BaaLocks

This was a friend of mine's guess for today - he's boiling about it still 

This was a friend of mine's guess for today - he's boiling about it still 

This was a friend of mine's guess for today - he's boiling about it still 

This was a friend of mine's guess for today - he's boiling about it still 

This was a friend of mine's guess for today - he's boiling about it still 

Good post and well worded, I agree with pretty much all of that. I genuinely think the Hitler analogy, however tempting, is not one that will hold water for long though - even though I appreciate for many in Ukraine or bordering countries it will not feel like that today.
- Putin does not have a political ideology behind him. This is not Communism, Fascism, Empiricism - it is just blatant greed. While you are right that there is cronyism and corruption aplenty in Russia (there is also in Ukraine, as you state) it is no longer a Mafia like the 1990s. There is no imagery, no uniform, no swastika or hammer and sickle to unite around.
- Putin does not enjoy the support of the mass population and while Russia has reason to feel mistreated and humiliated over the past 30 years this is not the Weimar Republic and, strangely, Russians were enjoying considerable economic benefit before this happened. While many would heartily support what he has done for them domestically (and as I have stated many times, they are right to) there is all but zero support of Putin's expansion here - other than that of blind nationalism and loyalty.
I too have friends and (although extended) family in Ukraine. Nearly everyone who knows a Russian does, the countries are intertwined so closely due to the past hundred years, or more, of history and movement of people within. Hey, it's even the plot of Fiddler On The Roof.
Other point - if the Burnley BNP was rounding up people in community halls and burning them alive or being funded by billionaire oligarchs (Kolomoiski) then I might want something done about it. Again, goes back to my point, I haven't always agreed with the way Ukranian governments (Zelensky and Turchynov and Poroschenko) allowed that infiltration and activity and it undoubtedly fomented a previously volatile situation.
That said, in the last 24 hours he has played a bit of a master stroke - suggesting negotiations are going well, being willing to discuss, at this stage puts Putin in a horrible position. Here and now there is nothing worthy for Putin to take back to his people to make this a good news story, three months from now when he may have taken back much of the east he could tell that as a 'it was painful but worth it, Mother Russia thanks you'.

It most certainly is not new info, look at the filming done on it - if you think you can fly round Russia like that today, good luck. That's the bit that sticks in the craw, we've known about this since at least the mid-1990s but only now that it is inconvenient to ignore it do we collectively want to thrash ourselves in anguish at how it was let to happen. If Putin had not invaded Ukraine nobody would have given a tinker's cuss about this. And the other bit is how we now go back and look at things that happened in the madness of the end of the Soviet Union through the lens of modern accounting and principles and say it's oh so wrong when we were collectively more than happy to have some of those billions make their way to our shores via Mayfair apartments, Lamborghinis and football clubs. It's a bit like some of the analysis of 1970s comedies that are done on Channel 5 on a Saturday night and everyone goes 'that's horrific' - well, yes it was, but sadly it was inside what was acceptable at the time. We might not like it, trust me many Russians certainly don't, but a few people got very, very (one more very) rich through loopholes that might now be judged as totally wrong but at the time were all the madness of the Wild East. 

Are we going to go through this all over again in 10 years, when Newcastle have become club world champions for the third time. And will Newcastle fans care either way if that’s the outcome.
it’s crazy that on the one hand we’re denouncing this, while simultaneously allowing it to carry on. 
the premier league, the government, whoever, can’t have it both ways. You either care where the money comes from, or you don’t. 

The Giggs thing is a myth. He played for England schools as he went to school in England but was never available to play for England. 
 
Terry Butcher I believe was born in Singapore. God knows where Owen Hargreaves was born. 

I believe both Rush and Giggs had the chance to play for England (I think Giggs did at U-?? level) but turned it down. The likes of Barnes and Dorigo - fair point, but they were living in the UK at the time, I'm more saying (genuinely) that Jack Charlton was one of the first to actively go looking for players who had no obvious affiliation to Eire. It was a great move, copied by many Caribbean islands, and now common place in the likes of rugby and cricket. Certainly isn't a trend that favours the smaller countries in the long run - Fijian rugby can vouch for that.
And, again, chance for me to roll out a random rant. Football managers should be judged by the same rules as players - they should come from the same country as they manage (maybe some allowance for developing nations).

Tony Cascarino was my favourite of Charlton's trawl through the genealogy section of the FA's registration department.
Turned out he didn't really have that Irish grandmother.

I thought Gomorrah went a bit like that and Line of Duty definitely did.
Sometimes it's best to just say adieu. 

