I meant to post as well, to see Israel start condemning Russian actions is extremely alarming to me. The only people who know more than the Yanks just about anywhere are the Israelis. They played things cool early (could say to try to be a broker, or you could be more cynical :P ) but seeing them picking a side makes me think they know something is coming and they want to be on the right side of it.
And no new spare parts for the existing western build vehicles.......
Many opinions seem based on the idea of "Mutually Assured Destruction"
Seems to me that no nation would simply launch everything and then have absolutely no options left
Suppose a higher tech. nation actually has the (unannounced) means to deflect or neutralise nuclear missiles in flight
I may be wrong, but my understanding is that destroying a nuclear warhead in flight, won't necessarily initiate a nuclear explosion. As far as I know, nuclear explosions are secondary and require a precise, highly symmetrical, primary explosion to initiate them
It's always good to ponder where your "common sense" was manifested from
Maybe, but not in the foreseeable future, at least until he rebuilds his mauled army, a mauling that is still ongoing.
I had an "interesting" brush with Russian/Pro putin thinking(I use the term loosely) at the weekend. Via someone I knnow through work, a staffmember of his who I'd only know to nod at kinda thing, is from Bulgaria or Belarus(not Russian, but I didn't get into the specifics). The subject of Ukrainian refugees came up. Followed by a quiet if clearly heartfelt insane rant from this guy along the lines of "Oh just you wait, you'll see the people that are coming here pretending to be refugees for what they are". That only the "rich" and "criminals" of Ukraine can afford to pay the "border fees" to get into Poland(10,000 dollars in his head). Followed by tales from family and friends of his that have already witnessed Ukrainian refugees in Ireland acting up and not being grateful etc. Those hearing this were more than a bit WTF? about it. It was like a twisted copy and paste of morons who used to go on about "Blacks get free prams" and "Poles eat swans y'know" type guff. I doubt this guy's an outlier among certain quarters and I can see that kinda thing getting more traction among some, though thankfully small numbers, who have certain "sympathies".
Russian public transport
There was an assumption throughout the Cold War that if a nuclear war was to break out, both sides would simply fire every single nuclear weapon they had at each other, destroying each other and probably wiping out all life on the planet. In reality though, such a doomsday outcome would surely be the least likely one, even if somebody was insane enough to launch an initial nuclear strike. You would hope that cool heads would prevail and things wouldn't escalate to that degree.
I always wondered about M.A.D in the current world. Like just say NATO and Russia ended up nuking each other. Would one side look at China or India and go "fcuk it, if I'm going down you're all coming with me"
Hard to rebuild an army when you cannot get the parts for it.
This is what some are referring to as 'Post Truth'
There are many such examples - i honestly expect this to become a massive talking point at some stage (it already is but i expect it to become a field of study). So many examples we could think of -
Plenty more (FYI i am not opening a can of worms RE the vaccines etc - just making the point) -
Iv chatted to some people who are actually studying it - its bizarre and kinda terrifying - i would go as far as to say its a mild mental illness
I actually do feel sorry for these people - but i also worry that they are being taken far to seriously in certain circles. They tend to demand respect for their 'opinions' and will react almost violently if one refuses to grant said respect. But IMHO its very ego driven too. There must be a kind of pleasure from feeling that you know something, that others will always be ignorant of - the feeling that one truly is 'special'
That twitter guy is basically spinning a yearn RE the Bucha massacre - an the narrative is VERY helpful to Russia - yet i am SURE he probably has nothing to do with Russia personally - He is just applying his faulty thought process in a sickening way -
Anyway - rant over - all IMHO of course - interested to hear what others think
Nearly all went down the appeasment route, some went much further and pocketed lots and held back when it came time to reverse appeasement or apply Sanctions or good weapons, even just functional weapons.
Putin invaded in 2014. Let's not pretend what he is at is a surprise.
Some were sending serious weapons before the current invasion, London, Washington especially and the Baltics and Poland what they could.
Even now Germany procrastinates but talks a good game. Kyiv still complains that it is talking to a wall in Berlin.
They remain the wavering link in Western Europe on this.
It's not anti anything to want them to switch camps now.
Well there was a post a few pages back showing damaged and broken down immobilized tank's and APC's loaded on to rail cars for transportation back to Russia, so that's where the spare parts ( at least some of them anyway) will be coming from.
Tbf the lack of closure into Belarusian border with Poland is pretty odd at this point. Don't you think
And when a large proportion of these Ukrainian refugees turn out to be unusually dark skinned for Slavs with the ability to grow beards before puberty, I assume we still won't be allowed to complain?
