Russia - threadbanned users in OP

It seemed to me to be less damage control and more a pooh-poohing of Putin's annexation stunt. As far as NATO is concerned, it's business as usual.

Putin needs to learn that you can't just ignore a pooh-pooh.

State of Putin's cheeks he looks like he went to Mickey Rourke's plastic surgeon

You'd wonder do they have the combined intelligence to realise they have just became prime target number 1,2,3,4 in Ukraine and what they were essentially doing today was signing their inevitable death certs.

Literally cheer leading it. 😂

A nation of rapists and murderers. Fascist scum.

NATO Secretary General says Ukraine has the right to "re-take" Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia. Adds that we should not accept "nuclear blackmailing" and that a nuclear war cannot be won and that must be clearly conveyed to Russia

the word of Jens , amen

If nothing else, the special military miscalculation is a powerful rebuttal to President Xi's assertion that authoritarianism would win out over democracy, because authoritarianism was the only thing that could solve the complexities of 21st century problems...

I understand this sentiment. It's a really grim and disgusting juxtaposition of images

But you can nuke a Ukrainan city

That stuff will undoubtedly happen. But we can be pretty sure that unless Putin is killed or goes nuclear - both very unlikely - this is settling into a long, drawn out conflict, which - probably the best phrase I've heard about this whole war - "neither side can afford to lose, and neither side has the means to win". As in definitively win, beyond the inevitable seesawing that we've seen over the months

The right honourable member from Zaporizhzhia is embarassing his entire puppet republic.

It does look like he has burned all his bridges with the West and has accepted Russia's pariah state status.

Detonating a tactical nuclear weapon would be a serious and dangerous escalation but I wouldn't see it as the thing that precipitates WW3 or Armageddon. Even if Putin has gone insane, the rest of the world are still in possession of their marbles and are not going to allow the planet to be wiped out just to feed the ego of a crank dictator presiding over a third world and failed state.

Why would Russia need a referendum to feel correct about using nukes in order to prevent Ukrainian forces retaking the lands which Putin has now declared to be part of Russia? Putin wrote in his own words that modern Ukraine was a parcel of land created by the Bolsheviks and parts of Russia were unjustly cleaved off to form it.

So he regards the modern state of Ukraine as an artificial state whose existence could be supported by Russia so long as it remained within Russia's sphere of influence, but then blames the West for encouraging a thread of Russophobia and anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalism as a pretext to pull Ukraine away from Russia.

If he regards Ukraine, or parts thereof, as belonging to Russia in spirit, if not by legal right, then I don't really see the point of needing a referendum to make that official when it isn't even going to be recognised by the international community and any escalation in defence of these lands will be treated with the same seriousness. Even within Russia, I have to think that those prepared to believe Putin were going to believe him anyway and those who were doubtful were still going to have doubts. He got to have a nice fancy ceremony, though, so there is that.