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.
Whose he? Just a random tweeter or someone in government or military?
Did Ukraine even attack belgorod?
They probably got there permission slip signed first considering who's likely gave them the intelligence first
It was awful what happened yesterday, and it is equally awful what happened today. Civilians, children, should never be harmed.
The essential content of a ceasefire deal needs to be considered, and that does not necessarily mean a loss of Ukrainian territory.
The actuality of other powers' concerns in the conflict can be leveraged; each can move back, bide time and lessen tensions, as well as ending the war on Ukraine. It just needs a bit of imagination and political will.
It’s starting to look like Ukraine didn’t attack Belgorod and instead Russian air defences overreacted and hit own city because they were keeping military equipment in residential areas
Feck, really? Still, missiles were fired.
I know. It's war.
Just musing about how the sh1tshow can be ended.
In the post cold war world it really did become irrelevant as even a forum when the US/UK invaded Iraq without a mandate.
So let me get this right. Russia can bomb the living daylights out of Ukraine but Ukraine can not fight back?
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.
Don't believe everything on the internet
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.
Even if Iraq and Crimea hadn't happened the blind support of the USA veto that allows the intergenerational genocide of the Palestinian nation is enough for rising nations to ignore it as a serious forum.
Despite the vital US arms supply to Ukraine this war is actually pushing Europe towards long term independence from NATO simply because Putin looked at the Iraq war as permission for his own Russian ambitions. If anyone gave Putin the gee up he needed it was Bush Jr at his Crawford ranch where Putin was very much treated as a strategic alley.
“ The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naïve theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind. “ - Arthur Travis, Marshal RAF
Russians entered the war thinking it be over in three days and there be no consequences
That is another problem (but not as egregious as when the permanent 5 members themselves are grabbing land like Hitler did back in the day, doing their own atrocities + covering up for themselves at the UN).
To my mind there's a huge amount of self serving hypocrisy in leadership and populations of some of these "rising nations" when it comes to who they want to hold to task, what crimes and perpetrators they focus on and what they will turn a blind eye to when it suits. Ukraine war really exposed it.
IMO Putin never needed bad examples from the USA or anyone else to invade and conquer other countries. All he required was a belief there was no other way to get what he wanted and the potential opposition was weak enough, so he could "win" his prize and get away with it.
Not sure what Iraq war (20 years ago now) has to do with it, but Europe is a very long way from independence from NATO (and US military power). The European NATO members don't want it either, but they presumably must all be watching what is going on in the US right now and thinking hard about "plan Bs", what must be done to deter likes of Russia (and I suppose Turkey) in a future where the US abandons them to their own devices.
It sems that Putin was inspired by Dr Evil..
Their own history is of closed cities to the world and leave the residents to die and give birth to babies with cancer just to keep secrets and kill anyone who would divulge secrets. They've gotten away with it on their own. Not surprising then the Russian sees fit that others should endure the same crap.
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.
Russia. 2024.
“What are your hopes for the future?”
“There is no Hope”
The post shows that soldiers on the ground are aware of the west's lack of resolve.
The broader public was outraged by Russia's actions in the first few months of the war, then got bored of the conflict. Just like they will get bored of Gaza soon enough
Those of us still posting here are as outraged by Russia's terrorist actions now as in March 2022.
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).
My disgust with the Russian nation really started with their murder of Dutch children who where flying over Ukraine.
@Strazdas
Mood seems quite grim and depressed.
Might just be typical Russia. They regard people smiling for no reason with a degree of distrust.
True, you probably would have gotten a similar response in a vox pop ten years ago. I did find Steve's report interesting though....definite signs of war weariness and the novelty having worn off.
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?
I don't think it matters much that ordinary Russian people are weary of war if they're not willing to translate that into some sort of pressure on their government to end it. I think Russians - especially those out in the provinces - kind of get off on hardship, as if they feel like they've not a proper person until they have some great difficulty to contend with.
We in the West may look on war weariness as some kind of sign of flagging support, whereas in Russia, it's just another load to hitch on their back and carry without complaint.
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.
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