There's not much (sic!) to support in Putin's actions though so I'd struggle to see how any nation could come out in favour - though the point that Russia is the largest arms provider to Africa is probably behind Eritrea's support. But a UN vote is anything but the final statement on what is actually happening. And even if many countries condemn what is happening in Ukraine there are many who will be looking at this as opportunity to open up some old wounds, not just in the influence of Russia (such as Armenia against Azerbaijan) but also those who see the chance to play the same card and have it hidden in a Jo Moore way. Myanmar is an example of that at the moment.
One point, which I do find really interesting, is the beatification of Zelensky in all of this. The West is doing what it always does, piling in on the side of the oppressed but missing the point that Ukraine is / was anything but the perfect child in all of this. Please do not confuse my statement to suggest that somehow they have asked for this or deserve this being done to them (I am not!). I am saying that we seem to have instantly forgotten all the issues around corruption in Ukraine, far right nationalists and all of that while we paint every available space blue and yellow.
I just wonder if in a few years we might look back and question if having Zelensky addressing the House Of Commons was exactly the line we wanted to take. I'm just minded of a comment a few pages back and football related - Celtic got fined for showing support to Palestine, yet it seems today you're more likely to get fined if you don't have a blue and yellow light show before the game.

True...I guess any option is better than staying put for people having their homes bombed.  What a dreadful situation for people to be in.  It's no wonder that the invading a country is considered the ultimate war crime....for the inevitable refugee crisis alone it deserves that status.

I've been telling my wife for 20 years that the football finishes at 5:15 just so I can grab a pint in the pub afterwards. Same logic.

Do you have a spare room in Calais then? If you see the article in the Daily Mail about how we are asking potential migrants to apply, then it should make every single one of us utterly ashamed to have any part in the election of this government. It was said of Priti Patel, she is the sort of woman who would unplug your life support machine to charge her mobile phone. Just beyond words that she carries the line she does (Irish minister confirmed she complained to them that Irish willingness to allow migrants in would risk them entering the UK via backdoor routes) when is the daughter of Ugandan refugees.

But, in answer to your post, good on you for having the compassion to consider this. We're thinking the same.
Best place to start with this is https://www.refugeesathome.org/

Do you have a spare room in Calais then? If you see the article in the Daily Mail about how we are asking potential migrants to apply, then it should make every single one of us utterly ashamed to have any part in the election of this government. It was said of Priti Patel, she is the sort of woman who would unplug your life support machine to charge her mobile phone. Just beyond words that she carries the line she does (Irish minister confirmed she complained to them that Irish willingness to allow migrants in would risk them entering the UK via backdoor routes) when is the daughter of Ugandan refugees.

But, in answer to your post, good on you for having the compassion to consider this. We're thinking the same.
Best place to start with this is https://www.refugeesathome.org/

I can understand why you would ask a question why someone wants to take refuge in the UK? Why would you want to come across all of Europe to end up a in place more distant than any other. If you have friends or family here then, of course, understood but so many of those went back after 2015 so why come?
But so what, we owe it to our sense of humanity as a nation (what shred might be left) to make ourselves available. It's just horrific to hear people suggest that this would be just a reason for undesirables to use this as a cheap opportunity to infiltrate our benefits system. We have really become something as a country in the past decade (though, sadly, we offered a similarly limited hand of friendship to Jews fleeing Germany in the 1930s so maybe we shouldn't be too surprised).

Do you have a spare room in Calais then? If you see the article in the Daily Mail about how we are asking potential migrants to apply, then it should make every single one of us utterly ashamed to have any part in the election of this government. It was said of Priti Patel, she is the sort of woman who would unplug your life support machine to charge her mobile phone. Just beyond words that she carries the line she does (Irish minister confirmed she complained to them that Irish willingness to allow migrants in would risk them entering the UK via backdoor routes) when is the daughter of Ugandan refugees.

But, in answer to your post, good on you for having the compassion to consider this. We're thinking the same.
Best place to start with this is https://www.refugeesathome.org/

I'd say if you speak English, you might want to go to an English speaking country rather than look to live in a country where you don't speak the native language. I know there's plenty of people who speak Russian in Ukraine and some friendly neighbouring countries have a significant number of people who also speak Russian - but I believe more and more of the younger generation don't learn Russian like the older generation, and may have grown up with English as their second language.

I said a few pages back that the company I work for is closing its offices in Russia. It is also evacuating employees from Ukraine
We can volunteer to provide temporary accommodation for them by registering our interest on the intranet. 
It's also worth noting that the UK is not a named country on the form - we have to complete it manually as "Other"
The named countries on the form are those that border Ukraine, because despite what certain right-wing factions like to tell us - the vast majority of refugees are happy to stay in the first safe country they reach. 
 

Do you have a spare room in Calais then? If you see the article in the Daily Mail about how we are asking potential migrants to apply, then it should make every single one of us utterly ashamed to have any part in the election of this government. It was said of Priti Patel, she is the sort of woman who would unplug your life support machine to charge her mobile phone. Just beyond words that she carries the line she does (Irish minister confirmed she complained to them that Irish willingness to allow migrants in would risk them entering the UK via backdoor routes) when is the daughter of Ugandan refugees.

But, in answer to your post, good on you for having the compassion to consider this. We're thinking the same.
Best place to start with this is https://www.refugeesathome.org/

Indeed.
Patel’s parents arrived in the UK after fleeing persecution in Uganda, in the lead up to Amin’s coup.
For her to do what she’s doing to Ukrainian refugees is shows how debased she has become!

I've been telling my wife for 20 years that the football finishes at 5:15 just so I can grab a pint in the pub afterwards. Same logic.

Me and @Mrs Conehave spoken about it and we’d take a teenage lad ideally but we can fit a youngster in.