Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Oliver Stone seemed quite taken with Putin. He went on the Stephen Colbert show to promote the documentary and Colbert's basically anti-Putin stance made for a pretty terse interview.

But that was all in the past. It would be one thing to try and see Putin's point of view back then, but Stone's latest Twitter post doesn't condemn Putin's actions even now, which makes it hard for me to take him seriously. Whatever you want to say about the nuance of the situation, or equivocate between what America or the West has done in the past, if you don't at least start with condemning Putin's giving a directive to go and level Ukraine, then that's pretty heartless.

Russia has always been one to deny what was happening even when the whole world knew the truth, remember Chernobyl (yes it's in Ukraine, but then part of the USSR and under the control of Moscow) how long did it take the Kremlin to admit what actually happened?

During the early 80s large numbers of Irish and British went to Germany when a building boom kicked off ,

Give it 18 months and the grandkids of those builders will be back in Germany building a large wall to keep the west out again!

The underlying gist of that little speech is that Russia (aka Putin) is saying that if either country applies for NATO membership - it's open season (a la Ukraine) for a military strike / invasion or whatever you're having yourself

How long would it take for them to make the decision, ratify it, submit the request and for it to be accepted by NATO?

Parliament debate, referendum?, NATO process. 3 -12 months?

I think your right there. For me the bigger issue was fear of democracy. Its one thing for the authoritarian dictator in Moscow to see the Baltic nations doing relatively well economically and free it would be a whole different ball game if a country the size and population of Ukraine was to develop into a relatively successful and prosperous democracy in contrast to his repressive regime and the poor economy he presides over in Russia.

I still think, and i know the risk, NATO aircraft should be assisting in Ukraine. If they went at it hard that convoy would be gone in a few days.

So they are essentially balancing between letting people die now and hoping sanctions and other pressures stop him at some stage OR provide military pressure now which would probably prevent some of those deaths but risks potentially increasing deaths in another country if he strikes there

People are dieing and are going to continue to die and at some stage because of Russia and Putin, NATO are going to have to intervene at some stage, its almost a case of where do you want your deaths

Some really horrible stories of the conditions Russian troops are subjected to and the fact many of them appear to have been lied to. Many stories. Told they are going to "exercises" instead of a war.

Putin won’t take on a NATO army because he knows, even through his hubris, that in a conventional war his army would be flattened.

Despite some people on here hyping up the capabilities of their “A-Team”…

With this precedent, that you can do what you want and we wont engage militarily if you dont mess with a NATO country is dangerous. Whats to stop him from sailing a few destoyers and troop carriers into say Cork and Galway. 50K Russian troops and he'd take the country at least in name in less than a week. Doesnt need any tanks, some APCs and troop carriers. Its an unnarmed ppoulation who wont fight much, a weak undermanned military. So long as he doesnt go North over the border NATO wont intervene. Think the UK would come to our aid? Maybe, maybe not.

Everyone will say thats mad, but is it. He doesn't care if he loses 50K troops

Thanks, yes I visited his Twitter status too looking for whether he noticed anything different. The pieces he links are largely ones that cohere with the average Putin admirer of two weeks ago. More interesting was that on the website of the soft piece he links to first is a further seperate contribution from Patrick Cockburn (prepublished in Counterpunch on the 28th Feb). Like the late Robert Fisk, Cockburn's columns are famously non-mainstream and can be non-antagonistic to, say, the Russian defence of the Assad regime, and yet he concludes too that Putin has made a disastrous mistake.

Look at it from the Russian perspective. He has broken the established compact that he keeps Russia strong and safe, protects vetted interests, and builds the economy. He has ruined it all based on hubris is what Cockburn concludes.

and another

How can he row back and save his legacy? Obviously to me that means declare his victory early and come to a deal with the Ukraine government, and resign from his post once he has secured his safety..... Lavrov or Mevdevev can rule in the interim.

There's no guarantee a potential war with NATO would be a conventional one.

Flight Radar.

F16 and a tanker flying orbits, lets hope he has company, but with their transponders turned off.