Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Putin could have Ukraine conquered within the hour if he wanted but he's trying to do it with the minimal amount of civilian casualties.

https://i.imgur.com/5whxzV2.jpg

The use of wholesale global sanctions currently being imposed on Russia by multiple countries and corporations is very much a new form of retaliation in the face of war.

It has in part came about precisly because Putin is hovering his finger over that big red button and no-one dares lift a physical finger against him. And even at that he has still raising the nuclear threat level because of those same sanctions.

The other facet of that is the digital revolution, where interconnectivity and global digitisation links ever facit of business, in contrast to previous decades where everything was largely based on bits of paper stored locally. There's also the argument that these types of sanctions work best in countries largely dependant on digital technologies. Banning Facebook or whatever in some remote or poor country is probably not going have quite the same impact as it would even in somewhere like Russia

Many of the wars in the last century have not only involved European Christian on European Christian but also Muslim on Muslim or Asian on Asian and were often limited in their theatre of war to a limited geopolitical region. I would agree the west have frequently interceded in many of those wars and caused not a few and for a whole load of reasons. One of which without doubt has been self interest.

Of victims of these wars many indeed have been cast aside, but that is not to say that atrocities in these theatres of war have been ignored. In the last couple of decades it's the direct opposite with mass media coverage, refugees agencies and movement and international aid now being a global phenomenon. But I wouldn't agree with the notion of 'oh look its white men fighting and getting all the attention as usual'. Any war that involves a superpower such as Russia, invading and thrashing another country with the potential of nuclear aggression is going to ring all the bells. Anyone crying racism over that can go take a long jump for themselves as far as I'm concerned.

Who are the other two?

A tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine would set off huge radiation levels which would immediately enter Russia itself, putting millions of Russian people at risk of being contaminated.

And some people have followed all this for years and know a lot about Putin, the oligarchs and modern Russia. But you don't need to know a lot to put two and two together.

Take a look at what is happening in Russia right now; Independent media is being shut down, only state media remaining. Real political opposition? murdered or in prison (or poisoned with nerve agent and then sent to prison). Protesters? whether they are kids or grandmothers, they are all arrested. UN vote to condemn? 142 countries to 5.

This isn't recent, this has been going on for years, and decades. Putin annexed Crimea, they weren't given a chance to have a normal referendum. Putin sparked an uprising in S.E Ukraine with no chance at any normal process. Putin is now invading Ukraine.

He appears to be consumed with rewriting history whatever the cost (not that it affects him and his inner circle who are all unfathomably rich) There have been many leaders like him in history, if people want to label him evil based on his actions, absolutely they can, if they want to compare him to e.g. Hitler, absolutely, many comparisons there. Just because some MTV presenter on Youtube who makes money from telling people there must be another "narrative" doesn't mean there is one.

1850 715 815.

(Although I think they changed the number!!! Just googled and it's now 0818 715 815 )

Might be fake news. But would be in line with the tower bloc bombings suspected to have been planned by Putin's circle to get him into power.

What's with the false equivalence.

NATO was setup to protect against exactly what Putin is doing now. Baltic states that joined after 1997 had the foresight to see the benefits of having such a defensive alliance. Ukraine is not a part of NATO, so I have no idea what your comment is about NATO "staying out". Ukraine is a sovereign nation, if they so wish, they can choose to join NATO.

Don't start with the breathless excuses about "nukes getting closer to Russia", that's Kremlin nonsense. It's not the 60's anymore. Most of the world's active nukes are on submarines, which can be parked off just about any country.

God, that's a profoundly dark tactic if he pursues it.

Russia has not hit so many vessels of other nations recently, it's starting to look like it's on purpose.