A defeated Russia is far more likely to be given access back to European markets than one actively engaging in a partitioned Ukraine.
Once we get through this winter there will be very little appetite to roll back on the shift away from dependence on Russia. Last winter was already the death knell of Russian energy hegemony.
Just imagine a few years ago we had the Russians flying these bombers into Irish airspace just to test what response they'd get from the Irish and UK authorities. We had reams of headlines produced in the papers about the bear showing it's claws to Ireland and mocking this country.
Now we have ground crews in Russia throwing car tyres on the wings and top of the aircraft like you would when covering a silage pit. Just because they're terrified of the bombers being hit by cardboard drones. Which has already happened with two bombers destroyed.
Karma.
A group Russia will lead.
😂🤣
Genuinely no other response to that drivel.
Ignoring the fact that Russia is all but a vassal state of China at this point, the latest comraderie among the BRICS nations is that China have released an official map of the country laying claim to Indian territory. The idea that they will ever be any kind of coordinated communal economic alliance is fantasy.
BRICS is only valuable as long as it is useful.
Any of India, Brazil or South Africa could be gone out of that group very easily with a change of Government or an overreach by China.
BRICS is a group of countries with no common purpose other than not being any existing grouping of countries. Based on an article about emerging economy's in a newspaper. Can't see it being a grouping which lasts.
China and India absolutely hate each other. China is also becoming more of an influence on far eastern Russia than Moscow is and Brazil and South Africa only in because like you said The Economist or Time or someone coined a nice acronym. The latter have far more important regional groups to deal with.
It's just the G7's Europa League/ Joe McDonagh cup.
China accounts for something like 70% of economic activity amongst BRICS nations, something like 10x that of Russia and they're somehow going to be led by Russia in an economic alliance. It takes one hell of a superiority complex to buy into that shite.
Russian dominance over the entire solar system. Woohoo. Right on.
This you @RealityReallyMatters ?
I doubt very much if you will find in any plane manufacturers a recommendation to place tyres ( or indeed anything else either) on the wings of parked aircraft. Not to mention that some foreign bodies could find their way into the working's of the flaps etc. or what a pair of heavy Russian work boots would do to the paint finish, reducing streamlining.
Compared to the customs reducing RCEP BRICS is just **** and giggles.
Realistically there's a good chance of a South American trade blocs, but the only thing uniting BRICS is a united distrust of the USA.
..
Views on Putin being handed over to the Hague?
Like Whack a Mole.
That ship is sailed. Kiss your gas goodbye. As for hotels and accommodations out west, the quickest way to repatriate UK war refugees is to help restore their territory asap. Who wouldn't want to go back and build their nation up. Maybe a few draft dodgers but they can be turfed out.
We do not have any official territorial disputes and those we had in the past certainly were not conducive to economic, never mind military, cooperation.
In what way is Ukraine a vassal state? They rely on support from other countries but that is not remotely the same thing. The reason there are in this position is because they are resisting becoming a vassal state like their neighbouring lackies Belarus.
That's an inverted inferiority complex. Something a lot of Russians seem to have.
7kgs of mayhem in a drone. More Ukrainian innovation.
Ah he was being highly sarcastic.
Interviewer was too.
They know the score in expansionist Putin land.
Ukraine's new defence minister has been announced
I didn't go myself but a Welsh farmer delivered a small ickle pickup from me to Ukraine with this group.
Their 100th vehicle has gone out now.
Sounds pretty crazy alright, although I do wonder whenever a Russian is asked this kind of thing on camera how much of it is sincere conviction and how much is them trying to avoid falling out of a window while swimming.
How long does Ukraine have to punch a decisive hole in the first line of defence? Ukraine needs at some point to pick up speed in order to not give a chance to Russian forces to fall back to new defences in an organised fashion. However, it remains difficult to pick up speed if there are more minefields to clear in between the first and second lines, and Russia has more time to lay these if progress on breaching the first line is slow. That is unless there are things which make it impractical to impossible for Russia to lay minefields in between the first and second lines of defence.
Reality is that it doesn't really matter as russia have stopped advancing* and are purely trying to maintain what they have while burning through their equipment on the field and cash reserves at an insane rate.
All while Ukraine equips more modern and better trained brigades and continue having success with drones.
Even if there was 0 progress (and while slow, it seems much more that that), Ukraine aren't going to give their country up and the cost of doing so for the west is minimal.
*bar the odd foray that seem designed to distract
There is a long program on RTE 2 now that is interesting. Obviously RTE didn't make so I'll edit this to say who did and if it's online.
If you watch on +1 it starts at 10.40pm.
Yeah, and as the saying goes, " Be careful what you wish for, in case you might get it". This has never been truer that replacing the US with China as the main player in that part of the world. Boy, are in for some surprises!!!!
China may be the main player in BRIC but they are currently in position to dominate much themselves as it stands. Crazy unemployment and a crippled financial sector. BRIC is very much an irrelevance until they recover.
China, off topic, but high youth unemployment is one of the considerations when old men in government are contemplating a short glorious war with a neighbour. Taiwan? Or Eastern Russia?
BRICS seems like a canard. Russia is a pariah state with a collapsed economy, and South Africa has 30+% unemployment. Better to call it "BIC". Per your comment, maybe BI.
Well if a thick enough layer of ice can destroy a wing's lift, a layer of tyres woudn't even let it get off the ground, but they're probably not secured anyway so I supposed they would slide off once the aircraft picks up enough speed. But they would add some drag while the aircraft accelerates on the runway, depending on how big and heavy the tyres are so they might have an adverse effect on the length of the takeoff roll. Then there's the chaos as twenty or thirty big tyres go bouncing back down the runway.
New item for the pre-taxi checklist:
Anti-drone tyres...........Confirm removed from wings
On one level it's a laugh, but it's also indicitave of the new military realities being ushered in by this war.
Leaving them on there during Take off? wow they couldn't be that stupid could they?
I see there are conflicting reports about Shahed drones or parts of coming down in Romania. I'm sure its been discussed here before but wouldn't the Ukraine brass absolutely love an incident, either accidental or otherwise with a NATO country.
Tempting for some Ukrainian General who, sanctioned or unsanctioned might be under pressure or feeling the fatigue of war to try something silly to drag NATO into the fight. A false flag that could really set things off!
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