The Ukraine War

[PistoldPete]

48 minutes ago, Cisse said:

Today a fighter jet flew over me. I must admit that it felt different this time knowing the next one could be one from our neighbours. We have had warnings from Russia today not to consider joining into NATO.  This can escalate pretty quick now.

Where are you based Cisse?

[Stive Pesley]

1 hour ago, i-Ram said:

I hope he has a gentle side. Looks like he has the potential to annexe her.

I'm sure he had some successful excursions into her Donbas area

[Cisse]

6 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

Where are you based Cisse?

I live in Forssa.

[Stive Pesley]

7 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

Where are you based Cisse?

Finland I think - sharing a border with Russia right now must be scary

[Van der MoodHoover]

My PA, who is lovely, is the unluckiest lady I know this year. 

Following her break up with her fella, her very expensive camera(for her photography business), her car failing and her covid episode.....all within the first 4 weeks of 2022.....

 

.....this week her aunt died and she asked for time to attend the funeral in Devon. Today,  the news was the funeral may now have to be delayed as her aunts son is currently holed up in a cellar in Kyiv......and can't get out of the country...... ?

[Stive Pesley]

1 hour ago, Leeds Ram said:

It's hard to assess the depths of Russian strength fully but what can be assessed is materials, equipment, and tactics. The fact they don't even have control of the Ukrainian skies is hardly a good sign. As David Petraeus said last night this was not shock and awe and the advance has been stuttering. This will only increase as supply lines get stretched and they face a bedded in resistance movement. I don't think this is going to be as easy for the Russians as either they or others anticipated. I did also read an analysis that basically said the tactical approach from the Russians is not so far being supplemented by sufficient armour, weapons, or manpower. 

From what I can work out - his biggest problem is that he doesn't have the majority of Russian people on his side. They don't want war any more than anyone else does.

Plus if he starts killing unarmed civilians in Ukraine by indiscriminate bombing he undermines his own argument. How can you liberate people by bombing them?

 

[Cisse]

2 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

Finland I think - sharing a border with Russia right now must be scary

Yes I live in Finland. The threat of Russians have been real all of my life but it is not scary because it's just the way it is. You just wait what happens are ready to react.

At the moment though people are more ready than usual. 

[Cisse]

3 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

From what I can work out - his biggest problem is that he doesn't have the majority of Russian people on his side. They don't want war any more than anyone else does.

Plus if he starts killing unarmed civilians in Ukraine by indiscriminate bombing he undermines his own argument. How can you liberate people by bombing them?

The Russians create their own reality. Most of the Russians still think that we started the war against them in 1939 or don't even know they were in a war against us. They also staged that it was the Ukrainians who started this episode.

 

[Turk Thrust]

1 hour ago, Leeds Ram said:

It's hard to assess the depths of Russian strength fully but what can be assessed is materials, equipment, and tactics. The fact they don't even have control of the Ukrainian skies is hardly a good sign. As David Petraeus said last night this was not shock and awe and the advance has been stuttering. This will only increase as supply lines get stretched and they face a bedded in resistance movement. I don't think this is going to be as easy for the Russians as either they or others anticipated. I did also read an analysis that basically said the tactical approach from the Russians is not so far being supplemented by sufficient armour, weapons, or manpower. 

Agree. A detailed report in the US said that the 150,000 to 200,00 Russian troops that Vlad is thought to have to control Ukraine is nowhere near large enough for a country as large as Ukraine and with such a large population. The thought is that at least 500,000 troops would possibly be required

[Gone]

6 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

From what I can work out - his biggest problem is that he doesn't have the majority of Russian people on his side. They don't want war any more than anyone else does.

Plus if he starts killing unarmed civilians in Ukraine by indiscriminate bombing he undermines his own argument. How can you liberate people by bombing them?

