Ukraine (Mod Note & Threadbanned Users in OP)

Turkey is obviously going down the toilet at the moment. An economic dog house.

It's on the edge of Europe.

A country that size with the dire economic problems it has,is going to be a concern.

Two months ago Ukraine just surviving would have been remarkable. Now, Crimea is definitely on the table.

How things have turned around is remarkable.

More illegible gibberish

I don't agree re the standard of the song itself.

It starts off like an ethnic folk song then it breaks out into rapid-fire rapping (which no English-only speaking person can understand the lyrics to).

Fair enough to anyone who likes this unusual folk-rap fusion song but I don't think the voting proves it's a strong piece of music. It just proves that the voters like it, or claim to.

In fairness odd songs make the Eurovision a fun event in the first place.

Fun fact: The Ukraine army now issues the IRA green book from the 70s, 80s and 90s to all soldiers and new recruits.

The green book was an IRA induction manual setting out code of conduct as well as guerilla and psychological warfare tactics.

Can Ukraine feel safe while Russia holds on to any of its illegal gains?

But Ukraine is dependent on other countries for support if it cannot join Nato and those countries will press for a negotiated settlement I would have thought

.

So Ukraine will have to settle for less than it deserves ?

Ukrainian intelligence obtained Ru officers telegram chat in the early stages of the war (someone has translated it on twitter), incredible insight into the chaos

You got my point of criticism. They aren't doing enough. It's all wishy-washy. And the little that was done was done only after the US, UK and CEE countries exerted serious pressure on the German leadership.

Scholz is talking nonsense - and had to be corrected by experts on Russia yet again

Anders Åslund is right here:

And here:

Macron ain't much better though - the Estonian PM is very clear in what "calling Putin achieves" exactly with Russia (and especially Putin)

I listened podcasts with her in January and early February and she predicted exactly what would happen in February and onwards, so far everything she said about Putin and Russia turned out to be correct and very accurate reading of the situation. Western European politicians completely failed at reading the situation correctly and have no experience with crisis management and dealing with a dictatorship regime of this type. Many are still out of touch and paralysed (Scholz, Macron, Nehammer, Draghi at the least).

Again, Anders Åslund is right here:

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/western-advocates-of-appeasement-need-a-crash-course-in-putinology/

Everyone,pray for Ukraine

pray for more artillery and NLAWS

@fly_agaric

This is the point which is naive and simply incorrect. This is the core issue of the misguided Scholz/Macron/Nehammer policy and largely of the popular opinion in the Western Europe (not Northern, Central or Eastern).

Putin doesn't negotiate, you don't negotiate with dictators of this sort and especially Kremlin on steroids, the current regime. Pointless, waste of time, sign of weakness to Putin, to Kremlin, actually makes them feel superior and embolden them in continuing what they are doing and they also use it to boost their propaganda. It's just embarrassing to "the West" (global democratic alliance) and completely counterproductive. Better focus on sending gear to Ukraine, pursuing international war tribunal in The Hague and drafting war reparation scheme in the meantime.

We don't negotiate, we completely deafeat them, then they either come to negotiate with us or we invite them only then. That's what the Estonian PM means. Kind of similar to end of WW2 German and Japanese surrender situation.

A good example is the First Chechen War, it was Kremlin who came to negotiate:

You simply don't negotiate with these sort of people. The disgusting kleptocratic imperialistic regime must be brought to its knees, then we might talk (read - they accept our/Ukrainian conditions)...

Very likely. Mr Biden et al will have a talk with Erdoğan if needed. Turkey can't really block anything. Finland and Sweden add significant manpower, and gear and strategic value to NATO (from defensive point of view obviously).

Erdoğan is going to run in "elections" in a year so I'm pretty sure it's all about that. Plus he's in real danger of revolt or being overthrown (yes, he's sort of a mini-Putin) because of failed stupid monetary policy experiments causing inflation to rise to 70%! When high inflation kicked in, instead of increasing the interest rates the Turkish central Bank cut them leading to the 70%. It's as smart as using petrol to put out a fire instead of water...