Yesterday it was advice to non essential staff. Now…
Two sayings apply here, "we are where we are" and "fail to plan, plan to fail".
It's too late to save Ukraine, imo. The calculation comes down to whether Putin can stomach the after effects or not, but Ukraine is lost as a Western leaning imperfect democracy.
Europe is being held hostage via fertiliser and gas. The fertiliser situation is solved much easier - sorry - would have been solved much easier had we started at it earlier. Like Ukraine, it's too late into the crisis for that now. But, farmers don't need to use the fertiliser they do. There are other ways of growing crops and livestock. I didn't mention the O word either.
A lot of the fert issue isn't to do with feeding the world as much as it is to do with farmer income.
The Ag system is set up in a particular way, but that way isn't the only way to produce abundant food.
The gas/energy problem is the more complex of the two and I'm not going to try to solve it.
surely the fertilizer thing is more important than just ah well farmers shouldnt use so much. it could be the easiest mode of war old style siege, starve the populations of europe. not as daft as you think food prices have gone up a lot and could rocket. staples particularly bread and milk. ironically for irish farmers it woould result in boom times a bit like Napoleonic Wars era. Ireland , Britain, Denmark, New Zealand, Uruguay, Argentina and some small regions of Austalia, USA and France would only be capable of producing much food without huge fertiliser usage. we may well come to regret the mess the African economies and political situation are in with regard to gloabal food security. Africa is sitting on massive potential in Agricultural production but needs huge amount of infastructure and agri business education along with proper sized farms. anyone one for Colonization mark 2 there? im sure plenty of food corporations already in on the act there.
@Danzy When you consider the German response to this crisis, and to a lesser degree the Dutch And Austrian..
At one stage there was protests supporting Putin in Holland after the Russia shot down flight MH17 killing 193 dutch citizens ,the Kremlin are supporting various far right groups through out Europe too, there Could be a fear if they stand up to Putin ,he could get it involved in dirty tricks ,they also still have a fair few European political types who are still in the pockets of Russian intelligence
When you consider the German response to this crisis, and to a lesser degree the Dutch And Austrian.
The massive global importance of Russian controlled fertilizer. The mess made with Germany deciding to close 60% of its power plants in a decade, helping escalate European dependence on Russian gas to a significant crisis and risk.
The weak state of the European economy, the global economic dangers, the distraction that was COVID.
You'd have to think he might be wrong to do it but mad not to. Take everything east of the Dnieper.
Germany will make sure that the EU sanctions are manageable. S few years and it will be over.
Mostly "thoughts & prayers" sent to what might be left of Ukraine. Much sabre rattling about sanctions, but really post invasion there will be a lot of air sucked through a lot of teeth and considerations given to other economies affected so that really damaging sanctions to Russia/Putin/Putins henchmen won't be applied. The European addiction to Russian gas is a particular weak spot. Markets may dive for a time. There will be no white knights riding into Ukraine's rescue.
I really didn't like him, or agree with much of what he said, but Trump was right on European states taking advantage of the US in terms of continental/NATO defense. What's happening in Ukraine is the result of weakness on the part of European nations.
"wipe out" which Russian soldiers? Genuine question. Are you suggesting Ukraine is likely to use weapons offensively against Russian soldiers within Russia's borders?
Apologies 7 + years on this on boards it's hard to read the sarcasm to the usual suspects repeating there surrounded it's all NATOs fault
germany has the white flag at the ready western traitors
The 1938 Munich agreement comes to mind,
A year before the outbreak of WW2 the ,the English, french, Italians sat down with Hitler who wanted to annex The Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, which was prominently German speaking,
Nobody was willing to stand up and actually fight for Czechoslovakia ,and Hitler got his annexation and Czechoslovakia handed over sudentenland despite the knowledge Hitler was planning to go to war to expand the German borders and got his way barely 10 months later and WW2 began ,
Now compare to these last few weeks ,a huge build up of Russian forces and the demands nato essentially withdraw from the whole of eastern Europe and the Baltics under the guise of putin only wanting peace ......
