Take a look at this leaflet, distributed by the University and College Union (UCU) recently as part of its ongoing phoney war with universities over, well, having the moon on a stick.
I’ve circled the relevant part in red. Yes, you’ve read it correctly – it’s not an optical illusion or trick of the light. The sign really does say what it appears to say.
Think about this for a moment. It’s bad enough, of course, that somebody purporting to be a lecturer at a university or college wouldn’t know how to spell ‘tragedy’ or would make an innocent slip of the pen when writing the word and not think to correct it. But that in itself wouldn’t be worth commenting on. What’s notable about the leaflet, rather, is the two quite startling things that had to happen in order for its cover photo to have made its way into the public domain. The first is that nobody involved in the demo said to the person holding up the banner, “You appear to have made a mistake: that’s not how you spell ‘tragedy’. So maybe you therefore shouldn’t hold that thing up in public, as it will make us look like clowns given that we are purporting to be academics who should be given a pay rise at a rate of 3% above the CPI for educating the best and brightest of the country.” And the second is that nobody at the UCU had any qualms about putting the photo on presumably hundreds of thousands of printed leaflets for public distribution. The first thing looks like shoddiness. But the second looks more like contempt: why should scholars display any basic adherence to the values of excellence or intellectual rigour? And why indeed should they care what other people think of them?
Sadly, though, this is entirely in keeping with modern academia’s attitude in the round. Readers will be probably be familiar with the University of Hull’s policy of not marking students down for bad spelling or grammar on the grounds that insisting on good English is “elitist” and (yawn) “homogenous, North European, white [and] male”. This is just one of the more egregious examples in a wider pattern, however, of practices that are designed deliberately to dumb-down university education and lower standards in the name of ‘inclusivity’, and which now permeate U.K. academia at every level – even Oxford is at it. The mood music in the profession is essentially that students go to university in order that they be treated fairly, which in itself means tailoring everything in such a way that the educational experience is moulded to every nuance of every single student’s character, abilities and background. And since aptitude, ability and education are themselves simply facets of a student’s character, then they should be treated in exactly the same way – as reasons why the individual tailoring process needs to take place. Johnny can’t help being lazy, and therefore we need to make sure that we treat him inclusively in spite of his laziness. Sarah can’t help being a bit thick and not able to spell, and therefore… and so on and so on.
The dismal truth underlying all of this – and it is a truth which is illustrated quite nicely by the UCU leaflet depicted above – is that while academics trump all of this as being “good educational practice [which] benefits all students“, the main group of people it benefits are academics themselves. When standards get lowered, you don’t have to really work very hard, teaching becomes a lot less challenging, one can present oneself as being lovely and nice and matey all the time, and one can breezily give all students wonderful marks and see them off at graduation with a warm glow and first class degrees that aren’t worth the paper they are written on. Putting into effect exacting standards is hard work – and academics, being very intelligent people, are really good at thinking up justifications, dressed in the floweriest prose, as to why hard work is a bust and comfort all round is the way to go. Why should we expect students to achieve high standards when it’s ‘good educational practice’ for them not to have to? And why should we spell words on banners correctly given that the rules of spelling are themselves simply a manifestation of the patriarchy?
The wider question, of course, is what to do about this problem, which is becoming acute. Modern academia is almost monolithically globalist and dominated by the interests of a particular Brahmin caste of upper middle class remoaners. They don’t see the education of the next generation of our country’s leaders as a priority – indeed, they would think this idea to be laughable (and, in fairness, vast swathes of them are from overseas anyway). What they are chiefly interested in is feathering their own nests, pursuing their niche research interests and convincing themselves that they are contributing to a broader mission of making the world more just, fair and so on. In this sense, it’s entirely natural for them to pooh-pooh the pursuit of excellence and scholarly rigour, and to celebrate ‘inclusivity’. How do we turn the tanker around? Christ knows; the Tories have been in power for 13 years and haven’t yet indicated they even think it’s an issue, but maybe a long period out in the cold will focus their minds a little. Fingers crossed.
Busqueros is a pseudonym.
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Ukraine conflict a boon for defense industry
Really? Gosh! Who could have foreseen such a thing?
Should we wonder if this has anything to do with:
“Scott Horton: “…. I interviewed the great Ben Freeman, real nuts and bolts and bean counting expert on foreign lobbies and their influence in Washington DC, and of course that means he specialises first and foremost in the Israel Lobby and the Saudi Lobby, but he did this huge study about the Ukraine Lobby and said they put more money in by far than anyone has ever seen. They put the Israel Lobby and the Saudi Lobby to shame. Now as he said, they’re way ahead in the race anyway, they’ve got very deep grooves already in DC, the Ukraine Lobby is new at this. But they’re just dumping hundreds of millions of dollars in…to propagandise, to focus directly on the most important Senators and Congressmen and their staff, the thinktanks, and the media. And it’s just – they got K Street, they got professional lobbyists, you mentioned the babies in incubators – that was the Hill and Knowlton public relations firm on Madison Avenue in New York City that came up with that. But who the hell are we to compete with that? We’re nobody, we’re just the American people. Foreign lobbies have far more influence than we have over our government and their foreign policies, by a million miles at this point”
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/3-4-22-peter-van-buren-on-the-war-in-ukraine-and-the-origins-of-russiagate/
Nah, that would be a “conspiracy theory”…..
The difference between a conspiracy theory and a practical phenomenon.
Six months.
This article breaks the cardinal rule that anything about Ukraine must be 99% emotion.
Aside from that, refreshingly pragmatic analysis. How easy it is to give others weapons to fight wars which we would like them to win (without necessarily knowing why), but which we can just switch off from when the going gets tough.
A whole 1% non-hysterical, reasoned analysis? What are you, some kind of Putin-loving commie appeaser?
Yes, I admit that 1% is an over-estimate. Call it a rounding error.
As far as I can glean (so far that is, the insults are still evolving) I’m a far-right, anti-vax, Putin-loving conspiracy theorist who just wants innocent people to die.
We can’t all be perfect.
“I’m a far-right, anti-vax, Putin-loving conspiracy theorist”
One of the good guys, then, most likely….
Refreshingly simple and naive, more like.
If only the world could be split into the goodies and the baddies, like Noah Carl would like. Unfortunately, it’s a bit more complicated.
Am I the only one to notice how whenever one tries to deviate from the “Russia are the baddies” narrative to provide some nuance or context, they feel obliged to put in something along the lines of “Putin is of course a terrible person, but…”.
It reminds of how with covid any criticism of policy had to be preceded with some sort of praise of the vaccines. As in, the vaccines are of course safe and effective, but do we really need to be giving them to 8 year olds..”
Come on, DS, have the guts to be really sceptical and publish something that suggests Putin might have a point and may just be a leader in a tough situation having to make some tough, difficult decisions. That view point does exist and may actually have some truth to it.
On the international front, is he any worse than Bush Jr or Blair for the carnage they brought to Iraq?
On the national front, is he any worse than Clinton, whose three strikes and out law doubled the US prison population making the US the country with biggest proportion of people in jail in the whole world?
On the international front, is he any worse than Bush Jr or Blair for the carnage they brought to Iraq?
The answer is no. They exported their death and suffering half way round the world for the benefit of their friends and private corporations. Their crimes are without equal.
You make lots of good points here, especially:
… whenever one tries to deviate from the “Russia are the baddies” narrative to provide some nuance or context, they feel obliged to put in something along the lines of “Putin is of course a terrible person, but…”.
Although I’ll add that he probably is a pretty terrible person. Having said that, I do accept that he may well be in a tough situation and faced with some tough choices – and Russians faced with tough choices don’t seem to shrink from them.
As for splitting the world into goodies and baddies, I didn’t read NC’s article like that – rather as striving for the best of outcomes in a very bad situation, or at least not making it worse because some action or other feels like the right thing to do.
My own views on Ukraine? Well I’m the first to admit that I don’t know enough about to to reach an informed judgement – just that I’m very suspicious of the Western narrative, and accept that the Russians may indeed have a point .(… always remembering of course that Putin is a bad person …).
Ten days or so ago I put up on here that I thought the West should try to de-escalate the situation, certainly not escalate it, prepare for a New Cold War, and remember that Russia and Russians have rights too. A week-and-a-half later I’m still at that point.
I’m not saying you’re wrong. I don’t actually know one way or the other. But what do you base that on?
If you don’t say things like that you get accused of being some sort of Russian apologist despite having grievances against all sides.
Any national leader who’s ‘re-elected’ repeatedly in the face of practically zero opposition is unlikely to be a good guy.
Also using nerve agent attempting to murder a dissident on British soil, who apparently couldn’t care less about that dissident’s family or whatever collateral damage was caused amongst the incidental British population – unlikely to be a good guy.
And anyone who was in the KGB and rises to head the Russian state is unlikely to be Mary Poppins.
I am unsure of the tactical situation in Ukraine. But if the invasion was prompted purely by preventing her joining NATO, sorting the US bio-labs, and protecting Russian sympathising peoples in Ukraine – wouldn’t there be more effective ways of achieving this than what appears top be happening on the ground? It’s so hard to get any sense of what is happening from our media. But on the one hand the assaults on the civilian population seem like war crimes, as reported at least; on the other hand if the Russian army was seeking all-out war on the civilian population they certainly don’t seem to be going about it very thoroughly or determinedly.
I admit that this whole post may be a superficial view though – and stand open to other, more deeply informed, arguments.
I guess it’s all relative.
As the leader of a country, I imagine it’s hard not to encounter situations where you might have to decide to harm others for what you judge to be a greater good.
I’m not unaware of the things you mention. I’m just not sure they make him worse than other leaders of big powerful countries.
