The Ukraine War

[BaaLocks]

14 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

Moreover looking beyond the story he has also stated anybody getting in the way of his slaughter of innocents will be met with an apocalyptic type reaction. 

Be interested to see the quote of that - not from some former advisor or back bencher but from him. If you can, fair enough, but I've found no such statement - I can see hundreds from people assigning them as his views but never anything from him suggesting such a strategy.

[Gone]

10 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

Be interested to see the quote of that - not from some former advisor or back bencher but from him. If you can, fair enough, but I've found no such statement - I can see hundreds from people assigning them as his views but never anything from him suggesting such a strategy.

He literally said it in his last public statement 

“Putin also said in his address that the West had been blackmailing Russia, but said that his country has many weapons with which to respond. The BBC reported him saying: "We will use all resources we have to defend our people."

And he told the West: “If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to defend Russia and our people, we will use all means we have. This is not a bluff”

Maybe I’m interpreting it wrong and Saint Putin doesn’t mean he’ll drop a nuke on our heads. 

[BaaLocks]

34 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

He literally said it in his last public statement 

“Putin also said in his address that the West had been blackmailing Russia, but said that his country has many weapons with which to respond. The BBC reported him saying: "We will use all resources we have to defend our people."

And he told the West: “If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to defend Russia and our people, we will use all means we have. This is not a bluff”

Maybe I’m interpreting it wrong and Saint Putin doesn’t mean he’ll drop a nuke on our heads. 

But you've just proved the point - including one I made much earlier on the potential impact of the referendum - to perfection. Putin says he will use everything at his disposal to protect the integrity of his country but what you hear is "anybody getting in the way of his slaughter of innocents will be met with an apocalyptic type reaction". It's scary, no doubt, but it is absolutely not the same thing as you suggest.

And he's no Saint to me - but I could post that fifty times a day, in big bold letters and you would still come back and misread what I post. Because it fits your agenda to do so and to not take time to even attempt to understand why release of 100 members of the Azov battalion (just for example) is anything but moving towards a resolution of this conflict just shows how blinkered many willingly choose to be.

[Gone]

2 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

But you've just proved the point - including one I made much earlier on the potential impact of the referendum - to perfection. Putin says he will use everything at his disposal to protect the integrity of his country but what you hear is "anybody getting in the way of his slaughter of innocents will be met with an apocalyptic type reaction". It's scary, no doubt, but it is absolutely not the same thing as you suggest.

And he's no Saint to me - but I could post that fifty times a day, in big bold letters and you would still come back and misread what I post. Because it fits your agenda to do so and to not take time to even attempt to understand why release of 100 members of the Azov battalion (just for example) is anything but moving towards a resolution of this conflict just shows how blinkered many willingly choose to be.

what was he suggesting then? Including the line “ and I’m not bluffing”, I’m interested to see what your take on it is, as the rest of the world seems to know exactly what he was getting at, or maybe we’re just blinkered.

For what it’s worth I have no agenda, but your right I’m blinkered that he’s getting his arse handed to him on a plate is now trying everything to get a resolution including handing back the opposition soldiers he basically starved into submission and has subsequently held them hostage. 

[BaaLocks]

1 hour ago, TexasRam said:

what was he suggesting then? Including the line “ and I’m not bluffing”, I’m interested to see what your take on it is, as the rest of the world seems to know exactly what he was getting at, or maybe we’re just blinkered.

For what it’s worth I have no agenda, but your right I’m blinkered that he’s getting his arse handed to him on a plate is now trying everything to get a resolution including handing back the opposition soldiers he basically starved into submission and has subsequently held them hostage. 

Ah, so you're a spokesman for the whole world now are you? Interesting!

He's suggesting that if anyone threatens the territorial integrity of Russia he will react, and he is not bluffing. And, if you're following the earlier posts, that is why his attempts to declare Donbass and Lughansk as integrally part of Russia (because they were part of the Russian Empire hundreds of years ago) is worrying and needs to be handled via third party arbitration and management (i.e. my point on referendum)

As for the second paragraph I would say "Siri, show me an example of someone who says they don't have an agenda and then goes on to show they absolutely have an agenda"

[Gone]

Just now, BaaLocks said:

Ah, so you're a spokesman for the whole world now are you? Interesting!

 No just my little world 

[Alph]

I think things are bad enough that we don't need to quote Putin with things he never said. The situation is dire

Liz Truss has said very similar. But nobody quotes that as "I will level Moscow and kill millions of Russian people" 

Well, maybe they do in Russia. 