 

He’s a narcotic psychopathic egotistical tyrant, his reasoning is more baseless than Wycombe’s claims vs us, he’s no different to Hitler and all other evil ricks, he’s a Bamford. I hope NATO wake up quickly and end this before it does spiral out of control and more innocent die, he won’t stop at the Ukraine ( my wife’s half Ukrainian and has family links there so it’s raw at the min) 

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

2 hours ago, dog said:

My son is going on the anti war demo. So is his girlfriend. She's Russian and is totally against the war and says her friends in Moscow are too. Her brothers are worried about conscription. Very concerning

Well done to your lad and girlfriend. I said in another post kids deserve so much better

if i could you would get a clap and sad emoji. Take your pick!

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

18 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

He’s a narcotic psychopathic egotistical tyrant, his reasoning is more baseless than Wycombe’s claims vs us, he’s no different to Hitler and all other evil ricks, he’s a Bamford. I hope NATO wake up quickly and end this before it does spiral out of control and more innocent die, he won’t stop at the Ukraine ( my wife’s half Ukrainian and has family links there so it’s raw at the min) 

I spoke to a mate imagine what would have happened if Trump was still there?

but then on reflection i thought may be he would have prevented the war, purely on the basis that Putin might think he is as much of a nutter, i ll stand back until he's gone.

 

[Gone]

1 minute ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

I spoke to a mate imagine what would have happened if Trump was still there?

but then on reflection i thought may be he would have prevented the war, purely on the basis that Putin might think he is as much of a nutter, i ll stand back until he's gone.

 

Without stepping into pure politics, although Trump was what he was I don’t think this would be happening if he was still at the helm. But it is and it needs our help to stop it

[Cisse]

1 minute ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

I spoke to a mate imagine what would have happened if Trump was still there?

but then on reflection i thought may be he would have prevented the war, purely on the basis that Putin might think he is as much of a nutter, i ll stand back until he's gone.

 

We discussed about Trump too with my friends. We also thought that the risk of Russia invading Ukraine while Trump was in charge would have been too risky. Trump can do anything when the mood strikes him. You can't rely on him even as much as Putin. 

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

1 minute ago, Cisse said:

We discussed about Trump too with my friends. We also thought that the risk of Russia invading Ukraine while Trump was in charge would have been too risky. Trump can do anything when the mood strikes him. You can't rely on him even as much as Putin. 

It is like having nukes for mutual destructiom. As long as you got proper nutters in charge they keep each other safe. Weird and scary logic but there might be some truth in it!

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

For a bit of a balance view of the situation in Ukraine. i would recommend watching RT (Channel 234 in Derby), 20 secs at a time is usually plenty. They are bit biaised. 

[GenBr]

48 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

He’s a narcotic psychopathic egotistical tyrant, his reasoning is more baseless than Wycombe’s claims vs us, he’s no different to Hitler and all other evil ricks, he’s a Bamford. I hope NATO wake up quickly and end this before it does spiral out of control and more innocent die, he won’t stop at the Ukraine ( my wife’s half Ukrainian and has family links there so it’s raw at the min) 

What can NATO do? They can't send troops or aircraft without starting World War 3, which they are not going to do. Perhaps they could send more weapons, but thats about the limit of any intervention capability that they have. Personally I think the Russians are going to find Ukraine is a lot more difficult to crack than they think and even if they do overwhelm the regular forces I'd expect they'd be facing a huge insurgency if they try to occupy the country.

1 hour ago, Cisse said:

Yes I live in Finland. The threat of Russians have been real all of my life but it is not scary because it's just the way it is. You just wait what happens are ready to react.

At the moment though people are more ready than usual. 

What do you and the other Finns think about joining NATO now? I thought Finland had a gentlemans agreement with Russia not to join various western institutions such as NATO and in exchange they'd stay out of each others affairs, but it doesnt seem to have helped Ukraine very much! I know support for Nato membership was rising in Sweden, but it still seemed fairly low in Finland last time I saw a survey on the matter.