Perhaps more to it all than meets the eye.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/03/why_russia_invaded_ukraine.html
“Also using nerve agent attempting to murder a dissident on British soil, who apparently couldn’t care less about that dissident’s family or whatever collateral damage was caused amongst the incidental British population – unlikely to be a good guy.“
You might like to revisit your beliefs about that nonsense in the light perhaps of a more clear-eyed view of the honesty of the mainstream media.
It never made any sense in the first place (I mean what possible reason could there be for trying such an absurdly risky and complicated plot merely to kill a supposed enemy, when a bullet in the back of the head would be just as effective at a fraction of the cost and none of the risks? Putin wanted to “send a message”? What message – “I’m an evil fantasy genius stroking a white cat”?)
In the light if what we learned over Russiagate about British intel collusion in fabricating anti-Russian lies and the extent to which they were willing to go, the Occam’s Razor conclusion is certainly that the novichok stuff was more of the same.
There’s plenty of research out there in alternative media (obviously not in the mainstream) that demolishes the Official Truth version.
As I wrote in my post, I’m open to different viewpoints or interpretations. Anyone care to post a link to a useful article on this affair then I’ll read it.
Downvoters please explain your rationality? Or were they purely emotional reactions to someone questioning your own narrative by wishing to remain open?
Thank you LovelyGirl. It’s amazing how admitting that you are open to argument can get you downvotes (not that I care btw).
But maybe there’s the rub – in the society we now are merely to admit to doubts, to accept that you don’t know everything, and to admit that yours isn’t the ultimate wisdom is enough to draw censure.
“So a more pertinent question would be, “Was it moral to arm Ukraine?””
Perhaps. Personally I’d rather my country’s leaders were asking whether it was sensible to do so….
“Of course, if we lived in a world without nuclear weapons, we could enter the war on Ukraine’s side and probably achieve a decisive victory over Russia – thanks to America’s overwhelming military power. But that isn’t the world we live in. And we have to make plans based on reality.”
Pretty clear that were it not for Russia’s nuclear weapons, NATO bombs and missiles would already be striking Russia, just as they struck Yugoslavia 23 years ago..
So let’s not have any more nonsense about “nuclear weapons are pointless” or “can’t be used” or “deterrence doesn’t work”.
“We” have just been deterred.
Pretty clear that were it not for Russia’s nuclear weapons, NATO bombs and missiles would already be striking Russia, just as they struck Yugoslavia 23 years ago..
Except that they didn’t. Yugoslavia[*] fell apart in civil war between the ruling Serbs and all the other peoples. In particular, the Serbs tried to retain (or regain) control of historically Serbian territory meanwhile mainly populated by local muslims. Ultimatively, the events around that led to a NATO invervention (the first ever) which ended the war.
[*] The cutesty name hides the real one which was southern kingdom of the serbs (or kingdom of the southern serbs) another artificial state the Self-determination of the peoples! entente powers created out of Austrian and Hungarian parts of former Austria-Hungary with total disregard for the people and peoples living there to give it to Serbia as spoils of war. After the second world war, it became a semi-independent part of the European empire of Russia. As was usually the case, the experiment turned sour [**].
[**] And by the way, Syria, some random part of the former Ottoman Empire, is also one of these states and was created in the same way[***].
[***] One could almost start to believe that, without Mr Wilson’s ill-advised meddling, a lot of war and grief in Europe and the near and middle-east since 1918 could have been entirely avoided.
“Except that they didn’t. Yugoslavia[*] fell apart in civil war “
Serbia and Montenegro chose to continue as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia afterwards.
Not that the name of the victim state is of the slightest significance to the point made.
For a while.
As I’m not familiar with the language, I mistranslated the name: It’s really originally Southern Slavic Kingom. The name matters a lot here because this wasn’t really a state, but an artifical, multi-ethnic conglomerate created by the winners of the first world war and dominated – much to the misgivings of sizable number of the other people in the area – by the Serbs. The NATO didn’t attack Yugoslavia but intervened in a civil among the different peoples forced into this state, attacking Serbia in order to end this civil war.
Taking a wider perspective, the entente powers, that is, France and Great Britain, plus their historical ally, the USA, ended up having to use force to clean up the mess in this region they could have avoided creating in the first place, had they either not insisted on re-balkanizing the Balkan to ensure a convenient power vacuum in central Europe or at least acted according to their stated principles. That was this self-determination of the peoples thing which only ever applied to non-German people and even to these only to the degree that they were allowed to self-determinately agree to being put into whatever state the great European remodellers wanted to put them into.
“The NATO didn’t attack Yugoslavia”
Of course they did.
Not even the shameless whitewash (as usual) that was the Commons Select Report on the Kosovo war tried to use that spurious argument to defend their action, concerning which they were forced to admit:
“Our conclusion is that Operation Allied Force was contrary to the specific terms of what might be termed the basic law of the international community—the UN Charter“
Your quote does not substantiate your leading statement which is very misleading as it suggests the entity referred to as Yugoslavia was at peace before and it wasn’t. The NATO intervened in a civil war with the intent to stop it.
This also suggests that Yugo-Ententia had some kind of legitimate right of existence and that it somehow belonged to the Russians, both of which is wrong. It was a Serbian (mini-)empire in the balkans created by the winners of the first world war in their usual way which ended up as semi-dependent part of the Russian sphere of influence after the second world war. It started to fall apart after the death of military dictator/ communist leader Tito. With hindsight, one can conclude that it was always destined to crumble as the different peoples forced into this state weren’t happy with the way the Serbs ran it. This makes it a spectacularly bad example for unprovoked attack on an independent state.
Despite Russia still being a multi-ethnic empire dominated by the Russians, there’s currently no civil war there and even if there was, it’s entirely unclear why the NATO would want to intervene there (such a civil war ought to happen east of the Ural) or how it possibly could. Attempts to invade Russia (and vice-versa) have historically not fared well and the NATO is nowhere near to having the relative military power of Napoleon or Hitler at its disposal.
The idea of nuclear deterrent to avoid a conventional war is laughable. All major military powers on the earth have nukes. Hence, they all have a Press this button to lose the war button at their disposal. Defeat now may be overcome by victory in ten years. But making large parts of the Earth physically uninhabitable won’t.
“The idea of nuclear deterrent to avoid a conventional war is laughable. “
You seem to be losing your grip on rationality here. Why does the idea of nuclear deterrence of a conventional attack, which we can all see right before our eyes in Russia today, upset you so much that you have to resort to all this hand-waving diversion about some technicalities you claim to have found to prove that the NATO attack on Yugoslavia was somehow not really an attack, even though the perpetrators themselves admitted that it was?
Do you really think the UK Parliamentary liars wouldn’t have seized that argument with both hands if there were the slightest chance it would hold any water?
The only part of your comments here that carries any weight on the issue is that you don;t believe that NATO would attack Russia anyway because NATO in your opinion couldn’t defeat Russia. Well, that’s an opinion. I don’t share it, fwiw, if for no other reason than that there’s clearly the kind of hysterical war fever in the US at the moment that is likely to trigger escalations and rash wars.
But nuclear weapons with global delivery systems have a wonderful way of concentrating the minds of even the most hysterical, or cynically murderous, of political leaders.
“The idea of nuclear deterrent to avoid a conventional war is laughable. “
You seem to be losing your grip on rationality here.
So much for pathologizing dissent. Wasn’t that something you recently complained about?
Nuclear weapons with global delivery systems have been a very effective tool of left-wing pacifism propaganda. They have no other conceivable uses. Mutual assured destruction means just that: Everybody loses. Hence, initiating this cannot ever be in anyone’s interest. It’s also useless to worry about this or rather, about as useful as worrying about an outbreak of the Yellowstone super vulcano: If it happens, it’s going to happen. As we’re all going to be dead afterwards, focusing on something more productive is a better idea.
Yugosyria disintegrated due to its inherent design flaws. This happened in the cause of a series of civil wars of someone against Serbia. And the NATO twice attacked Serbia (which might or might not have called itself Yugoblafaslia at that time) in order to stop one of these civil wars. This is not entirely the same as the effect-free invasion of Afghanistan, a much better example for NATO aggression. Just one the Russian panislavists usually wouldn’t use, not the least because their own military adventures in this region didn’t end gloriously.
“So much for pathologizing dissent. Wasn’t that something you recently complained about?“
My comment was aimed specifically at the quality of your argumentation here, not your general mental well-being.
“Nuclear weapons with global delivery systems have been a very effective tool of left-wing pacifism propaganda. They have no other conceivable uses. “
This I just don’t understand. I’m about as close to the opposite of a “left-wing pacifist” as you’ll ever encounter. but I’m very well familiar, as an old Cold Warrior, with the very real benefits of nuclear weapons with global delivery systems.
“Mutual assured destruction means just that: Everybody loses. Hence, initiating this cannot ever be in anyone’s interest. It’s also useless to worry about this or rather, about as useful as worrying about an outbreak of the Yellowstone super vulcano: If it happens, it’s going to happen. As we’re all going to be dead afterwards, focusing on something more productive is a better idea.“
MAD is an aspect of deterrence theory, but it’s not the be all and end all. First, MAD requires sufficient deliverable and second strike capable weapons to ensure effective destruction of the enemy. countermeasures notwithstanding. That can actually be quite a few. MAD wouldn’t reliably apply for instance to a confrontation between a third rank nuclear power such as the UK or France and a continental power. Second, there certainly could be exchanges short of a full exchange. Third, even the prospect of provoking the use of one nuke can raise the cost of a confrontation above its value.
But mainly, we are seeing nuclear deterrence of a non-nuclear attack this very minute, in Russia. Your fantasies about the attack on Yugoslavia not being somehow a “real attack” and therefore it doesn’t count to establish NATO’s aggressive intent, is both fatuous in itself and irrelevant. The history of the past 30 years is more than enough to establish a pattern of US aggression against countries it perceives as weak and uncooperative. Given the current climate of Russia-hating hysteria, it;’s rather unrealistic imo to pretend that missiles would not already be flying were it not for the Russian nuclear deterrent.
