Russia - threadbanned users in OP

And this is precisely the beauty and resilience of democracies ( which you may not be familiar with!).

Governments fall and then are replaced by another government all according to their democratic principles. There is a relatively seamless transfer of power and personnel at the helm, albeit probably with new or updated policies and directions.

This is the key difference between autocracies and dictatorships, and why democracies endure and prosper while your system can only collapse and then try to start again.

I don't think NATO commanders are keen to give legitimacy to the game Putin is playing by engaging in the same tactics. It's a handy excuse for Putin to go back to his people and what few allies Russia has left and say that he's only doing what NATO is.

It's clear at this stage that Putin is seeing the red mist and letting his heart rule over his head in terms of what strategy to pursue. He's flailing. If you look at it like a boxing match, this is exactly the point where NATO needs calm and logic most of all to pick to the punches it wants to land in order to defeat Putin swiftly, not go in with haymakers itself. Boxing clever, in other words, not boxing angry.

None of those European govt. "collapses" had anything to do with Russia or Ukraine though.

Boris partied too heartily & told too many lies for the Tory party to put up with.

There was a domestic coalition row in Italy that caused Draghi to step down. I think he'd pretty much had enough of that job anyway.

In Italy afaik the currently popular far right people (Brothers of Italy) are telling the voters they are not Putin's catspaws and they won't be changing Italian policy on Ukraine/Russia sanctions. They might not be telling the whole truth (?), but even then, they must be saying this because kow-towing to Putin/Russia and shafting Ukraine is not popular and will not win votes!

I don't know what the Sweden Democrat's views on the invasion are, but don't think these or the hidden hand of your idol in the Kremlin has anything to do with their current popularity or weakness of the govt. parties - it is domestic stuff driving it as always.

All of Putins best information and advance planning led him to believe that there would not be any resistance to his "Regime Change , de-Nazification plan" for Ukraine. It would be welcomed in fact, with flower's and vodka. Had he known back then what he knows now, would he have invaded? I doubt it very much. You are well aware of his other plans, to restore historic injustices re former Russian lands, including Alaska and former USSR states, whether NATO or not? He has declared this, if you care to check. So he has or had a plan. And now, while he is again wildly waving his "Nuclear Deterrent" around , do you think that NATO will stop him if he decides to go all out and use his Nuclear deterrent?? I would not bet on it. And now, even more so than ever, because he is in the process of manufacturing a justification for him to use his bomb.

Putin is a pussycat compared to most of the Communist leadership of Russia.

People should look at the red Terror in the early 20s, especially in Ukraine, nevermind the 30s and 40s.

It's a reflection on how truly murderous communism rather than praise of Vlad.

To the best of my knowledge, NATO will not accept any applications from States / Countrys if they are already involved in a dispute / war. So even after this war ends, there will be a long period of years before Ukraine could be accepted. The EU is a different matter though.

Putin has made all his advisors and mouthpieces millionaires and billionaires off the back off Russian people. They are living lavish lifestyles sheltered from the war.

They know which side their bread is buttered.

None of his inner circle are going to take him down from within which is depressing.

The UN was created to prevent the invasion of countries by others, and here we have Russia openly doing that, and threatening other UN countries with nuclear bombs, and yet the UN can't come together and kick Russia out, and yet Russia on a whim can declare huge parts of Ukraine as now Russia.

UN is a joke, vote on kicking them out, how on earth can you have a UN member butchering innocent people, and having the vote to make sure no one can stop them.

I'd say that after all the millions/ billions invested in the armed forces after the Georgia debacle ( he could not understand how it to his "Superior Army" 10 or 12 days to subdue an inferior Georgian force. ) So when he mentioned his pet "Ukrainian Russification Project" to his advisers, and asked= why not? After all, he had the 2nd best army in the world, didn't he? Or did he? So of course he was assured that he did indeed have the 2nd best army in the whole wide world. And as they say.... the rest is history.

There is no mechanism in the UN charter to eject a permanent member of the SC

There is no mechanism to change the charter if a permanent member vetoes it

Therefore, we need to create a new UN 2.0 organisation with a new charter that is agreed by all the existing UN members other than those clearly failed states that used to be UN Permanent SC members in UN v 1.0

Didn't Russia support and sponsor the invasion of south Korea by the North,and actually sent Russian troops and aircraft to fight against UN forces in south Korea, while preaching and calling for peace and negotiations at the UN General assembly at the time.

Precedent set ..

Lots of UN members are pissed off at Russia today as well, I'm just making the point it has happened already and the member didn't get removed

If we could place limits on them they wouldn't really be superpowers

Russia is not a superpower anymore, arguably, neither is the UK or France (apart from having a big nuclear arsenal). There is no mechanism to add or remove permanent members to the security council, so it needs to fail, and be replaced by something new

The act of removing Russia from the UNSC will cause a crisis where there will be a full rebalancing of global hegemony

Nobody knows what future fudge there will be when the Current system collapses, but you can be sure that it will be very different to what we have now

Russia isn't a superpower anymore.

But this thing about the US invasion of Iraqi us often trotted out. Firstly, plenty of people in the West were against that invasion, and the sense that it was the wrong course of action only increased over time. Even leaving that aside, if the principle is that one country is wrong to invade another, it Is better for that principle to be applied even once than never for fear of looking hypocritical.