2 or 3 times now she's muttered nuclear. That's on top of encouraging British civilians to go and fight. 

I wish that made more headlines and then maybe we'd not have voted for her to... Oh yeah. 

 

[Crewton]

2 hours ago, Alpha said:

I think things are bad enough that we don't need to quote Putin with things he never said. The situation is dire

Liz Truss has said very similar. But nobody quotes that as "I will level Moscow and kill millions of Russian people" 

Well, maybe they do in Russia. 

2 or 3 times now she's muttered nuclear. That's on top of encouraging British civilians to go and fight. 

I wish that made more headlines and then maybe we'd not have voted for her to... Oh yeah. 

 

This isn't so much as "from the horse's mouth" as "from the horse's former groom's mouth".

https://youtu.be/gtUb-IGbuSw

[Crewton]

Just now, Crewton said:

This isn't so much as "from the horse's mouth" as "from the horse's former groom's mouth".

https://youtu.be/gtUb-IGbuSw

And if Moscow needed to understand the difference in motivation between conscripts fighting for the survival of their nation and conscripts fighting for a megalomaniac's delusion, they need look no further than their own history. 

[Gone]

9 hours ago, BaaLocks said:

But you've just proved the point - including one I made much earlier on the potential impact of the referendum - to perfection. Putin says he will use everything at his disposal to protect the integrity of his country but what you hear is "anybody getting in the way of his slaughter of innocents will be met with an apocalyptic type reaction". It's scary, no doubt, but it is absolutely not the same thing as you suggest.

And he's no Saint to me - but I could post that fifty times a day, in big bold letters and you would still come back and misread what I post. Because it fits your agenda to do so and to not take time to even attempt to understand why release of 100 members of the Azov battalion (just for example) is anything but moving towards a resolution of this conflict just shows how blinkered many willingly choose to be.

 

leave this with you ??

 

[Highgate]

13 hours ago, BaaLocks said:

Why not? Ukraine have been fighting with conscripts since the first days.

As for the referendum - it seems interesting that the west are quick and easy to label the current referendum as flawed (they are) but even though they know that this will lead to a position where Putin will now claim these lands are Russian due to be inhabited by people who consider themselves Russian (true, at least in past) they offer no suggested alternative. And this is high stakes now, Russia has declared they would only use nuclear weapons if there geographic integrity was threatened - now we might get to a place where, at least to Putin, that is true.

So why have the UN or someone else not offered to revisit the initial Minsk protocol, call a cease fire, hold an independently verified referendum? What is it that they so fear? That maybe the people there do want to be part of Russia instead of Ukraine? I don't know the answer to this, nobody does, but if we had at least some inkling it would certainly help guide us to a more accepted conclusion (unless the aim of the West is, indeed, not to protect Ukraine but instead to use it to beat Russia - vicariously).

It's not at all interesting that the west considers these nonsensical referendums flawed.  In fact flawed is an understatement. They are a complete farce.

What othe sensible conclusion could anyone draw?  

10 hours ago, Unlucky Alf said:

This I'm a little confused by, Not the fact he would use nuclear weapons but the end game, There's been mad men all through history, But there hasn't been a mad man who's got his finger on the button, Using nuclear weapons will bring other Country's into play, The utter devastation and consequences this would bring to the world would be that man/women kind are ducked.

It has to come within to stop all this.

  

 

I think I can think of one or two.  Admittedly neither had their backs to the wall like Putin does now...so the current situation is far worse. 

Edited September 23, 2022 by Highgate

[Alph]

25 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

 

leave this with you ??

 

He was photographed with an arm missing before being captured. Are we suggesting this man, a member of the Azov Battalion?, had his arm chopped off while being a prisoner? 

[Gone]

4 minutes ago, Alpha said:

He was photographed with an arm missing before being captured. Are we suggesting this man, a member of the Azov Battalion?, had his arm chopped off while being a prisoner? 

Duck me, it’s behind his back ??????

[Alph]

5 hours ago, Crewton said:

This isn't so much as "from the horse's mouth" as "from the horse's former groom's mouth".

https://youtu.be/gtUb-IGbuSw

I'm not here to defend Putin, I'm well aware he's extremely dangerous, determined and will lie (as he did about the reasons for Russian forces gathering on Ukraine's border) and will go to extremes to gain victory. 

You implied his mission was to slaughter innocents and if anyone tried to stop him he'll nuke them. 

What he wants is real enough. We don't need a Bond villain and I don't think it helps to think of it that way. 

If he is intent on the slaughter of innocents and destroying Ukraine then there can be no hope for peace and there's no solution. So start prepping now!