Pretty sure that if Ukraine hadn’t given up its nuclear weapons, relying on a guarantee from Russia that it would never invade, then there would be no Russian troops in Ukraine today.
“The bombs were not in fact Ukrainian, any more than NATO nuclear weapons stored on West European soil or US bombs that used to be kept in South Korea belonged to the countries on whose territory they were located. They were always Russian bombs that happened to be based in Ukraine. Moscow retained complete command and control and Kiev never had access to the authorisation codes necessary to launch them.”
https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/ukraine-and-nukes/
Of course nuclear deterrence works.
I have stated since decades that the only weapons a country really needs for its defense are a few nukes.
All the rest is vanity, bribes and offensive/imperialist.
The US and UK in particular would have it very easy: a few nukes and a proper coast guard is all they need and should have.
And if the nuclear deterrence had stopped working, it wouldn’t matter anymore anyway.
childishly naive…
the nuclear deterrence does not deter war, it deters the use of nuclear weapons.
or do you really think that nato would fire the first nuclear icbm the moment a russian tank would cross the border with latvia?
The people to ask about Bashar Al Assad are not Western pimps, prostitutes and funders of terrorists, rather the people of Syria.
Consistently during the Civil War fomented by the USA’s funding of terrorists, the legitimate President of Syria has enjoyed majority support of his own people.
They are the people who count. No-one in the UK Press has the right to an opinion on that, as they are all cheerleaders for terrorists who murder and maim Syrians year in, year out.
And I can tell you from direct, extensive personal experience that the arguments made for interfering in Syria were the exact same arguments, often by the exact same people, now used to rationalise interfering in the Ukraine.
And by and large they used the exact same demonisation and delegitimisation terms used against dissenters on the Ukraine, and resorted to the exact same false parallels with Hitler and “appeasement”.
And the advocates of interfering in the Ukraine are just as wrong as were the advocates of interfering in Syria, and for mostly similar reasons, mutatis mutandis.
false parallels with hitler and appeasement?
hitler and putin are both heads of state.
hitler claimed a piece of a sovereign country because the inhabitants were predominantly of his descent.
putin claims part of a sovereign country because the inhabitants are predominantly of his descent.
hitler invades the country.
putin invades the country.
all hitler wanted was sudetenland and danzig, yet he took poland.( remember ribbentrop/molotow?)
all putin wanted was crimea and eastern ukraine, yet he takes ukraine.
please do tell me what is false about it?
Saddam was Hitler
Milosevic was Hitler
Assad is Hitler
Putin is Hitler
Yemen, anyone?
That’s not correct, it’s a long time since Syria had anything resembling a free and fair election. Today, half the population are either refugees or not in an area controlled by Assad. It’s like saying you have a majority because you got rid of half the population.
Considering that Syria is another multi-ethnic conglomerate founded by the western colonial powers, there is no such thing as a legitimate Syrian president. Once upon a time in the past, it was ruled by the sort-of communist baath party (hence the historic ties with Russia) and it has since turned into a hereditary tyranny controlled by the Al-Assad family. They’re staying in power by being the biggest local bullies. Once they cease being this, their days of glory will be over.
Gosh, you could almost be describing the USA today.
Sending weapons means we’re ina proxy war, just as Iran is in the Lebanon or Syria.
It seems the media, WEF, and Western Governments (the same blob) are intent on cranking up the tension. Meanwhile, women, children and Russian conscripts die.
I understand it’s a fine line, but I really don’t believe the UK should be meddling in this regional war. Our interference only drags it out – the result will be the same.
The unintended consequences are a de-dollarised world (China/Russia/Middle East finance partnership), fuel nearing £2/litre, a massive distraction op by the blob from the Covid blame game and another refugee crisis.
Ukraine isn’t an ally of the UK and this war has been as much the EU/NATO’s fault as Putin’s.
“this war has been as much the EU/NATO’s fault as Putin’s” Sorry, but no. Russia constantly engaging in armed sruggles at the periphery of the russian sphere of influence, since the middle of the 80’s. There is a constant drifting of post-Soviet countries away from Russian influence and this motion has been accelerating in the last decade. Some reasons behind this are demographic, others are economic and cultural. Russia is a relatively small country when one wighs its economic power. Its GDP is roughly equal to Spain’s GDP. In the last 20 years, they could not develop a modern economy but heavily relied on the export of oil, gas and minerals. The political system and the putinist model of society is really far away from anything which someone living in the post-Soviet countries would like to follow as an achievable dream.
What does Russia’s GDP have to do with your assertion that Russia is a constant aggressor? What exactly is the link?
The main point is that Russia cannot maintain her sphere of influence by economic tools (as EU states can). It can maintain it only by force.
so, during all these years after soviet union collapse, how many countries did russia engage militarily exactly? Georgia? granted georgia was prevented from joining nato in a similar fashion, but has it been consumed and annexed fully into soviet union 2.0?
Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Belarus (by FSB forces), Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Checnya (part of the Russian Federation), Dagestan (part of the Russian Federation), Ingushetia (part of the Russian Federation), Moldova, Tajikistan
and with that he went completely silent.
funny how these trolls seem to be allergic to historical truths…
“this war has been as much the EU/NATO’s fault as Putin’s” Sorry, but no.
It is entirely the fault of the EU and NATO.
What world do you live in. You have got your views from the pack of idiots that frequent this site.
Ooh, that really stings, tree
I live in the real world whilst you live in clown world dictated to by a warped msm.
so sint petersburg is the real world?
Why does Russia keep buzzing Swedish airspace? Sweden is not a member of NATO. This war has almost nothing to do with NATO. Were it not for Putin’s stupidity, NATO would have disbanded in the next few years.
Sweden is regarded as a part of NATO without actually being a member.
The Russian incursion into Ukraine has everything to do with NATO.
A bizarre reply – either you’re a member or you’re not. Sweden has basically done what Putin asks forever Ukraine – it’s neutral, it’s non NATO. Bear in mind that Putin seized Crimea and the Donbass because Ukraine wanted to enter the EU, not NATO.
Sweden acts like a member without actually being a member.
Putin didn’t seize Crimea or the Donbass, they all overwhelmingly wanted to be aligned to Russia.
NATO countries have armed Ukraine and it is for that main reason that Russia has said no more. EU membership is a side show.
Sweden is proudly neutral. It doesn’t take part in NATO actions. I don’t know what you mean by ‘acting like a member’, and I don’t know what you expect it to do to be ‘less’ of a member.
Whether or not Crimea and the Donbass were pro Russian, the fact is that Putin still seized them by military force. If the views of the local population matter, why didn’t Putin let Chechnya go?
It was potential EU membership that kicked off the revolution and the course of events that led to the seizure of Crimea.
By the way, countries with an ongoing territorial dispute aren’t admitted to NATO. So Putin already had an effective veto on NATO membership.
NATO itself was on the way to self disbandment, before this action. This has to be one of the most spectacular foreign policy errors fall time.
Sweden was proudly neutral in WWII yet still exported to Nazi Germany vital supplies ….?
it might come as a shock to you but neutrality has its price…
Please desist from pushing the line you are in some way possessing knowledge that others don’t have. Sweden’s neutrality during WWII might be described very differently, wholly dependent upon who is buying – and who pays “the price”.
you bing nothing but a pompous arrogant arse, telling me what to say?
i don’t think so mate.
I hate quoting Wikipedia, but. for someone as ill informed as you I will make an exception.
“Units of the Swedish Armed Forces are currently on deployment in several international operations either actively or as military observers, including Afghanistan as part of the Resolute Support Mission and in Kosovo (as part of Kosovo Force).[10] Moreover, Swedish Armed Forces contribute as the lead nation for an EU Battlegroup approximately once every three years through the Nordic Battlegroup. Sweden has close relations with NATO and NATO members, and participates in training exercises like the Admiral Pitka Recon Challenge, and Exercise Trident Juncture 2018. Sweden also has a strong cooperation with its closest allies of the Nordic countries being part of the Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO) and joint exercises such as Exercise Northern Wind 2019.[11]
Sweden has not participated in an officially declared war since the 1814 Swedish–Norwegian War, although e.g. Swedish aircraft took part in the NATO-led 2011 military intervention in Libya.”
I don’t like to quote the establishment mouthpiece Wikipedia but as you are so misinformed I will make an exception.
“Units of the Swedish Armed Forces are currently on deployment in several international operations either actively or as military observers, including Afghanistan as part of the Resolute Support Mission and in Kosovo (as part of Kosovo Force).[10] Moreover, Swedish Armed Forces contribute as the lead nation for an EU Battlegroup approximately once every three years through the Nordic Battlegroup. Sweden has close relations with NATO and NATO members, and participates in training exercises like the Admiral Pitka Recon Challenge, and Exercise Trident Juncture 2018. Sweden also has a strong cooperation with its closest allies of the Nordic countries being part of the Nordic Defence Cooperation (NORDEFCO) and joint exercises such as Exercise Northern Wind 2019.[11]
Sweden has not participated in an officially declared war since the 1814 Swedish–Norwegian War, although e.g. Swedish aircraft took part in the NATO-led 2011 military intervention in Libya.”
how is the weather in sint petersburg?
No idea but it’s lovely and sunny in Bedfordshire.
bedfordshire is it now?
you sure move a lot lately…..
Do you know how pathetic you sound accusing people of being Russian trolls just because they have gone to the effort of seeking the truth instead of believing everything their governments and their presstitutes in the msm tell them?
seeking the truth?
so that is what you are doing?
have you found it yet?
so now you can tell me who shot down flight mh17?
but remember tovarish Wladimir is reading along…..
Neo-Nazi Ukrainians shot it down.
