Come now Wibbs.. for past peacekeeping duties, essentially read 'on the ground' training for our defence forces. Puts a few extra bob in their poorly paid pockets, gives a bit of motivation and far better than using up ammo going out of date down in Glen of Imaal.
It is indicative of a demilitarized peaceful society. Values very different to other countries.
Well sure, but the answer is obvious - Ukraine is a young country which is very plentiful with natural resources. Up until recently they were pretty much under Putin's thumb with a Russian puppet in charge but the Ukrainian people said - "**** that, we don't want to be under your control, we want to decide our own destiny"
Said puppet was ousted - democracy brought to Ukraine bringing them more in line with Western countries.
Now we also know there are large reserves of gas both in the Black Sea (Crimea region) and in Eastern Ukraine (Donbass region)
Enough to break European dependancy on Russia and essentially kill Russia's economy. Hence the interest in joining the EU who would provide supports to allow Ukraine to do this.
So lo and behold Putin decides that he isn't having this, makes up stuff about Nazis in Ukraine and far right folks causing havoc with Russian speakers
And here we are. That's basically it in a nutshell. Like most other wars it boils down to natural resources when you cut through all the bullshit and double speak on both sides.
Possibly. As someone who has seen two previous generations of family drawn into major conflicts, I'd hoped we'd escaped that. But I now see how events can change views and people ultimately decide or get get pulled into wars in order to uphold what they perceive is ultimately about right over evil.
Indeed, but some individuals don't want the facts of a situation, they instead want to satisfy a belief that there has to be an "alternative" narrative.
More bridges burnt every day
"KYIV -- The Chernobyl nuclear plant has lost power again after Russian forces damaged a high-voltage power line to the plant for the second time, Ukraine's national energy company, Ukrenergo, said on March 14.
The damage occurred not long after electricity supplies had been restored to the facility by a Ukrenergo crew after the line was damaged the first time.
The company said in a statement that the line, which also supplies power to the town of Slavutych, was damaged again by Russian forces after the Ukrenergo repair crew fixed it.
The decommissioned power plant, the site of one of the world's worst nuclear disasters, was fully cut off from the electrical grid last week and the plant lost power after the line was cut the first time.
That outage put at risk some 20 tons of waste that must be constantly cooled to stop radiation leaking from the plant, which lies some 100 kilometers from Kyiv." https://www.rferl.org/a/chernobyl-power-outage-russian-damage/31752275.html
It's his modus operandi.
More reports of missing Ukrainian journalists from the occupied territories. The RuSSian "cleanse" of Ukrainian society is well under way.
Don't think we need to do this (some kind of NATO referendum) and would be bad idea.
It (imo) is quite likely now there could be some more serious/ambitious EU mutual defence stuff coming down the tracks because of this war, given the bad shock it has delivered, esp. to the member states nearest Russia. (Depending on nature of that) it is likely what there will need to be a referendum held. That itself could be enough for this country/joe public to chew on (given how furiously I remember Lisbon Treaty referendum was fought) without NATO and all that baggage thrown into the bargain.
Kadyrov's announcement yesterday that he's in Ukraine is getting a response, but he's more than likely nowhere near the front line.
Ukraine was looking westward - I agree. Russia, however, was not willing to change itself in any appreciable way in an effort to keep Ukraine onside. If Russia were willing to bend, to evolve, to improve itself in some ways, would there be such a need to try and dominate its sphere of influence with military brutality? Maybe not. Therefore I think there are fundamental ideological factors that also lead to war, not just a simple disagreement of the allocation of natural resources.
Crazy footage
any chance of today's peace talks going anywhere? The Russians seem to be opening up more now to dialogue
It was expected being they need to replace their Older Tornados , hence why they are only taking 35
While always hopeful, you'd worry that Russia is using this time to sort out logistical issues.
Looks like a happy camper. Is that the only facial expression he can make?
Serious in your face reality of urban warfare.
That sight on that 30 mm canon seemed a bit off,or is it just me?
Do those canons use stabilizer at all?
Pretty much, but they had a long way to go in that line with Western countries. They were on that line alright but if you go back to 2020/21 any reporting about Ukraine, from within(a step forward in itself) and without was talking about how behind they were in many aspects of that line. The most corrupt nation in Europe outside Russia, with a number of names on the Pandora list including Zelenskyy, Bakanov the head of their internal security service and their ally Kolomoyskyi, one of the richest men in Ukraine, banned from entering the US because he was seen as a "serious threat to the future of Ukraine" and the owner of the TV station that produced Zelenskyy's TV show that later mirrored reality and put money on the heads of separatists. Never mind the clusterfúck of epic proportions of the the civil war in the East of the nation where neither side showered themselves with good works. To be fair to Bakanov he did start to seriously go after corruption. As did Zelenskyy, who also sought to remove the cult of personality BS around his office and even added a law that made the office of Ukrainian president open to prosecution.
The upshot being that before the facist in Moscow decided to do what facists tend to do, Ukraine had a very long road ahead to becoming a Western European nation. IMHO - and this will sound odd - this horror from the Kremlin visited upon their land will be the making of Ukraine. If they give up the Donbas(and I would drop it like a hot rock and get rid of that powderkeg carbuncle, let Russia deal with it) this will stabilise the rest of the country. The world's sympathy and support is near complete, but it also means the beady eye will be on them to make good their claims and aims to become a liberal Western democracy. Ukraine will need rebuilding and again IMHO the EU should go in all guns blazing on that front. A Marshall Plan for Ukraine. And like that plan that elevated post war Germany and boosted the coffers of the US, it'll do the same for the EU and Ukraine and rebuild Ukraine in her image and ours in the EU.
Putin may rage about them looking at NATO, but he'll die of apoplexy if Russia's Ukrainian 'brothers and sisters' end up in the EU. It'll starkly show him and his subjects the stark difference between the shíthole he's leaving them and how good Ukrainians have it. A nice house, a nice car in the driveway, disposable income and a better freer future for you and your kids is a bigger weapon than any gun or bomb. That's how you fúck putin right up the fundament.
Looks like on the second vehicle they saw the troops positioned behind it and lowered their aim to try bounce rounds under the vehicle and take them out
Russia would be wise to remember that the wind doesn't blow just one way.
Usually the sights are off being they don't sit on the gun ,so there is usually some difference between whats on a screen and where the bullets hit ,and yes it's 30mm cannon
European Radioactive Russian Roulette
Russia has said it has not asked China for military resources, as it has enough resources for its onslaught on Ukraine, on UKRAINE, no mention of the resouces in general for its next annexation
Well i have seen 30 mm on cv90 shoot before ans its not as shaky and unclear as this picture and alot more accurate and powerful as well
You don't need to be constantly parroting your 'both sides' line. Of course it's facism.
We should not join NATO in my opinion, but what we need in the EU is an EU wide defense only military. This would need to have written into its constitution that it could not be joining adventures abroad looking for non-existent WMD. Our military needs much greater investment in cyber warfare, more highly skilled troops but less numbers overall. We don't need to have thousands of boot polishers hanging around the barracks. The type of conflict we might be involved in has moved on since the 20th C.
That lad was 100% playing eye of the tiger with that gun on the 2nd apc
Russian tech is no where near as good as the swedish cv90 variants.
Definitely not stablised
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