Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Shameless. What a joke the UN Security Council has become over the last year.

With the divisions there (US/West vs China/Russia), it is a farce. I wonder if it got as bad as this in the Cold War?

The way Russia probably view it is, well, we have a permanent UN Security Council Seat so let's use it to attack Ukraine, throw up distractions and waste time with a load of bullshít.

As the saying goes, don't bite the hand that feeds you.

They probably got there permission slip signed first considering who's likely gave them the intelligence first

In the post cold war world it really did become irrelevant as even a forum when the US/UK invaded Iraq without a mandate.

Yes, probably start of the rot post Cold War.

It has sunk to new depths when you have one of the Great Permanent 5 Global "watchmen" shamelessly wiping their bottom with the charter for 2 years. You'd wonder what is the point of the Security Council in particular any more.

I am pessimistic it still would have ended up where it is now anyway, had Iraq invasion never happened.

It may end up that Ukraine has to de facto cede territory and agree to a ceasefire, but I don't think they'd ever go as far as saying that they recognise the territory that Russia currently occupies. If Ukraine do agree to a lasting ceasefire, they will want absolute cast iron guarantees that Russia won't simply try to rearm, regroup and go again, and those guarantees will be almost entirely what western powers are willing to put on the line in defence of Ukraine as opposed to guarantees from Putin, because the latter is utterly worthless. We all know that Putin would like nothing more than to have Zelenskyy's head on a pike carried through Moscow.

But the greater problem with agreeing to a lasting ceasefire is that it essentially signals that the West is only willing to defend its interests to a point and chunks can be taken out of the West's sphere of influence. All that is needed is patience and a willingness to take casualties. That begs the question of what other territorial ambitions a Ukraine ceasefire would greenlight.

To go full nightmare scenario for a second, if the U.S. goes back to Trump and throws out its constitution, you could end up with the US, Russia and China being aligned (pending a few token concessions from China), because Trump is a great admirer of dictators like Putin and Xi, as we know, and then where does that leave the EU? There does come a point where the events of the day are no longer an abstraction to us. Not a thing that's happening over there, but something baring down on us. The idea of a Sino-Russian army coming along looking to carve up Europe for themselves sounds like some crazy alternate future, I know. I'm not saying that it's an imminent possibility, but I don't want to see the world sleepwalk into a position where it becomes an actual possibility, either.

It sems that Putin was inspired by Dr Evil..

They were going to say absolutely nothing about Chernobyl either until the radiation was detected in Sweden. To hell with informing the neighbors that they could be poisoned. Then there was the absolute animal treatment of their own sailors on the Kursk for the sake of national pride. The naivety in some quarters towards Russia is startling despite there being a very long well documented history of their behaviour through the years in line with Chernobyl and the Kursk. And their current determination is to return to and continue that behaviour.

it’s like the more educated and connected we have become and the more vast information at the click of button that we have the more stupid and zoned out people have become and just swallow any ould shite.

The post shows that soldiers on the ground are aware of the west's lack of resolve.

Mood seems quite grim and depressed. Definite signs of war weariness and a wish it was over (interesting too to hear several people use the word "war" and not "special military operation", even though use of the former is supposedly banned).

@Strazdas

Might just be typical Russia. They regard people smiling for no reason with a degree of distrust.

Under Communism, mistrust of everyone was completely normal, and was in fact state fostered. People who smiled were often greeted with suspicion, and no one wanted to attract the attention of the police. That mindset died away a bit during the Glasnost years, but now is making a full blown come back under and reinforced by Putin. One way to see what the prevailing mood of Muscovites was to take a ride in the Metro (fantastic) and if there's the "Buzz" of background conversations then things can be taken as normal. But if this is missing and the people are sullen and silent, that means massive dissatisfaction. For sure, they have little to be happy about, do they?

Yes, that's true. And it even shows here on boards....at the height of the Hamas attack, posts here on boards about Russia / Ukraine dropped to a mere trickle of hardy posters, while posts on the Gaza thread skyrocketed. Now the score board is evening up a bit again.