The manufacturers of the BUK missiles did a simulation and the only one’s who had the missile that brought down MH17 was the neo-Nazis.
sure buddy.
all the confirmation of you being a russian troll needed, you just provided….
you all fall for it every time i mention mh17….
.
You’d be hilarious if you weren’t so pathetic.
getting a bit nervous are you?
too late…
As I see it, this isn’t a regional war but a much bigger global financial war. The best explanation I’ve seen for all this is that the western dominated global financial system has been in decline for some time, in particular as a result of the rise of China, and the conflict has triggered a fight to take it down from one side and to keep it propped up from the other.
The scale and coordination of the response by the west otherwise doesn’t really make much sense. Every western country, all media, western corporations, banks, soft power organisations like the Premiership, UEFA etc have been rallied to provide a coordinated response in just a few days. To defend the right to self determination of Ukrainians? I really doubt it.
Absolutely agree. Another mass media hypnosis campaign.
Why is it ok for Russia to pump weapons into its allies? Why is it ok for Russia to get directly involved in fighting, as they did in the Donbass, Crimea, Syria etc?
The same reason it was ok for NATO to bomb Yugoslavia into submission, for the US and UK to destroy the Iraqi government and occupy the country, for NATO to regime change Libya and hand that country over to unending, murderous islamist chaos, for the US and its satellite states to try to do the same in Syria, etc.
Because they claim to consider it “necessary” and nobody can stop them.
And if you don’t like that, fine, they should face the same consequences the countries and leaders responsible for those atrocities, in most cases the very same countries and leaders screaming the most about the Ukraine, received.
Most of the western actions you list were UN sanctioned. You may disagree with them, but nevertheless that’s the case.
“Most of the western actions you list were UN sanctioned. You may disagree with them, but nevertheless that’s the case.”
Yugoslavia was flat illegal. Never any possibility of a UN resolution. Both China and Russia said (correctly) that force was not needed or justified and stated they would veto any resolution authorising it. NATO just ignored it, because “they don’t need no stinking law”.
Iraq was flat illegal. No UN authorisation because the French said outright that they did not consider war necessary and would veto any such resolution, leading to Blair’s disgraceful “unreasonable veto” lawlessness. Blair and Bush ignored it because “they don’t need no stinking law”.
On Libya the US sphere shamelessly exploited a resolution allowing for protection of civilians to enact regime change. So no, their action was not authorised by the UN.
In Syria there was no authorisation for the use of force when it was initiated and all kinds of dishonest, spurious “self defence” rationalisations were used.
So you are 0 for 4, basically.
in fact you claim that whomever has the biggest guns is right.
so by consequence providing ukraine with the biggest guns makes the west right.
like finland wasn’t an ally of the UK in 1939 you mean?
by the way, how is the weather in sint petersburg?
As I said earlier, give them their nukes back, we are giving them weapons hand over fist, why only ones that allow them to only die fighting, rather than something that might act as a deterrent to conflict completely. The only reason Russia can invade is because MAD prevents anyone from stopping them.
They were never “their nukes”.
That’s not true. See Budapest Memorandum.
“The bombs were not in fact Ukrainian, any more than NATO nuclear weapons stored on West European soil or US bombs that used to be kept in South Korea belonged to the countries on whose territory they were located. They were always Russian bombs that happened to be based in Ukraine. Moscow retained complete command and control and Kiev never had access to the authorisation codes necessary to launch them.”
https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/ukraine-and-nukes/
It is clearly hard to define “Russian weapons” in the Soviet Union. But the agreement was that Ukraine do not seize these arms, so Russia will guarantee their security.
As I wrote, they were never “their nukes”.
Oft ignored is the other promises made at the time:
“Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner
Slavic Studies Panel Addresses “Who Promised What to Whom on NATO Expansion?”
There is no treaty or document that promises a limit to NATO expansion. Since Putin himself wanted to join NATO for awhile, it’s clear he didn’t seem himself bound by any such rule. There is however a written guarantee of Ukrainian territory, signed by Russia – the Budapest Memorandum. NATO has almost nothing to do with the attempted conquest of Ukraine and indeed would do nothing to solve it, even if Putin were militarily successful.
I think facts do not matter here. Most of the those who comment on the issue here are not really interested in facts, reality and the truth.
Someone was talking about Yugoslavia and the NATO. Man, they don’t know anything about genocide happening in their neighbourhood. I was 14 when those things happened and I can remember the war, even if my country was not directly involved in the conflict but was very close to it. NATO bombing was the right way to end that hell.
But this has nothing to do with the current situation in Ukraine. Even NATO does not have so much to do with it, at least of the level of causes, as you pointed out. But it does not matter here.
That’s an interesting reference.
yet gorbachev, the soviet leader at the time has no recollection of those promises…
I don’t want to argue about the question of some abstract ownership at the dissolution of the SU. The whole Budapest Memorandum was about a concrete situation regarding the control of nuclear weapons.
You’re the one claiming that “ownership” of nuclear weapons without control or launch codes is somehow not “abstract”.
Nothing to do with control and all about symbolism and horsetrading.
Man, launch codes are not the real value of the nuclear weapon. It is the nuclear material (you need tremendous work and resources to poduce them) and the carrier which makes those weapons working. The ownership of these weapons are based on military power and will and not on the knowledge of some irrelevant numbers and letters.
In fact Soviet military equipment was divided among the successor states.
So what? They never had ownership or the launch codes. In no meaningful militarily relevant sense were they “Ukrainian nukes”.
who needs launch codes when you have physical access?
getting one on its way is not rocket science…
detente
A word we seem to have forgotten the meaning of.
The people we should be angry about are those who refused to see the Russian legitimate concerns and felt that engaging with him would show Western weakness.
Well that weakness is very exposed now, and hundreds if not thousands are dead.
All wars end around a table, so why not start around one and cut out the nasty bit in the middle?
“refused to see the Russian legitimate concerns” The Russian concern is pushing the US out from the Europian security arrangement. Putin made it clear in last December: NATO should move back behind its borders of 1997. This is not a legitimate concern but a joke.
No, the ideal situation for Russia would be the end of NATO, but clearly far too much money and power rests on its continuance despite its only real raison d’etre having disappeared 30 years ago..
Realistically, they would like to see it rolled back to the position it held when they were originally promised it would not expand, but that doesn’t mean they would settle for nothing else.
In practice, no doubt they would settle for a compromise, but we have no idea what that compromise might be because our leaders responded to Russian attempts to discuss their concerns with contemptuous dismissal and a continuation of the de facto NATO-isation of the Ukraine. That – the refusal to negotiate – was clearly the trigger for the decision to resort to military force. When jaw jaw is not an option, war war is the result.
There are a whole bunch of areas of concern for the Russians, from NATO expansion, to the abandonment of arms control limits and the forward positioning of missile bases under the comically spurious pretext of “defending against Iran”. There’s little plausible doubt an acceptable compromise could be reached.
“ideal situation for Russia would be the end of NATO” Compared to rhe Russian armed forces, NATO is a giant. Russia does not have the resources to end NATO. And it seems, they don’t have the resources to “demilitarize” Ukraine.
“rolled back to the position it held when they were originally promised it would not expand” This is a russian myth. There are no written evdence that NATO ever promised such a thing. The whole reason behind eastern countries to join the NATO was the apparent guarantee that Russia will never try to invade them again. There are 100 million people in these countries and they don’t want to be the slaves of the russian elites again.
“compromise might be because our leaders responded to Russian attempts to discuss their concerns with contemptuous dismissal and a continuation of the de facto NATO-isation of the Ukraine” As I written down earlier, until Ukraine has territorial diputes with the russians, they are cut away from NATO. My bet on the compromise is: declared neutrality on Ukraine’s side and restoration of the military status quo of the pre-war times.
“That – the refusal to negotiate – was clearly the trigger for the decision to resort to military force.” But that’s not true. Everybody wanted to negotiate except Putin. The main reason about the timing of the invasion was the fear of the russians from the capabilities of the empowering ukrainian army to recapture the separatist counties. This would break the usual strategy of the russians.
“comically spurious pretext of “defending against Iran” ” NATO tried to make an agreement with the russians that they can participate as observers in these missile bases. They had one condition – they also want to observe russian facilities. The russians refused.
““ideal situation for Russia would be the end of NATO” Compared to rhe Russian armed forces, NATO is a giant. Russia does not have the resources to end NATO. And it seems, they don’t have the resources to “demilitarize” Ukraine.”
? This seems a complete non sequitur. Russia’s ideal solution is the same as our own ideal solution – the voluntary dissolution of NATO as a redundant military bureaucracy.
““rolled back to the position it held when they were originally promised it would not expand” This is a russian myth. There are no written evdence that NATO ever promised such a thing. The whole reason behind eastern countries to join the NATO was the apparent guarantee that Russia will never try to invade them again. There are 100 million people in these countries and they don’t want to be the slaves of the russian elites again.”
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nato-s-eastward-expansion-did-the-west-break-its-promise-to-moscow-a-663315.html
“compromise might be because our leaders responded to Russian attempts to discuss their concerns with contemptuous dismissal and a continuation of the de facto NATO-isation of the Ukraine” As I written down earlier, until Ukraine has territorial diputes with the russians, they are cut away from NATO. My bet on the compromise is: declared neutrality on Ukraine’s side and restoration of the military status quo of the pre-war times.”
This is just playing with words. As noted by Mearsheimer, the US policy was of de facto NATO-isation of the Ukraine precisely in order to get around refusals by other NATO states to accept admission of the Ukraine (mostly because it was too obviously insanely provocative).
““That – the refusal to negotiate – was clearly the trigger for the decision to resort to military force.” But that’s not true. Everybody wanted to negotiate except Putin. The main reason about the timing of the invasion was the fear of the russians from the capabilities of the empowering ukrainian army to recapture the separatist counties. This would break the usual strategy of the russians.”
