Russia - threadbanned users in OP

More difficult and inconvenient. But certainly not “nightmarish”. I’d personally put my safety above some flight disruption.

Ukraine does not currently meet any criteria I can think of for membership of the EU bith societal and economic, it would take probably at least 20 years of development to get anywhere close.

They all know it's not realistic.

As one poster has already mentioned, you are indeed embarrassing yourself. You are posting with the glee and new-found wonder of a teenager excitedly playing Call of Duty all day while searching for soundbites on Wikipedia and, oh my, Galway Beo ( that pillar of Journism run by the same fantastic folks that run the bastion of hard hitting writing, Dublin Live).

Do give it a rest. We all know that the thoughts of needless destruction due to WMD's gives you a little stiffy but, as someone who has seen the wanton destruction of Russian forces from the wrong end, its not all the wide-eyed fascination you imagine it to be.

The majority of posters on this forum are well educated in the technicalities of the military arena without having to be 'educated", by yourself. No offence, like.

Wonder what is the best Ukraine could accept in any deal because they are going to be slaughtered if this goes on .Waiting for Putin to be replaced looks like a long shot at the moment .Seems to me there is no way they will hold them off .

Another individual story:

"Until this week Daniel Mediakovskyi was a history student in the Ukrainian city of Lviv. Since Sunday, however, he has been sticking rubber bands and plastic tops on to home-made bombs. “It’s practical history. It’s time for this right now,” he explained, loading another molotov cocktail into a crate.

Around him, about a dozen students and young creative professionals stood around a makeshift table. All wore masks and washing-up gloves. Each had a role in a busy production line. The basement bomb factory smelled strongly of petrol and paint remover – two molotov ingredients, along with polystyrene and silver dust.

Mediakovskyi – who is 20 – said his mother had woken him early last Thursday to tell him Russia had invaded Ukraine. “I knew it was going to start. My hands started shaking,” he said. After spending a day doom-scrolling on social media, he decided he would try to help.

“My parents know I’m volunteering. I haven’t told my granny. She’s worried enough about things already,” he admitted. He acknowledged that a molotov wouldn’t stop the mighty Russian army. But he stressed: “It will break Russian soldiers mentally, and show them they are not welcome here.”"

🙄

Well, that's where you're wrong, because I don't necessarily believe every piece of propaganda or stat coming out of Ukraine. I can, as I think most of us can, understand the phrase 'fog of war'. It's certainly been bandied about enough lately to really read up on it, anyway. My point is that if the story of the Ghost of Kiev rouses the Ukrainian side, it is valuable whether strictly true or not.

This is an escalating crisis with a potentially irrational actor on one side. There will (maybe) be time afterwards to look over the data and see who really did what, where and when. For now, we have to get off the fence.

Would you not even dig a hole in a garden and put a bit of a corrugated iron over it?