Sounds awfully familiar
If Russia were to launch a full scale invasion of Ukraine it could mean war between Russia and the West.
The situation is dangerous and needs to be resolved quickly.
And all those refugees have visas to travel freely within the EU legally.
Limited knowledge here 😬
if Russia was to attack the Ukraine, what would the knock on affects be? US and Russia at loggerheads etc
When the US went into Afghanistan for Bin Laden, they cleared the Taliban out in a matter of days. Now as these things go, it was no big deal military wise. The biggest job was holding it for 20 years, while trying to help it develop and improve as an independent Country. They spent literally trillions of dollars in this endeavor . Must have been the only invaders ever to try to improve and modernize the invaded Country. One reason they failed was because of the Nr of external and neighboring country's did not want them to succeed. There was never going to be a good time to pull out,,especially when the US was a major benefactor to Afghanistan. They have been reducing their presence there for quite awhile, but there was always going to be the "Last" day. And of course it was not going to be pleasant. And neither was it... now compare that with the Soviet withdrawal.
Alpha Males like Vladimir Putin
Ha. This thread is great at times (edit: I mean unintentionally funny). A motley crew of Irish Stalinist types and maybe the odd right winger spreading pro Russian propaganda + apologetics and fawning over Great Leader Putin and the size of his...army & missiles.
Vlad mentioned this in his annual press conference, that Europe is doing this to themselves with their green policies.
Rabid green types are usually from very middle class backgrounds with very little to worry about as they grew up. They don't envisage a world of coming up against Alpha Males like Vladimir Putin, who will exploit every weakness.
Nato countries sending weapons to Ukraine only started after Russian aggression , occupation and the illegal annexation of Crimea.....
But yes Russian soldiers are going to die in their thousands
Yeah no ,
more propaganda from rt ....
The Germans are selling out Europe to russians because they have invested billions on the nordstream pipe line
They have done nothing for Ukraine to keep good relations with russia it considers an important trading partner
Any santions on russia will be met with higher fuel prices and any disruption it can inflect on the west
There is worse than putin in russia after he is gone, they are building a formidable attacking force.
I would be concerned about its deployment in the cork coast even if it is 200+ miles off the cork coast line.
We will never be able to protect ourselves its probably thim to allow a NATO or US base we can use as protection.
preventing arms shippment from it soil russia
That's untrue. Ukraine military received special military package deliveries belonging to Nato. The shipments are examined and watched and Nato transfers the assets so Ukraine can wipe out Russian soldiers. That’s an ugly game Nato playing when things got quiet after the Minsk agreement.. Nato has intervened and helped the Kyiv Government in Ukraine. Putin reacting to stop the military shipments that threaten its security and pressing for guarantees this will stop and Ukraine not join Nato. There is no other reason Putin would attack Ukraine, it's going to be a nightmare to manage, as the north population will be hostile to a takeover and will fight back. There is a military buildup in Ukraine that Russia sees getting worse and now the pressure has been applied with a threat of invasion.
Unfortunately it doesn't stop the same usual suspects repeating it over and over because they subscribed to RT.
@Cheerful S no body was pressuring Ukraine to join nato ,you damn well know that's not what happened or is happening ..
Typical pro Putin shite it's all everyone's fault bar Putins
Irelands border with the UK is only 300km shorter than the NATO border with Russia. Surrounded my arse.
Putin not losing his mind here. Russia warned the west, never agree Ukraine be a member of Nato. Nato was set up to destroy the Soviet Union when and if war began.. Western leaders pressing hard for them to join just shows how out of touch they are. What is the main objective of having Ukraine be a member? Look at it from the Russian side, it all makes sense why an invasion is a real prospect. Obviously, nobody wishes an invasion of Ukraine, its people are going to feel the pain if it arises and you have the concern of reaction elsewhere by other countries. Watching this for a while UK and America never learn, regularly shipping military supplies to the Ukrainians for years and, this intensified in the last months of last year and this year. Putin no fool. Watching all this and determined the west does not care about Russia's concerns about Ukraine joining. If they had sense, both sides, an agreement be signed, signature Russia would not invade and signatures Keep Ukraine out of nato.