No, the universal response in the US sphere, widely reported, was exactly your attitude given just now; that’s obviously “a joke”, unserious. But it was not only deadly serious, but perfectly reasonable.
Granted, it’s likely that the warnings of an impending large scale aggression by the Ukrainians against the separatists played a part n the decision and timing.
““comically spurious pretext of “defending against Iran” ” NATO tried to make an agreement with the russians that they can participate as observers in these missile bases. They had one condition – they also want to observe russian facilities. The russians refused.”
Funny you should claim that, because I just posted a link to an interview of the US colonel who actually proposed that (allowing Russian inspections) to the US regime. Here’s what he said:
https://youtu.be/NFngc_8RiVc?t=2178
Ellen Tauscher, “Ballistic Missile Defense: Progress and Prospects” (remarks at the 10th Annual Missile Defense Conference, Washington, DC, March 26, 2012)
“Missile Defense Against Iran Without Threatening Russia” by Jaganath Sankaran
At maximum, you can argue that the missile defense system is a form of passive agression against Russia.
Not sure why you think any of that counters the point made by Macgregor, but all it’s doing really is talking about possible ways to try to persuade the Russians that the missile system is not a threat to them, when it patently is such a threat,.and no “passive aggression” about it.
As you can see from Macgregor’s reaction to the mention of the “Iranian threat” the missiles are supposed to be countering, that’s generally regarded as so laughable as to be insulting in itself.
Here’s Putin’s very direct warning about the situation created by US policy, from 2016:
“And whether or not you believe me, we offered real solutions to stop this arms race. They rejected everything we had to offer. So here we are today – and they’ve placed their missile defense system in Romania. Always saying “we must protect ourselves from the Iranian nuclear threat!”
Where’s the threat? There is no Iranian nuclear threat. You even have an agreement with them and the US was the instigator of this agreement where we helped. we supported it. But if not for the US then this agreement would not exist – which I consider Obama’s achievement, I agree with the agreement, because it eased tensions in the area. So President Obama can put this in his list of achievements.
So the Iranian threat does not exist. But missile defense systems are continuing to be positioned. That means we were right when we said that they are lying to us. Their reasons were not genuine, in reference to the “Iranian nuclear treaty.” Once again they lied to us.
So they build this system and now they are being loaded with missiles. You as journalists should know that these missiles are put into capsules which are utilized from the sea-based mid range Tomahawk rocket launchers. These are being loaded with “anti-missiles” that can penetrate distances of up to 500 km. But we know that technologies advance we even know in which year the American will accomplish a new missile, which will be able to penetrate distances of up to 1000km, and then even further.
And from that moment on they will be able to directly threaten Russia’s nuclear potential. we know year by year what going to happen-and they know what we know!. Its only you that that they tell tall-tales to and you spread it to the citizens of your countries. Your people in turn do not feel a sense of the impending danger – this is what worries me. How can you not understand that the world is being pulled in an irreversible direction? That the problem.
Meanwhile, they pretend that nothings going on. I don’t know how to get through to you anymore. And they justify this as a “defense” system, not weaponry that is used for the purposes of an offense. Systems that “prevent aggression.” This is absolutely not true. A missile defense system is one element of the whole system of offensive military potential.
It works as part of a whole that includes offensive missile launchers. One complex blocks, the other launches a high precision weapon, the third blocks a potential nuclear strike, and the fourth send out its own nuclear weapon in response. This is all designed to be part of one system. This is how it works in current, non-nuclear, but high precision missile defense.
Well okay, lets put aside the actual missile ‘defense’ issue but those capsules into which ‘anti-missiles’ are inserted, as I’ve mentioned, they are sea based on warships which can carry the Tomahawk subsonic cruise missile system. One could deploy it to position in a matter of hours and then what kind of “anti-missile” system is that?
How do we know what kind of missile is in there? All you have to do is change the program! (non-nuclear to nuclear). That’s all it would take. This would happen very quickly and even the Romanian government itself won’t know what’s going on. Do you think they let the Romanians call any shots? Nobody is going to know what is being done-not the Romanians, and the Polish won’t either. Do you think I’m not familiar with their strategies? Ha!
From what I can see, we are in grave danger. We had conversation once with our American partners – where they said they’d like to develop ballistic missiles . but without a nuclear warhead. And we said -“Do you actually understand what that might entail?”
So you’re going to have missiles launching from submarines, or ground territories – this is a ballistic, how do we know whether or not it has a nuclear warhead? Can you can imagine what kind of scenario you can create? But as far as I am award, they did not go through with developing these weapons – they have paused for now. But the other one they continue to implement. I don’t know how this is all going to end.
What I do know is that we will need to defend ourselves. And I even know how they will package this -“Russian aggression” again! But this is simply our response to your actions. Is it not obvious that I must guarantee the safety our people? And not only that, but we must attempt to retain the necessary strategic balance of power, which is the point that I began with. Let me return to it, in order to finish my response.
It was precisely this balance of power that guarantees the safety of humanity from major global conflict, over the past 70 years. It was a blessing rooted in a “mutual threat” but this mutual threat is what guaranteed mutual peace on a global scale. How they could so easily tear it down, I simply don’t know.
Sure, “the United States are not developing weapons for the purposes of an offensive operation”… At least not that which is in the public eye, although we know for certain that this is occurring. I’m not about to get into asking that right now – we’re perfectly aware that it is happening. “okay you’re not developing it!” But the facts are; there is an anti-missile defense system being developed in the United States. Sure, today it is not in working order and we’re not yet sure if it will ever be implemented.
However, theoretically, it is created in order to be implemented. Again, hypothetically – understand that there will be a moment in time where our nuclear potential will be completely neutralised. Our current capability I mean can be completely neutralised by this anti-missile defense system. It this is the case then that means the balance of power in the world will be completely upset. This means that one of the powers will feel a complete sense of security. Which in turn means it can do what ever it likes not only in regional conflicts – but, now. We are talking about its unmatched might in global conflict.
This is the only food for thought, don’t let me come off like I am accusing you of something. But International Relations is much like mathematics – there is nothing personal about it. Therefore we will respond accordingly – but how?
We can match you in you actions and build an equally great multi-million dollar anti-missile defense system or taking into account our economic and financial capability in the current day – we can respond asymmetrically. So that it is clear to all that “yes there is an anti-missile defense system in Europe – but as it relates to Russia it is entirely pointless. Because we have a weapon that can nullify it. This is the path that we are going to take. It works our cheaper for us. But in now way is this aggression against the United States. I fully mirror your behavior when you say that your anti-missile defense system “is not targeted against us” – then our new weapon is “not targeted against you” either!.”
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports/putinspeech2016.html
His basic position is the assumption that the nuclear threat of Iran is nonsense. But his basic motivation is the mere fact that these missile defense systems can protect Europe. This is a strategic threat to Russia. His rhetoric about the tactical threat that NATO and Europe will attack Russia is a fallacy, just check the European (german dominated) policy in the last two decades. To sum up, here, in Europe we are eager to install any defense system which can avoid Russian tactical advantage on the europian soil. We have the historical experience and wise and now, the political will to stop the russian agression.
if NATO is the only deterrent of russian invasion and ‘enslavement’ like it was during soviet times, so why other former republics are not annexed and enslaved by now? quick check and it seems only 3 former republics are in NATO currently meaning that all others are free for the taking and enslavement. don’t think it has happened. although, there is some cooperation going on but it doesn’t look like moscow rules them like in the past. so why is ukraine so desperate to reclaim contested territories and shut the nato door fast? does seem like it is as much of a wish from nato’s side as it is from ukraine’s.
15 independent republics emerged from the Soviet Union. Putin’s attitude to them all is not the same. He’s not very interested in the Muslim republics (because he’s racist). Belarus he has kept total control over, and also Ukraine up until the revolution. Putin in 2022 is not the same man as he was when he came to power. Nobody expected him to actually go for the whole country. Because the response to Crimea/the Donbass was weak, Putin concluded he could get away with more, then more again.
very strange logic or rather absence of it. he is not interested in Muslims and he’s funding chechenya. tatarstan is pretty much muslim as well which is not being bombed or defunded (or whatever is that that you need to do to show that you’re an anti muslim). Belarus is an independent state with it’s own currency and all the rest of it and with an independent leader who’s been critical of Putin until recent events in belarus. there is indeed a cooperation, but it’s far from Soviet Union 2.0.
Does he go for the whole country of Ukraine? what does it mean? the terms which are being put forward by moscow as far as I understood are: Russian Crimea, independent eastern breakaway regions and neutrality.
was Georgia fully annexed by Putin?
Just check the military involvment of russia in those countries.
From what I have read, it seems that neither James Baker nor NATO provided any written guarantee that NATO would not expand further.
NATO Secretary General, Manfred Wörner said this in his address to the Bremer Tabaks Collegium on 17 May 1990 :
https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1990/s900517a_e.htm
To me, that sounds very much like the NATO General Secretary saying that NATO would not expand beyond the borders of the Federal Republic of Germany.
‘despite its only real raison d’etre having disappeared 30 years ago’
Well, this is precisely Putin’s mistake. He has just recreated NATO.
the raison d’etre disappeared 30 years ago?
just let’s ask the finnish,polish,hungarian and czech people about that.
for they know what it is to be attacked by the russians.
and make no mistake, without the likes of nato we all would be speaking russian by now.
but then again, you living in sint peterburg, already know that, now don’t you comrade?
Why is it a joke?
And is it a bigger joke than western politicians discussing in public the assassination of Putin?
Man, You are not living in Europe. I am. Believe me, it is a bad joke. We had nearly 45 years of russian occupation, we do not want it anymore. It does not matter what talking heads and some western politicians want to tell the public. Firstly, these are not formal statements of legislative powers. Secondly, what really matters is the political and military actions of the governments in the conflict.