Possibly. But cannibalising parts will only get you so far. Unless you have an advanced home grown tech industry that can feed you the materials, skills and resources to make or fix your machines, you're pretty fcuked.
That aint going to be happening unless some gobshytes in the EU and some EU countries trying to get rid of economic migrants starts trying to mix up the chancers from the likes of Calais and Greece in with legitimate refugees coming across the borders into Romania, Poland, Slovakia.
I would bet all these Ukirainian refugees have identification of some sort with them and haven't lost all their identifying papers for some unknown reason.
Also a fair bet that the vast majority of these Ukrainian refugees are female, kids and the old, not strapping young fellows or hairy kids.
Sounds great in theory, but when dealing with a rogue state that Russia has become the theory could get very real all too quickly. Back in the days of Cold War 1 and for all the rhetoric and the proxy wars involved on both sides that killed hundreds of thousands the nuclear threat was at least in the hands of non nutters for the most part. Today we have putin. Not a nutter, but someone who appears to want to win or go out in flames(he's been priming his loyal subjects for this). And damned right I hold my existence and the existence of Europe, America, Asia and much of this planet above more "local" if appallingly tragic and criminal horrors. They're happening all over the world as we speak and we're not going in all guns blazing in those other places and they don't have access to end of the world armageddon.
And what intervenion do you suggest? No fly zone? That plays into putin's hands and better minds and tacticians know it and why they've avoided it. But let's run with that idea. A Russian or NATO/EU aircraft will be shot down. Escalation. If putin didn't fire off a tactical nuke I'd be far more suprised than not and then you've tens of thousands obliterated in an instant. Boots on the ground? Western forces would destroy Russian forces in the air ground and sea and what would putin have left? Exactly. The only hope would be one of his inner circle would stage a coup, but he's built that inner circle over decades so it's one small hope indeed.
And we are confronting the situation. There is more than one way to skin a cat, or a czar. Russia is now a pariah state and as more and more horrors perpetrated in her name come out it'll become more and more a pariah. When the Germans and others finally shut off oil and gas and I firmly believe they will, what foreign revenue he's still getting will be pinched even further. His only option is to sell to the Chinese who will view his glorous Russia as a fire sale. Arms are flowing across Ukraine's borders and will continue to flow. Ukraine is getting the best military intel from the Americans and others. The Kremlin prick's five day war is now two months old. He's failed to take Kyiv and other cities, his uniformed rabble and outdated materiel and tactics and horrors are laid bare for all the world to see and are retreating from the north of the country, sorry making an reverse military operation, trying to shore up his other failures to hold ground in the south and east. Even if he keeps some land he has guaranteed that Ukrainians will never look north to Russia again. He has guaranteed their place in the EU and wider alliances. He has guaranteed a rebuilt Ukraine not in his image but Europe's and the West's. He has guaranteed a crippling economic, political and social disaster for "his" Russia that will last as long as he does. He's guaranteed that Russia, a giant dinosaur with a tiny brain, mortally wounded and nearly dead, but doesn't realise it yet. He's already lost. And so has Russia.
PS I ended up being a mod about a year after I joined so...
Like Katyn all those years ago, in more ways than one.
Does it hurt ?
Absolute nonsense. Now if you were to say the Irish don't want the sacrifice and the changes necessary, then I'd agree with you. In my eyes Germany is pretty damn awful in it's regard for the sanctity of it's lifestyle, comforts and wealth, but Ireland is frankly worse. The precious regard for neutrality isn't about neutrality, it's about not wanting the inconveniences and - most of all - cost of non neutrality. There is this image of Ireland being warm, open and friendly towards visitors - and it is - so long as they are 'visitors' and will be off again after being milked.
The current government has allocated considerable sums of money to eco measures - massive subsidies to flash harrys who want to set up normally uneconomic solar power, subsidies to home owners to retro-fit heat pumps, insulation, etc. There are huge sums of government expenditure earmarked to mitigating climate issues and ludicrous sums being spent on social housing. If all these funds were diverted to accommodating regugees this country could accommodate more than 100,000, with ease.
its true that Putin has absolute control at the moment, and I've often mentioned it myself too. But how absolute is absolute? For sure its not infinite, and one of Putins biggest worries is seeing uncontrollable protests and even rioting on the streets. Family's who have lost their sons, hooking up with other families in the came situation, and that would include families from the military and police unit's too. In the past,( and even presently it seems ) when Russian conscripts had the highest rate of suicides in the world due to the practice of "Hazing" ( Dedovshchina ) It got so bad that mothers of conscripts formed a group to protest about the practice. Putin recently passed a law banning it as being under foreign influence, or in other words " Enemy of the State". None the less, those kind of family losses cannot easily be wiped away, and sooner or later they will make themself felt. At some stage a tipping point will be reached, no matter how long it will take.