[Alph]

10 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

Duck me, it’s behind his back ??????

 

[Alph]

22 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

Duck me, it’s behind his back ??????

It's his arm that he's showing in front of him was severed during the siege?

I'm not sure of the point your making? I'm not being a knob I genuinely don't know what I'm looking at? It's a returned PoW from the Azov Battalion. I've not got Twitter so I get about 30 seconds to view your link before I'm asked to sign in. 

And I'd rather be in a Russian PoW camp chained up to Liz Truss before I sign up to that steaming hot dog ?

[Alph]

I managed to look on twitter and I assume we're talking about the general state of prisoners Russia have released? Malnourished? Looks pretty bad.

I did see much of these "brave defenders of Mariupol". The brave Azov warriors. These defenders of Ukraine should be given medals. "Heroes" they say. I saw a few posting the emblem of the Azov Regiment. The Wolfsangel. Typically adopted and adapted by right wing Ukrainian neo Nazis that terrorise, torture, rape and execute Pro Russian supporters in East Ukraine. 

This is a group that the US was going to, and later rejected to train. A group that many considered a terrorist organisation. 

Twitter however has to follow the script. And so they're brave defenders of Ukraine. With a nazi flag. 

That's Twitter. 

[Gone]

7 hours ago, Alpha said:

It's his arm that he's showing in front of him was severed during the siege?

I'm not sure of the point your making? I'm not being a knob I genuinely don't know what I'm looking at? It's a returned PoW from the Azov Battalion. I've not got Twitter so I get about 30 seconds to view your link before I'm asked to sign in. 

And I'd rather be in a Russian PoW camp chained up to Liz Truss before I sign up to that steaming hot dog ?

The  poster had said we need to look at the bigger picture and how Putin was giving up the hostages to end the war, my point was look at how he’d treated them so maybe it’s not the glorious gesture after all. He then seemed to alluded (imo) that it was photoshopped or something . 
 

[Ram-Alf]

8 hours ago, Alpha said:

It's his arm that he's showing in front of him was severed during the siege?

I'm not sure of the point your making? I'm not being a knob I genuinely don't know what I'm looking at? It's a returned PoW from the Azov Battalion. I've not got Twitter so I get about 30 seconds to view your link before I'm asked to sign in. 

And I'd rather be in a Russian PoW camp chained up to Liz Truss before I sign up to that steaming hot dog ?

Same here Alpha, So I click sign in then click close...you're in, Good fun reading the calamity for the red dogs ? 

[BaaLocks]

It feels like there is literally nothing I, or some others, could say that would get even one shred of acceptance from a couple of posters here - who seem intent on just posting the "Putin is mad and need to be destroyed" line. Given this is a football forum, and I will never meet nor care for those posters (plus we're just going round and round in circles) I will try to precis 65 pages of comments and then resign myself to the conclusion that some just don't want to see (or are just here for a bit of an argument, and that's not really for me).

1: There are many reasons, on all sides, why this conflict escalated - not just since Feb 24th but at least since 1991. Unless we all take time to understand those reasons we cannot get to a conclusion. Putin, and Russia, have fair (evidenced) reason giong back decades on how (in particular) the US has interfered in their domestic and regional affairs. They feel this is the culmination of all of that, and while their actions are wrong their reasons are not.

2: Ukraine has been far from free of blame in that. America has been actively supporting the aggravation of the situation, way back to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

3: War is horrific, and should be avoided at all costs. Here and now, today, both sides are causing horrific events to occur that leave peoples lives ruined, and many losing them. Both sides.

4: Resolution will not come from escalation, and the consequences of escalation are beyond comprehension if pushed there.

5: Involving Britain in a proxy conflict - with all the economic challenges we have on us - is just madness. All parties should be focusing our efforts on an acceptable (which may involve compromise) resoution that focuses on de-escalation, not escalation, of the conflict.

6: Putin is, largely, popular in Russia. We may not agree with that conclusion but it is true - you don't just go in and take out the leader of a nuclear power without there being colossal consequences, both to Russians and to everyone globally. Besides the most extreme of examples (e.g. WWII) it never works.

Conclusion, step back from escalation, recognize we can only advance if we understand, allow the people who live in disputed regions to decide who they want to govern them. Support transition to (lkely fragile) peace. Stop creating (to quote another poster) Bond villains for the benefit of positioning and allegiance.

Don't worry replying - I'm going to leave this 'discussion' now for others to solve a situation that brings us as close to nuclear war as we have ever been. I'm sure you'll work it out. 

Edited September 24, 2022 by BaaLocks