Indeed. Why was such an approach not started immediately by countries not directly involved offering to mediate? From day 1 it has looked like the ‘benevolent’ Western countries only wish to escalate the situation, certainly not calm it down. If they really cared about the civilians stuck in the middle of this real-life game of chess that is exactly what they would have done, rather than concentrating on a ‘good guy – bad guy’ scenario.
Even now, where are outside negotiators? Instead we keep hearing Zelensky throwing a hissy fit and walking away, all the while crying how people from thousands of miles away are not lining up to die for his country – something no citizen in Western Europe or the US ever signed up for. He wants people to fight, then talk to the politicians who made the false promises, it’s their war.
Now Poland is suggesting an armed peace-keeping mission by Nato. Surely that should be the UN? By saying it should be a Nato mission Poland is intentionally pouring fuel on the fire.
I though the Treaty of Versailles was supposed to be a lesson hard learned? The emotional, media-inflamed desire to crush Russia suggests they’d be happy to make the same mistakes all over again.
“From day 1 it has looked like the ‘benevolent’ Western countries only wish to escalate the situation, certainly not calm it down.” The situation started much earlier, when Putin started to deploy the army around Ukrain’s border. In December, Putin sent a letter to NATO with full of nonsense requests and a one month deadline. In January, nearly all of the leaders of the Western societies tried to negotiate with Putin. Even NATO responded to the russian requests and wrote a letter in which they declared they are open to negotiate about NATO weapons deployed in Europe. The day after their letter arrived to Moscow, Russia attacked Ukraine.
“Now Poland is suggesting an armed peace-keeping mission by Nato. Surely that should be the UN?” Russia has a veto in UN’s Security Council, so UN will never deploy peacekeepers until Putin enables that, which is now a fantasy of dreamland.
It should be, but Russia has a veto at the UN. Guess what – they decided not to sanction themselves.
how is the weather in sint petersburg?
Thanks for the post.
My counterarguments:
“It’s not entirely clear what Russia’s objectives are, but a reasonable worst-case scenario is that they would have annexed half the country.”
The Luhansk and Donetsk republics have nothing like that kind of area even if you add on the Crimea and a coastal stretch to connect them with Crimea. It is certainly not a Russian objective to annex the whole of the part of Ukraine that lies east of the Dnieper.
The Russian objectives are clear to some of us. They are as follows:
(Many thousands have died in that war since 2014 – more than have died in the 2022 conflict.)
These objectives do not make sense. First, UA cannot joint to NATO because it has disputed territories. Second, securing Luhansk and Donetsk does not imply a full scale offensive. Anyway, Putin wrote down clearly, without Ukraine, the Russian Federation is not an Empire of Eurasia.
Last I looked the UK was in NATO, despite the territories of Scotland and NI being disputed, one of them violently.
Both Scotland and NI have had a chance to vote for separation, but chose not to. Both will get another chance. This is exceptionally unusual in the world. For example, look at Putin’s response to Chechen independence.
This is an excerpt of the Membership Action Plane:
There is no territories of the UK disputed by legislative powers. Disputing in this sense is not an act of the public, but a de jure position of the legislative powers.
The territories are disputed. That’s the only criteria. one of them violently.
Where were the Americans i.e. NATO during the troubles, other than pumping money into the IRA?
If West politicians weren’t as brave as squirells and deployed nuclear submarines to Odessa, and AAW to other cities there would be no war at all.
Everyone knows that Putin is mad so blaming of terminally-ill madman in the bunker has no point. West didn’t do it’s share to protect its ally so don’t be surprised to see nukes over your home in 2-3 years.
I don’t. And I know lots of people who don’t know he’s mad.
In fact, you don’t know he’s mad. You’re just parroting a phrase you’ve heard.
A bit like vaccines are safe and effective. Everyone “knows” that too.
Ok, not everyone know that. I know that, people who close to Putin’s inner circle knows that, there are some clues for it that you’re ignore because you believe in conspiracy theories.
It’s like vaccines indeed, there’re facts that they are safe enough for mass vaccinations and there are facts that they are not so effective. That’s a fact of life, the same fact as madness of Putin or Hitler.
Talking of ‘mad’, who isn’t? Look what the UK has got!
There’s another article about oikophobia
You know why most Russians in the UK vote for Boris and sponsor Tory party? It’s because they saw a real madman and Boris is pretty normal comparing with Putin.
Evidence for Putin’s ‘madness’. Is this a madness that began three weeks ago? He’s had a quarter of a century to display this madness. Have you got any examples?
yes, it’s all started in 1999 when he staged some terrorist attacks in Moscow and other cities unfortunately West started to understand it only now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_Up_Russia
That’s incredibly tenuous evidence of madness. You would have thought that after 25 years of a madman in charge of Russia we’d have a seen a bit more… madness.
Yes, they were there if you would be more careful.
1) Killing of Nemtsov
2) Killing of Litvinenko
3) Attempts to kill Navalny
4) Killing of Politkovskaya
5) His bunker
6) War in Abkhazia in 2008
7) War in Osetia in 2008
8) Annexation of Crimea in 2014
9) Annexation of Donbas in 2014
10) Order to shot all objects in Ukraine sky in 2014 so the Boeing was shot
11) Attempt to kill Skripals
If you check Alexey Navalny or Chichvarkin resources you can see more examples.
I worked for Putin’s ally and friend Andrey Kostin in 2004-2005. Believe me Putin is mad.
What will it take for the russian population to rise against Putin. He is not acting in their interests and they will be doomed for decades under his thumb.
Or those that keep him in power?
LOL! Asking an (ostensible) dissident expatriate for an opinion on the prospects of the ruler he hates back home? You’re about as likely to get an honest answer as if you were to ask an NUM official in 1984 for an opinion about Margaret Thatcher.
That’s how we got into so much trouble over the “Arab Spring” bs. Our “elites” kept believing the self-serving nonsense the expatriate dissidents fed them about how there were Jeffersonian democracies just waiting to spring into existence if only the countries were fertilised by a few US bombs.
It was all nonsense of course, either wishful thinking or manipulative dishonesty.
Ahmed Chalabi.
If you are from the US or UK, shame on you! “dissident expatriate”? You don’t understand anything.
That probably describes pretty much every national leader these days. At least the first part.
“Or those that keep him in power?” And the threat of 15 years in prison (labour camps).
For a Russian you sure sound like an American or British propagandist! War in Ossetia?! Annexation of Donbas in 2014?! Please!
I don’t see anything on that list that suggests madness.
If your yardstick is the number of deaths he’s responsible for and/or the places he has attacked, then there are definitely some madder people out there.
Bush, Blair, Obama, Xi Jingpin, for starters.
Biden?
Putin doesn’t make the decision to mobilise troops alone. Calling him mad is an admission of ignorance as to how any government functions.
If you want evidence of true mental decline of a leader, Biden Referred to Kamala Harris as the First Lady, his wife.
To make matters worse, he blundered on with his speech, oblivious to his obvious gaffe until an aid stopped him, at which point Biden tried to make a joke of the whole thing.
Then witness his snarling rants with finger pointing and fist waving, before his party piece, attempting to dramatise his points by whispering into the microphone.
By contrast, Putin is a calm, eloquent communicator on the public stage. He may be a liar but in the mental capacity stakes, he’s well above Biden.
Nearly complete list, but please include Checnya (the first and second war), Belarus (2020 uprising) and Kazakhstan (2022 unrest). Don’t miss chemical weapons and war crimes in Syria.
Is the “Assad used chemical weapons in Syria” lie, morphing into “Putin used chemical weapons in Syria” ?
This comment mirrors the emerging msm revisionism on Syria …
Very suspect.
Agent Orange………..
If you want evidence of mentally challenged leaders look no further than Biden.
So you propose that we might as well let an invader take over wherever they like because fighting back is bad? Tell me, how did it work out for Poland, France, Belgium, Holland etc when Germany was allowed to take over? Did their citizens prosper? Or did millions of then get loaded onto cattle trucks, and millions more forced into slave labour?
In the post war era, how much did eastern Europe enjoy being under the boot of the Soviet Union?
We’ll put.
It amazing to see how many here support Russia’s violent expansionist acts and blame it all on NATO.
They have learned it from each other, who inhabit the same moral vacuum.
Suggesting that Russia might be acting to a degree in self defence does not come from a moral vacuum.
There is actually substantial evidence that Russia is doing just that.
The most solid one is of course the classic: what would the US do if Russia were meddling in Mexican politics and stirring up the population of Mexico against the US, arming the Mexican government, and discussing a military alliance with them?
I can’t see how you can argue the Ukraine situation is not equivalent. Which really only leaves you to argue why the US has a right to keep geopolitical rivals away from its borders, but Russia does not.
Perhaps that is why you resort to ad hominems.
I don’t think anyone supports “Russia’s violent expansionist acts” but there are always two sides to an argument. Most of us here just try to consider both of them.
Absolutely agree. Huge disappointment.
Putin has repeatedly stated over many years he wants Ukraine to remain an independent, self governed, sovereign state. He has also stated he will offer protection to the Russian speaking regions to retain their language and culture.
He has, however, drawn the line at Ukraine as a whole becoming members of NATO, to which the EU responded by invoking a fast track for Ukrainian membership, which is mission creep to eventual NATO membership.
Putin accepted Ukrainian independence in the same way he has accepted Belarus independence.
He also stated, “there are no russian troops in Crimea” haf a year later, he decorated those soldiers… It does not really matter what he says. Disinformation is part of the set of russian foreign policy tools.
I think most of these people take freedom granted. They never had the opportinity to feel the russian boots on their face. That’s not their mistake but their luck. However, the absolute ignorance of the threats made by Putin is clearly a sign of imagination, a personal mistake.
This article strikes me as extremely childish.