[Gone]

1 minute ago, GenBr said:

What can NATO do? They can't send troops or aircraft without starting World War 3, which they are not going to do

I wont post again on this thread after this because it’s far to emotive. But NATO need to attack by air, sea and land, as a collective we are more powerful than Russia and we need to stop the murder of innocent people. What ever the consequences it’s the morally right thing to do, sanctions and #s on social media don’t cut it I’m afraid. 

[PistoldPete]

23 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

I wont post again on this thread after this because it’s far to emotive. But NATO need to attack by air, sea and land, as a collective we are more powerful than Russia and we need to stop the murder of innocent people. What ever the consequences it’s the morally right thing to do, sanctions and #s on social media don’t cut it I’m afraid. 

I think you are wrong, military action is not an option, but sanctions can work provided they are intensified, far more than anything we have ever known, more than South africa in the 1970s and 1980s. 

[Carl Sagan]

A very complex situation. And everyone should realize the first casualty of war is the truth. I didn't expect Putin to properly invade (expected much more of a boiling frog setup) but, now he has, what are his strategic aims? Probably to split Ukraine in half up to the river. 

It's a perfect storm. Biden is weak and oversaw a catastrophic retreat out of Afghanistan. Putin has been in power so long he's becoming unhinged and unchallengeable internally. Merkel has gone, leaving a newbie German regime plus her legacy of abandoning German nuclear power stations in exchange for mining lots of coal and buying lots of Russian gas, so putting the Russian economy into credit. NATO looked in disarray, with Turkey openly courting Moscow. NATO had previously committed to not expanding to the Russian border, but how can you deny the sovereignty of the Ukrainian people? 

My feeling is it should have stopped with Russia annexing Crimea which should have been accepted. In the  UK we're used to unchanging borders, but not on the Continent. Crimea was in Russia until 1954 when Khrushchev (from Kursk) thought it would be neat to give it to his "favourite republic". But the population there remains majority ethnically Russian and it houses the Russian Black Sea Fleet and in the 2014 referendum it seemed reasonably clearcut the Crimeans wanted to return to being part of Russia. Yes there were caveats, but Western polling also shows it's what the people want.

We have the Cuban Missile Crisis analogy in more ways than one. America didn't want nukes on its borders, but shouldn't that have been up to the Cubans? In the same way Russia doesn't want them on its borders pointing at Moscow and St Petersburg, but isn't that up to the Ukrainians? It's difficult but I just wish people hadn't been in such a hurry to shift from East to West, but that's easy for me to say in the West. The other link to the analogy is that if anyone missteps, there's the terrifying prospect of escalation. It's weird to see so many MPs calling for a no fly zone over Ukraine when this would mean NATO and Russian fighters in direct conflict. And the sad truth is also that our media doesn't half love a good war. "What a story!" is always  their attitude regardless of the eventual consequences. Just look at the ratings.

First impressions are it's not gone how Putin would have hoped/expected. His troops are facing fierce resistance and they haven't established aerial superiority. And NATO has come together unexpectedly even if the EU is blocking the removal Russia from the SWIFT banking system, and that's despite Ukraine's direct request. The sporting sanctions (and Eurovision) probably came as a surprise as these things are normally so apolitical. In my last job (only just left) I was due to go to St Petersburg in July for a maths conference and even that may now be cancelled, plus there's divisive talk between normally cooperative space agencies. The UK government has done pretty much as well as it could have (doubtless welcoming the distraction). Including being among the first to supply a lot of weaponry to Ukraine in the run-up, despite the Germans blocking this as much as they could. 

All we can probably do is containment and wait for it to play out. Is their a neutral broker (Switzerland?) that could instigate serious talks? But if so to what end? If Putin gets nothing it could be catastrophic for all of us in terms of creating a desperate situation in Russia and the possible collapse of his regime, where he might not care if the world burns with him. But obviously he shouldn't be rewarded for his aggression. I think the most practical solution would be for the Russian forces to retreat to their borders, but end up keeping Crimea to save face, with an agreement that Ukraine doesn't join NATO until 2035 or some such.

Sorry for the long post - thinking aloud.