Untenable they not be banned EU wide- absolutely no point only a few doing it for it to have any effect
That'll throw him.
(Sorry)
Was thinking this as well. It also generated a very strong sense of solidarity and resilience and a determination to face down adverse effects on our lives.
Regarding Germany, there's currently a special session of the Bundestag underway to discuss Ukraine and any potential additional measures that Germany. I'm watching the live stream on YouTube. The change of tone is remarkable.
They don't have an A game. As someone said earlier they are a paper tiger. The big problem now is they use heavy artillery and thermobaric weapons on civilian areas. With the casualties from those weapons he can forget holding Ukraine everyone will take arms against the invader. And once the ordinary Russians hear about this he will be in real trouble.
Putin's days are numbered after this criminal invasion. Hopefully the military realise this sooner than later and show him the business end of a Makarov.
The Russians should be careful with propaganda like that. Russian kids might demand that their schools be shelled too. 😁
The Chechens did not have the numbers the Ukrainians have, nor were they tooled up with the best Western military tech.
It's a humanitarian operation I've heard them call it.
Musk has used his satellites to provide internet for Ukraine. Great news.
If Russia continues to struggle making headway, and that could certainly change, how about this as a peace deal -
To be fair on the Crimea question, even leaving aside the 2014 referendum, there have been two previous referenda in 1991 and 1994 where the questions were, "Do you want to leave Ukraine and be your own SSR?" and "Do you want greater autonomy from Ukraine and be able to hold dual citizenship?", respectively, and in both cases the answer was overwhelmingly 'yes'. So, I think the question does at least need to be decidedly asked if Crimea wishes to be a part of Ukraine or not. It would give Russia a chance to save face and pipe down a bit.
Still, any peace deal with Russia comes with the troubling suspicion that peace deals with Russia may not be worth so much.
I wonder if COVID has helped this. That crisis showed just how quickly drastic changes can be made when needed.
Indeed, the Russians can go in much harder than this, they did it to Chechnya.
Well Putin would want to get his A-Game on the pitch now, if it exists, because once his Oligarch buddies feel the pinch of sanctions, they may be more amenable to a regime change from within.
Do they even have one that doesn't involve levelling the country? Their real problem is 44 million who do not want them there and many of those will resist and fight.
Watching RT news last night, the Ukrainians are shelling their own schools. 🙄
So they’re just letting the Ukrainian’s get up to speed tooled up by the west and organised before they send in their best ?
Your last point is absolutely key.
Decades of German foreign policy key tenets overturned in days. And the Western response is united and more hawkish by the day.
I don't think anyone really believes that, putin had trump completely under his thumb, were Biden to do so, it would be a sign of weakness (not that it's going to happen).
Russia still haven't gone in all guns blazing , I doubt we've yet see their A game
He's made one bad gamble after another here. He gambled on a very swift end to this, that Ukrainians would not fight and that the West would not respond in such a united way as completely as it has done and is still doing. He also gambled that Western governments would not face populations responding to higher energy prices and those populations are more than willing to do so. Finally, the quick German shift on SWIFT and the very big one on weapons exports were not in whatever plan he had.
Although RT\Pravda says Russian soldiers have been welcomed by dancing Ukrainian maidens who have bedecked the smiling troops with garlands of flowers.
Indeed, this was well explained on a report yesterday by a Russian journalist
The main state controlled Russian outlets, which the majority of Russians use for their news are reporting that the "special operation" is going well, there are no pictures of Kyiv or the fighting elsewhere in Ukraine, no mentions of Russian casualties whatsoever
Russians do have access to the internet, but the country doesn't have that penetration others do, and it's mostly only young professionals who get their news from abroad.
Think about it. No one city is fully controlled by Russia. Incredible.
Russia has literally never been a functioning democracy. We can all wish devoutly for it to become one but democracy is a plant that requires deep roots, it hasn't even penetrated the topsoil in Russia.
Putin must have forgotten what a problem the Germans had with that in 1942.
Leaks from the Oligarchs summit with Putin seem like they are already running very low on short to medium range rockets and are finding it very hard to replenish supplies themselves. If true they are gonna have to take the entire city on foot which considering how many weapons are in civilians hands is going to be a nightmare and maybe not possible.
I was just looking at piece on BBC News that discussed the former German Chancellor a lot. It's not beyond the realms of possiblity that Germany were compromised during his spell, especially in the timeline around him stepping down from Chancellor.
Hang on, I don't understand the land corridor to the Black Sea thing. Do they mean a land corridor along the coast between occupied Crimea and the breakaway regions in Donbas? Otherwise, looking at a map, Russia already appears to have a lot of access to the Black Sea. Sochi sits right on the coast.
Amazing resistance by the Ukraine army/people.
Does anyone know if there's a gathering/protest walk to the Russian consulate (didnt know it existed until yesterday) on the Ennis Road in Limerick today?
All Russias security issues might have been allayed if they had emerged as a normal country from the collapse of the soviet union. They may have become a democracy and joined NATO as a counter balance to the US in NATO. Instead we got Boris Yeltsin who oversaw the plundering of Russia by Oligarchs followed by Putin who protected the interest of those same Oligarchs.
I hope this this does result in his head on a stick but I would not wish for another Regime. I would wish for a government that is replaced every 5 years, a parliament and power vested in a prime minister, and a presidential position as figurehead only.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/e050b53be62f0ae2404c620976170938.svg)
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://we.vanillicon.com/v2/eedacf599b4135dfd56d6fdbddcbd867.svg)