Ah, but most of the casualties will be from poor families from the regions who couldn't pay for their sons to avoid the army. Coupled with total media control, there will be no awareness of how many are being killed.
Russia could lose 100,000 soldiers and Putin would be able to continue on uninterrupted.
A few posters are making valid comments about Germany and France to a degree.
They should have started weaning themselves off Russian gas when Putin started trying to steal territory from other countries.
What did they do since 2014 ?
They facilitated him by building a new pipeline that would allow him go even further in taking over his neighbour.
And yes I will draw equivalency with how the West are facilitating China.
We all saw what they did in Hong Kong, but the West did nothing because after all consumers want cheap shyte and the likes of Apple needs to make more untaxable billions.
Don't anyone be under any illusions, China were viewing this invasion to see how strong the West would be and if Ukraine had crumbled with the West doing nothing, then Taiwan would be in the firing line for sure.
If Putin is a throwback to yesteryear then so is Xi Jinping.
And if the West does nothing now, we will be faced with the same situation in a few years time with regards to China.
It is about time people starting learning some fooking thing from history.
Oh and I don't know why people are surprised some people are acting like muppets on internet, there have always been lots of people who are ar**holes, lots of people who are as gullible as sh** and lots of people who are as thick as pigsh**.
The internet just allows us see most of them in action.
Did you see that the Russians shaved the heads of Ukrainian female POWs?
Ukrainian soldiers are smarter than their Russian counterparts and would I think be cognisant that they need to control their urges so there are POW's to exchange for Ukrainian POW's and free them from the horrors of being in Russian hands.
And then companies like Kerry group and kingspan continuing to operate in Russia. Really plays into the cute Kerry hoor and hungry mean Cavan stereotypes. Couldn’t have any slide in that share price.
There's a load of "weak-ish links" unfortunately but it is mainly Germany you have an interest in (and they aren't even the "weakest link" in the EU as they say - that fellow just got reelected yesterday I read this morning).
It's not "anti" anything to want Germany to change policies etc. (which it has been doing), but the stuff you post goes quite a bit beyond that and is anti-German or anti-Germany. Do you really believe Merkel would be kind of politician who couldn't care less about something like kind of brutality we're seeing Russia carry out in Ukraine? I don't think so in fairness to you and you went overboard.
Yesterday, RIA Novosti published a lengthy piece titled "What Russia should do with Ukraine", which explains in detail what Russia understands by denazification. It's truly horrific: 1/6
The special operation revealed that not only the political leadership in Ukraine is Nazi, but also the majority of the population. All Ukrainians who have taken up arms must be eliminated - because they are responsible for the genocide of the Russian people. 2/6
Ukrainians disguise their Nazism by calling it a "desire for independence" and a "European way of development". Ukraine doesn't have a Nazi party, a Führer or racial laws, but because of its flexibility, Ukrainian Nazism is far more dangerous to the world than Hitler's Nazism 3/6
Denazification means de-Ukrainianisation. Ukrainians are an artificial anti-Russian construct. They should no longer have a national identity. Denazification of Ukraine also means its inevitable de-Europeanisation. 4/6
Ukraine's political elite must be eliminated as it cannot be re-educated. Ordinary Ukrainians must experience all the horrors of war and absorb the experience as a historical lesson and atonement for their guilt. 5/6
The liberated and denazified territory of the Ukrainian state should no longer be called Ukraine. Denazification should last at least one generation - 25 years. Then the author goes on to detail exactly what needs to be done
The difference between the two search engines - Google and the Russian Yandex - after entering the keyword "Bucza":
Jaysus they might as well be done with it and just rename everything Pravda.
It reads like something uncle Joe would have been proud of, getting rid of the intellectuals, the rulers, throwing in some ethnic clensing for good measure.
Soviets idea of liberation was stand back and let the Germans slaughter the locals who dared fight the Germans, then come in and mop up, slaughtering the remaining officer, educated and intellectual classes, whilst partaking in wholesale raping of anything female.
Then setup a puppet regime of quislings.
Maybe someone was reading here. Better late than never @ Kerry group. Was it really worth staying though?
The brand is tarnished in my mind anyway.
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