Russia. Bad guys. Syria. Bad guys. America. Strong, good guys. Britain. Friend of the good guys.
Short war. Good. Long war. Bad.
Steady on, this level of complex analysis is going to make my head explode.
Oh just put your blue and yellow badge on stewart and stop overthinking it.
I keep saying this abs people keep telling me I’m wrong but……..
if we where not arming the Ukrainians they have to fold to Russia and the war would be over sooner, meaning less would die and negotiations can start plus all the sanctions could still be applied.
it’s the sodding Russian army, if they wanted Ukraine obliterated it would have happened by now, people keep saying they are incompetent, I say treat them like they are the most competent lethal force and you will get to the end game far sooner.
this thing will only fully end once everyone gets what they want from this.
that means Russia gets what they want ( whatever that is) and the west get what they want. What Ukraine want is largely irrelevant at this point.
Read your last line and be ashamed.
unfortuantely, that’s how fascists think, they think that small countries, minorities have no right
no that’s realists, stop trolling. Funny how your English improved so much in only a dozen posts, you have zero credibility after the last thread.
thanks for improving my English, during the last 3 weeks I had a little chance to practice my English as we’re infofighting with Putin mostly in Russian resources… I glad to hear that it’s back to normal now
Just shout TROLL.
I don’t have to, you make it so obvious.
What’s your opinion, tree?
“The BBC is a reliable source of information”……….
Where is this stated in any fascist manifesto?
The fact is, fascism very much respects the minorities, assuming they are very wealthy with businesses that can cooperate with the state.
Huh? Fascism respects wealthy minorities??!!! Like Hitler respected Jews?
Clearly, you have no idea how fascism operates.
You’ve deliberately misunderstood what I meant.
Ukraine has been invaded, it’s them against an enemy that NATO don’t want to engage so realistically the end is inevitable unless NATO nations step in. The west is supplying arms to Ukraine but won’t send troops or defend her airspace despite Ukraine asking for assistance.
so it’s irrelevant what Ukraine want as the west won’t supply any additional help over what they have already committed to.
so either the west prolong the conflict by continuing to supply arms or they can stop supplying arms and the Ukrainians will have to surrender sooner, hence it’s not in their hands hence what they want is irrelevant.
It’s a statement of reality, not a moral position.
I think Russia has been crystal clear about what they want: no NATO expansion. Fair enough, no country would accept hostile WMDs on their doorstep. They’ve been saying this for nearly 30 years but no one listened. Countries that aren’t the USA are allowed to have red lines. This was theirs; there’s no mystery as far as I can see.
You seem to have some inside track on Russian objectives. If they succeed in taking Ukraine, they are sure to put their WMDs right there, are they not.
You accepting that this is a defensive step is pathetic. There was no threat from Ukraine to Russia.
In deciding that 100% of western news is absolutely false and believe the other side without question is about as pathetic as your great reset conspiracy nonsense.
leek, you got a new account! LOL troll
If in trouble shout “troll”
come up with an intelligent argument and we can have a civilized discussion, but your driveby trolling deserves no respect.
No one’s in trouble, at least not on account of you and your trollish ways. You don’t have any opinions of your own and just attack other people for expressing theirs. Even if you’re not a troll, you’re behaving like one.
What’s your opinion, tree?
If in trouble go full on straw man.
If it walks like a troll and talks like a troll, chances are that it is a troll.
tree/leek, definitely one and the same.
I’m just listening to what they’re saying. I’m neutral, I’m neither Ukrainian nor Russian, and I’m dispassionately trying to analyse why this is happening because I thought that’s what adults did. I don’t live in the cartoon ‘Putin bad, Assad bad, Ukraine good, NATO good’ baby’s version of current affairs that society currently requires me to.
One mans dictator is another mans leader.
Is that based you YOUR inside track?
“You seem to have some inside track on Russian objectives.”
That would be because Putin has been vocal about them for the last 20 years or so.
It really is that obvious.
” great reset conspiracy nonsense”:https://www.amazon.co.uk/COVID-19-Great-Reset-Klaus-Schwab/dp/2940631123
Putin wants a whole lot more than that. It was potential EU membership that kicked things off.
So the wishes of 44million people are of no importance? Is that what you think?
What’s your opinion, tree?
You’ll be here all night asking that.
Important for what?
This war is on many fronts.
1. From Russia’s perspective, it stated that it was for de-nazification and to form a buffer zone. However, I suspect that De-Nazification is in fact de-US Neoconisation.
The pretext for the invasion was based on the independent “states” of Donesk requesting help. IIRC, UN Article 51, a larger state can get involved with a smaller state to repel another state. This was the pre-text for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
2. I think we in the coming days and weeks we will see more evidence (and more counter-rhetoric) that the US has been busy preparing bio-toxins which could either be released on either the Russian population – or more than likely our own populations. This from Russia’s perspective would be equivalent to the 2nd Iraqi invasion to remove WWD. (Incidentally, if Johnson et al want to put Putin on human rights trials, they must also put Blair and Bush on trial for the same identical reason – weapons found or not found).
Victoria Nuland – Undersecretary of State for the US (Ukrainian neo-con expert apparently) has basically stated the fact and again, I think it is only time before we see Pelosi Jnr, Romney Jnr, Kerry Jnr and Biden Jnr trying to hide their Ukrainian activities (quelle surprise – Biolabs and hydrocarbons) like a cat trying to hide a shit on a marble floor.
I would not be surprised if we see in the next few days or weeks China going into Taiwan for exactly the same reason. The US in the UN Security council has blustered rhetoric about it not being true (well China would say that wouldn’t they?).
3. I believe strongly believe that Russia (and many others) are fed up with the Weaponised use of the Dollar. We have seen how the powers that be can confiscate assets of the Oligarchs (or as we call them in the West – Billionaires) without due process. We have seen how protestors in Ottawa get their bank accounts frozen for honking a few horns and clearing snow. Western Govts are getting desperate.
I see that there is a great opportunity to flip the Western sanctions around on the western leaders. Restrict a bit of gas to increase prices (funds the incursion), ask for payment of gas in gold (the west has none – only fiat paper). Dollar accounts trading is halted so they cant do that. There is talk in the media of Russia defaulting on its debts (international). All $40 billion. Russia can either offer Rubel or say FU. It is the debt holders who will suffer – not Russia. It would be difficult to obtain further debt funding from western paper money, but it is there on that already. In fact a long time ago. Russians GDP Debt is 17%. The UKs is approx 120%. Russia prepared well. We threw our provisions out for a quick buck.
India, China and Brazil are now seriously talking PetroYuan with Russia – this is an extensional threat to the US and its lifestyle (spending more than it owns). They will go to war for that but it wont be with Russia.
Expect Saudi Arabia to be bad-mouthed to an intolerable level anytime soon, and soon after a US coalition led invasion.
NATO Weapons in Ukraine are neither here or there. Word on the street is that there were approx. 1000 foreign legion soldiers prepping at a camp near Yavoriv. This camp was obliterated by 32 RU Cruise missiles (allegedly flighted from inside Russia and therefore defeated NATO early warning systems). The NATO rhetoric has softened since that incident last Sunday. Which killed apparently 200-250 people.
Tell me I am wrong. Because all the conclusions here don’t look good for the general western population, their heating, food supplies and social credit scores.
Either way I look at it, Im on the losing side no matter who I pick from Team Boris, Urshla, Joe, Vlad or Xi
I completely agree. A profound realignment would appear to be underway.
“I’m assuming that outside Crimea and the Donbass, there isn’t much support for Russian annexation.”
Given the choice in 2011 and even 2014 perhaps half of Ukraine to the east of the Dneiper river would have chosen Russian annexation than annihilation by neo-Nazi Ukrainian fascists.
The river is not really an accurate demarcation line, if we look at the line for the vote results from 2010 it’s slightly different (note the colours are % Russian speakers rather than vote results indicated by the red line)
but I agree “would have chosen Russian annexation than annihilation by neo-Nazi Ukrainian fascists.”
How they’d vote now is anyones guess tho. If there was a ceasefire, and each region given a vote on an independant Eastern/Western Ukraine there would still be gnashing of teeth saying a referendum was at the point of a gun (even tho the last election was under the kosh of the far-right National Guard patrols).
Zelensky lost his mandate when he sided with the Far Right elements IMO so he’d have to go for starters. He was getting a lot of flack from mothers who were losing their sons to conscription to fight in the Donbass (or face 15 yrs gaol time) so I doubt anyone would miss him too much, but there’s hardly a queue of moderates to take his position. Then they’d have to sort the gas transit thing out (which is a big part of what this is really about) tho it seems a Nord Stream 2 bypass has already been agreed…
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/russia/the-real-backdrop-nobody-will-discuss/
There’s no easy answer. The West seems to be doing everything wrong since they got involved before 2008, they seem determined to throw the world into WWIII or at least destroy the world economy (which I suspect is the whole reason for the actions of BOTH SIDES, great reset and all that).
The white paper from the House of Lords on CBDC said it was a solution looking for a problem… well if the west keeps this up, they sure got one, with plausible deniability. Regardless what solution anyone comes up with, this will be the ultimate result, you can bank on that.
Since 2014 the ethnic Russians have been forced out of the east into the Donbass and Russia so a vote now is not representative of how the country voted in 2011 where it was split 49% to 45% with a victory for the pro Russian Victor Yanukovych.
Indeed, once (if) Azov et al are cleared out it seems more likely we’d get a more representative result in the East, they’ve not exactly won any hearts and minds with the human shield antics.
No if about Azov being cleared out of the East. They are dead meat.
Even in Donbass there weren’t enough support so Girkin (who was a Russian FSB officer) had to request army and Vagner’s support, that’s why Russia had to enter its army there, that’s how Boeing was shot in 2014 by Russians.
nonsense, they voted 97% in favor of independance.