Russia moved a large portion of firepower around to encircle Ukraine.. With the level of military assets moved Putin decided to pressure the west to listen to the concerns or else. The invasion may not be happening at all, guarantees backed by a threat is mostly likely what's going on here. Putin decided to move against Ukraine he has the firepower in place though.
Russia has not been encircled by NATO
Certainly put an end to any aspirations of an EU army. Very difficult for the likes of Poland and the other eastern European countries to even consider it now after seeing this all unfolding.
I don't think we'd ever be able to "stop" such things from happening (a big power like Russia parking warships inside our EEZ + doing exercises or whatever) and trying in vain to do so would be a waste of money. However as others have said you'd like the military here to be in a state where it could at least monitor all comings and goings in our airspace and also the very large amount of sea we have "responsibility" for (for latter, it would be useful for more practical concerns like fisheries and resource protection, catching drug smugglers etc.).
In fairness to them this is one issue on which Irish politicians' actions (i.e. deliberate neglect and possibly (?) a running down of the military further vs previous decades despite massive increases in wealth of the country) are just a reflection of, and in full accord with Irish voter's beliefs.
They don't care, think Ireland does not need any military other than for sending small numbers to help UN missions and don't really want any money spent on it. Now they might care if some crisis comes along + scream blue murder (at the govt of the day most likely!) at that point, but will be too late then. So I suppose maybe some more leadership of the public on the issue is needed from politicians but I don't think it would be popular and will cost money so I don't blame them all that much.
Still, I think the world does seem to be getting more unstable now (vs 90s/00s/10s). Ireland's neutralty from the outside looking in is somewhat questionable given our ties like EU membership and the relationship with the US and we are no longer an isolated backwater and economic basket case that can rely on it's sheer irrelevance to keep it safe from everything.
ireland is small completely irrelevant country in terms of geopolitics. no amount of defence spending would prevent any of the military powers from obliterating us if they wanted. it's a complete waste of money.
While nothing may happen it should be, but more than likely won't be, a wake up call of the under funding of the Defense Forces. This is what happens when the Gov are more interested in keeping nurses, teachers etc happy than putting plans to stop things like this from happenenign
Fleet exercises does several things for the Russians. It, I'll air quote here, "legitimately" puts their fleet to open sea rather than have them bottled up in poorly located ports like St Petersburg in the Baltic, Sevastopol in the Black sea, Vladivostok hemmed in by Japan, and to a lesser degree Murmansk.
It forces NATO to pay attention, is it posturing, or something else?
From what I've been seeing online, the area in our EEZ, conveniently, has lots of transatlantic undersea data cables. That the same area has in the past received attention from Russian aircraft and trawler/intelligence ships.
Another plus for the Russians is they will have a Naval force to the West of the British Isles. Handy to be a pain for shipping or air transport. Starts to look like a Tom Clancy novel.
So again, is it posturing, or is it we're going to start a war and we're going to put these ships here in case it get's bigger than we think it will, or is Ukraine not the only objective.
The Estonian PM was on the BBC World Service describing the tactics of a former Soviet Foreign Minister, basically be as belligerent and threatening as possible and maybe the other side will give 1/3rd or 1/2 of what you're looking for without firing a shot.
But, at the same time, there appears to genuinely be significant military asset movement by Russia, as well with the talk of a coup in Kiev, for "nothing" to happen.
While busily wedging a foot into his mouth, I think Biden was correct about one thing, that Putin "has to do something". I think that something might happen in the first week of February.
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Someone earlier mentioned fertiliser exports. IMV it's farmings own fault for not wanting to look outside of it's own addiction. I'll get flak for that elsewhere but sure I'm used to that. "Modern" fertilisers are only really around since post WW1. Que the "have to feed the world" nonsense posts....
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