Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Not much point having a huge supply chain and no market. It's not the market that suffers in a economic squeeze its the supply chain. The market just stops buying. The supply chain has already invested its money in order to make sure it had product for the market.

It's just like the idea of Russia turning off the gas to Germany. Germany would suffer a minor recession. Russia on the other hand would collapse. If Germany squeezed Russia for only a couple of weeks the shock waves in Russia would derail the war and create panic even at the highest levels of society.

Yes it is and always has been. They shoved us under the bus to save themselves in 2008. Now they're throwing the Ukrainians under it and reversing over them just to be sure. The French and Germans have done more damage to the EU in their response to this war than all shenanigans that went on through the banking crisis and covid. They're a disgrace and the rest of Europe should let them know it.

Not mad at all, I think it's the kind of thinking that will swing it for Ukraine. Play Putin at his own game - "sure we're only selling them fuel, this is the safest way as we didn't want to offend you"

So if an Irish citizen has married into a Russian family, has all their money tied up in Russia, has their home there, their kids and their friends, their livelihoods... they're just supposed to drop it all, move back to Ireland with no money and.... do what? Stay in a hotel? Homeless shelter? Wait until they can sell their house in roubles and then... what? Exchange it how for Euros? How are they to send the money to Ireland so they can afford anything?

Aside from anything else closing the embassy does nothing concrete to Russia; it just sends a political message. We've already done that via the UN, the EU, by expelling diplomats.

The Irish government is charged with protecting Irish citizens and that includes citizens abroad in all kinds of circumstances. Arguing to withdraw that support and leave them potentially isolated just because they can't easily leave Russia immediately is utterly ridiculous.

The Germans are really not endearing themselves to the Ukrainians at all. I read that a German arms exporter was even offering to send arms to Ukraine at no cost but their application to export was turned down by Berlin.

Germany should be driving the European response. Instead within the EU it's the Baltic nations, the Czechs, Slovaks and Poland with a now outside the EU UK. A ban on Russian hydrocarbons would cripple Russia's ability to carry on the criminal endeavour of this invasion.

History won't be kind to Scholzs government.

No, what's utterly ridiculous is spending large sums of money to keep a facility open for a handful of people who obviously are quite happy where they are or would have left already. Going by your logic we should open an embassy in North Korea and maybe one in the Antarctic incase some Tom Crean wannabe decides he wants to take a saunter across the ice caps and gets in a spot of bother.

Ah yes the old brexiteer argument of 80% of the worlds population been outside of Europe/the west. That’s also where 80% (probably more) of the worlds poverty is.

Russia is a country that has millions of people employed in troll farms and security/ policing going around watching for people holding up blank signs on the street and changing tags on supermarket shelves. Real productive use of human capital there. It also has thousands more incarcerated for stupid harmless offences and it’s smartest people are leaving the country in droves or are exiled. It’s going nowhere as a country. China is worse and has even more people employed in unproductive insane big brother roles to protect the regime. Outside the big cities it is a medieval country. In living memory the Chinese spent their time banging pots and pans to stop swallows from nesting resulting in a massive famine. Autocracies tend to collapse under the weight of their own bullshit.

These look like they could be very useful for the Ukrainians. 300 to 500 km range depending on the munitions loaded.

Excellent, stick a couple of starstreak systems and javelins close by to protect them and they could bring untold hell for advancing Russia troops. Real morale killers

Large sums of money? How much are we talking about here?

I mean despise Russia all you want; but closing the embassy serves no purpose other than to make it more difficult for Russian people who legitimately want to stay in Ireland to access consular services and vice versa for Irish people in Russia who can't leave or might be in the process of trying to leave.

I agree with you about the hyperbole being bandied about: Germany had a strategy to keep Russia close to Europe and the EU and to try and develop trade and other ties. Ultimately the strategy failed; but nobody knows what the alternative would have looked like either. Maybe a more isolated Russia might have invaded Ukraine fully in 2014 and Ukraine would have collapsed completely; who knows.

In any case I think the focus should be not on what Germany may or may not have done in the past; it should be about what it's doing right now. And unfortunately I don't think they're doing nearly enough (for all the reasons already stated).

I mean I definitely think we could do more and send some military vehicles for example; but we equally have to remember that our military neutrality has been a fairly core part of our national identity and also our diplomatic and international identity. I don't think the benefits to Ukraine that our measly supply of armoured vehicles could provide are such that it would be a clear reason to drop our military neutrality and sacrifice whatever little diplomatic power we might be able to leverage in the future. And also there is the threat of Russia making an example out of us in some way.

As for the diplomats I'm all for expelling more but I also think it's important to keep diplomacy and consular services alive; I don't see how it benefits anyone to force embassies to close. We should be welcoming Russians who genuinely don't want anything to do with their government; and having a working embassy is one of the ways we can do that.

I definitely agree that we should be critical of everyone's response and not just dumping on Germany constantly; I made a couple of posts today mentioning that somehow France and Macron have been forgotten about even though they're the biggest EU army and seem to have given the least support of anyone beyond talking the ear off Putin.

And apologies if I came across aggressively; wasn't my intention.

I believe most European professional footballers and coaching staff who were playing in the Russian league left the country for the reasons you outline. It would be nigh on impossible to remain in a country of war criminals and warmongers etc.

UK Defence Ministry say they believe Russia has made very little actual progress in the East in the last 24 hours - that's an encouraging sign.

You've lost perspective when you claim they have blood on their hands or responsibility for the war or are somehow allied with Russia/have a pro Russian agenda here. That to me is anti German, not just anti German govt. or anti German policy. edit: I haven't seen those "others" you mention come out with anything like the aggression you have (apart perhaps from the Ukrainians at times - see below). I don't see how it helps. Much of that post is mad stuff - sorry.

I don't think an energy trade embargo by Germany means the war just stops the next day it is imposed. It will do to Russia faster what the existing sanctions are doing more slowly, it won't make Russia's stocks of weapons (old but still good for wrecking cities) and military manpower just disappear.

As to the Ukrainians their perspective here is probably not the clearest either as they are fighting for their lives. They also want NATO to effectively go to war for them and fight Russia ("close the sky"). I don't see anyone, even US/UK that are praised vs Germany for better support to Ukraine, rushing in to do that right now.