightmare continues, and worsens. His barbarism ensures the Ukrainians will never endure Russian rule, or even puppet status. I foresee years of insurrection, probably ending in the Russians just giving up, as in Afghanistan. And it will all have been for nothing. Squalid
However Scotland is not an independent sovereign nation because your compatriots turned that opportunity down last time.
The table is extremely long but the economic team are all crunched together as far away from Putin as possible
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1498274769514512389
Or is he more worried about sharp, pointy objects?
It is not an independent sovereign nation like Ukraine which has been invaded by another
https://twitter.com/n_waters89/status/1498275128664338441?s=21
Surprised by the Chinese move. I wonder if the clusterbombs in residential areas made them realise this is only going to look terrible if they support Russia.
If Trump had got a 2nd term this would have happened as now but with no US push back.
He is genuinely and completely fucking crackers. Which is quite frightening, as the OTHER button sets off the ICBMSs
On the other hand, the image
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
It is also intriguing from a PR perspective. Putin's team must know this photo makes him look even crazier than before, yet it is released. Are they subtly trying to undermine him?
Speaking purely of the politics, he’s once again lucky. He can blame gas prices on Putin and dodge responsibility like he could blame Brexit disruption on Covid. This crisis will give him a platform to relaunch from, so long as plod doesn’t sanction him.
The Economic Effects of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QlpTlz073k
China want to quietly and calmly become the world largest and most powerful economy before doing any of this proper waring lark.
We should be very clear that we still have cards to play. If he hasn't got the message yet - further sanctions on those close to Putin. Cutting off the gas in time. He musn't think we're done or outrage has peaked.
This has been and still is a huge catastrophe -- a long-term disaster for Russia, Ukraine & the whole region.
My Russian friends almost all have family in the Ukraine as well. They can barely begin to talk about it without crying.
Like the US Civil War, the trauma will remain for centuries.
And the point is that Russia is so weak that they are long-term going to lose this. Heck, short-term they don't seem to be winning either.
People were saying when this began that China would be watching and if Russia could invade Ukraine without the West responding and get away with it, then Taiwan might be next. If anything, the Taiwanese leadership are probably rather relieved at how this is playing out.
If anything Russia's failing adventure is reinforcing the West's vision of the world.
I have a friend doing chemo and with compromised immunity and she acts in a similar paranoid way. You can't share a room with her, even to chat at a distance.
Surely the folk to blame are the ones who have said, progressively.
Climate change doesn't exist/ isn't important/there's nowt we can do anyways.
So keep flying, driving and denying subsidies for windmills. And planning permission. And don't you dare put taxes on any of it.
Worst for Ukraine because the country, the economy, infrastructure will all be ruined. The population will be depleted and militarised. Crime will soar. The black market will dominate the economy. If and when Russia finally leaves, they will leave something akin to Georgia in the early 1990s or Bosnia in the 2000s.
Bad for Russia because this presupposes Putin stays in power, crippling sanctions turn the economy into a basket case, the people get increasingly cut off from global networks and information. There is no big moment of national catharsis as there would be with a revolution, or a return to near-normality as there would be with a negotiated ceasefire.
Bad for Belarus because it remains indefinitely an impoverished, militarised client state and launching pad with something akin to martial law in place, and no doubt a thriving black market.
Moderately good for the West because it keeps Putin distracted, depletes his financial means or capacity to widen the attack to other neighbouring countries like Moldova or the Baltics.
Moderately good for countries like Azerbaijan or Georgia for the same reasons - they get left alone if the priority is Ukraine.
Scenarios from best to worst all round:
1. Putin realises his mistake, apologizes and steps down into a quiet retirement in his dacha (yeah right), followed by orderly withdrawal from Ukraine. Crimea's future is negotiated peacefully.
2. Coup removes Putin, replaced with free democratic elections and withdrawal from Ukraine etc
3. The Afghanistan scenario described by Leon above
4. Coup removes Putin, replaced by chaos and collapse of governance in Russia
5. Negotiated ceasefire not dissimilar to Minsk, which pushes the issue back for a few years
6. Russia overruns Ukraine, instals a puppet and rules with a rod of iron. Next stop Moldova.
7. Global thermonuclear war
If Russia loses this conflict, then that will be exposing to the world their weakness, it won't be this conflict that made them weak.
But indeed revealing to the world just how weak and enfeebled the Russian state is now is in itself a kind of weakening.
It was 99% certain to go wrong, in multiple ways. Yet Putin did not realise?
It all adds to the impression that he has lost it, mentally.
I think he's probably a lay for the GOP nomination – his rivals will have an absolute field day quoting his pro-Putin, anti-American rants back at him.