MH17 was a false flag, as proven by the missile manufacturer experiments. stop trolling
no, this referendum was a fake one, most people flew the region during the war then there was an occupation army and terrorist who controlled and terrified everyone, I have a friend from Donetsk. It wasn’t a real referendum. Looks like you don’t know the situation.
I’m a separatist and a fun of smaller states but this referendum wasn’t accepted even by some Russian ultra-right organizations who went to fight for Ukraine.
“terrorist” BS It’s all on film
https://www.watchdogmediainstitute.com/p/blog-page.html
would those “Russian ultra-right organizations who went to fight for Ukraine” be the same “friends” that you mentioned who witnessed the murders in the Trade Union House first hand?
That explains a LOT.
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/03/16/ukraine-are-zelenskyys-hands-tied-in-peace-negotiations-by-the-countrys-neo-nazi-militia/#comment-755768
He is paid to troll, so won’t stop until the money runs out.
Yeah you are trolling and I’m not convinced you’re a ‘random Russian in UK’
да пошел ты нахуй уебок ебанный, сука сраная, хуесос недоношенный. Путинский жополиз недобитый, подстилка говносраная.
Are you convinced now? I’m not sure that google translate can translate it, so you need to find another Russian and ask them
Cute.
Isn’t cut and paste amazing………
Isn’t Google Translate a wonderful thing!
“Troll” is the familiar response when someone argues with a sceptic.
familiar to you I’m sure LOL
Calling people names whilst presenting no personal opinions is not ‘argument’ it’s called trolling.
As witnesses in climate circles, troll is usually an accusation sceptics suffer when disputing the 97%.
Yes 97% is hard for them to discount, but they are thick enough to keep on trying.
Or a paid troll like your not so good self.
You must be used to it.
He is a random American in the USA.
Of course!
It is an important question. If the moral thing to do is to not supply arms so as to shorten the war then I guess it follows it is moral to get Zelenskyy to surrender as soon as possible?
And we can look the other way when Russia invades somewhere else.
Putin’s had 25 years to invade other countries. Care to name any?
The United Kingdom.
“Why Britain’s Tories are addicted to Russian money”
https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-tories-russian-money-oligarch/
“Huge Donations To Tory Party From Russia Aren’t ‘Damaging’, According To Liz Truss”
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/russian-donors-conservative-party-liz-truss-sanctions_uk_6215f2e5e4b03d0c8030ce8b
As far as invasions go, those are pretty rubbish ones.
Crimea. Ukraine you may have noticed, unless you believe lavrov.
The nation of Crimea? That invasion where no one died? Right.
Obviously Putin was assisted by already having troops in place, having previously guaranteed Ukrainian sovereign independence.
And of course the 97% percent vote in favour of not joining the Ukronazis was rather decisive.
What was it a 97% vote in favour of Crimeans voting to return to mother Russia. or was it 98%, it’s all a bit hazy now.
Check your dates. 25 years is wrong as is everything else you say.
It’s close enough. And you failed to do anything but raise another straw man.
Where did you have in mind?
Putin already said that he will not stop in Ukraine… So it’s not you who decide when and where to stop the war… Did Hitler and Stalin stop in Poland in 1939?
Reference/ link please. This is nonsense.
erm, do you need a reference that Hitler and Stalind didn’t stop in Poland in 1938? Well. Any history book would do.
About Putin… If you know Russian and who’s who in Russia please check this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaBWUAINN4E&ab_channel=%D0%92%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%9C%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%88%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B0Live
I want a speech, document or historical record of any kind in which Putin or any member of Russian leadership expressed a desire to invade former Soviet states.
this video is the proof, Vladimir Soloviev is Putin’s Joseph Goebbels, and he is under sanctions right now.
Silly billy.
“Security specialists: Russian aggression could expand, including into Finland”
“Finnish President Sauli Niinistö met with his US counterpart Joe Biden on Friday, agreeing to strengthen its ties with Washington, in light of the rapidly-changing situation in Ukraine.”
https://yle.fi/news/3-12346890
“Russia has threatened its close Arctic neighbours Sweden and Finland with ‘military consequences’ if they join NATO.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10553723/Putin-turns-attention-Finland-Sweden-Kremlin-official-warns-nations.html
You do see why that doesn’t answer my point, don’t you,’?
Silly Sauli is asking for trouble.
If you lived in the Baltics, with a Russian army at your border doing ‘routine exercises’, and Putin said he had no intention invading…would you trust him?
Yes as long as you weren’t NATO or de facto NATO. Now what are your real worries?
I’m not talking about Hitler or Stalin. I’m talking about Vladimir Putin, and I can see you have no evidence for what you’re saying.
A Daily Mail article claiming that Russia has threatened Sweden and Finland.
How can you possible argue against evidence like that…
Yep that’s my argument defeated.
Daily mail, next they’ll be citing the Bill Gates Guardian comic.
Agreed, Putin is certainly right to decide what has to be done to safeguard Russia’s security.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10617533/United-States-deploy-THOUSANDS-troops.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490
“Let’s consider the possible consequences of sending arms versus not doing so. If we hadn’t sent arms, Russia’s invasion would presumably have had a far higher chance of success. It’s not entirely clear what Russia’s objectives are, but a reasonable worst-case scenario is that they would have annexed half the country.”
Then perhaps turn their attention to the Baltic states. Those Baltic states that are in NATO.
There will be no no fly zone as that would instigate WW3. An invasion of a NATO country would also mean WW3.
Better the Russians see what NATO fire power can do, they may think twice.
they may not, you ready to spill your blood for a bunch of globalist twats?
“Who will fight for a country that is no longer recognizably one’s own country, but a multicultural one ?”
“I would not fight for Britain. The country that I knew and loved is gone forever, and I’m not the only person of my generation who feels that way. Also, we only have to observe our many war veterans homeless and uncared for by politicians, who feign piety and fake grief at the Cenotaph every November.”
From David Starkey’s ‘Fighting for Your Country’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GsEQRb5gf0
If you don’t like a multi cultural country, what does that make you?
I have news for you..it is a reality. Get used to it
Starkey embarrassing himself parading obvious propaganda as reality.
I can’t stick Starkey tbh, his cluelessness on full display there.
The remembrance thing is a very personal affair for most vets tbh, anyone who says my grief is fake is likely to get an earful and an education about friends I lost. A lot are still brainwashed by the red white n blue, but a lot of us are left broken and abandoned, and more aware of the realities, and far more ‘awake’ than most civvies.
I spent 8 yrs cleaning up the mess from previous wars (EOD) I never fired a single round after basic, tho I ducked a few one night in Carlingford loch.
Except, in what world does Russia wish to invade Baltic states? Have you got any evidence whatsoever to back up this idea, any speech Putin might have given that this was their intention? Why would Russia want those states given the immense cost of attempting to do so?
I live in Finland and the Finns are extremely nervous about Russian tanks rumbling over the border.
ATMs have reportedly run out of cash as some Finns fear their bank cards will stop working.
Chemists shops have run out of iodine tablets (for the thyroid in case of nuclear material drifting around in the air).
Russia would like to have the Baltic states and Finland back into its empire.
‘Russia would like to have the Baltic states and Finland back into its empire.’
And the evidence for this is?
There is plenty of evidence that the Russians would not invade Ukraine, so what exactly is your point?
There are 30 years worth of statements by Putin that NATO expansion to the border of Russia is unacceptable to them. There is not a shred of evidence that there is a desire to expand. Why has it taken 8 years to recognise the eastern breakaway provinces? That doesn’t sound like a country hell bent on expansion.
“Peace in our time!”
You may notice that they have invaded another country in the last few weeks. Stop repeating russian propaganda.
It was more my opinion that ‘evidence’. Russia sees the ‘West’ as weak, and who is going to stop Russian expansion? If Russia invaded Finland, does anyone really think anyone is going to rush to the aid of Finland? Finland doesn’t even have nuclear weapons. It is a sitting duck.
I’d recommend David Starkey’s video about how Putin is not ‘mad’ but simply wants to return to Russia what it had before and restore the Empire. The Finns have had plenty of experience of their next door neighbour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he25Rl0fE1c
I’ve already watched it. But it sounded like a Frederick Forsyth novel. My point is, if Putin wanted to expand Russia, why hasn’t he done anything about it in his first quarter century of rule?
Your defence of Putin is sickening.
You haven’t mentioned the thirty bio-labs the Pentagon has set up and funded in the Ukraine. Why is that?
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US gave aid to Ukraine (and other ex Soviet client states) to help them move away from their nuclear and biological weapons programmes. Note, these were Soviet programmes, conducted on Ukrainian soil. The details of the labs are on public access websites and papers are regularly published so I don’t why it’s problem now. Do you believe that Russia is ‘clean’ when it comes to biological/chemical weapons?
Dream on.
You’re talking and behaving like a petulant child.
Non-existent, but that won’t stop the trolls.
Zero!
Finland is supposedly neutral and if it so there will be no problem. Always good to have cash on hand though and to use cards as little as possible.
There’s plenty of evidence. For example, the 2007 cyber attacks on Estonia. Or the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office decision to review the legality of the 1991 Baltic independence declaration. The constant references to alleged persecutions of Russian minorities (same playbook as in Ukraine). Or the constant buzzing by Russian aircraft of every state in the region – even neutral Sweden. Basically, if you’e not in NATO, you’re in trouble.
What makes you think that is the worst case scenario?
The worst case scenario is clearly the whole of Ukraine.
“The worst case scenario is clearly the whole of Ukraine.”
Probably from the points of view of both the Ukrainians and the Russians.
Not from ours, though, as we have no legitimate strong interest in who rules in the Ukraine.
Well you could consider that the Ukrainians have a right to decide.
I’m not so childish as to let people manipulate me by appealing to supposed “rights” of countries. There are bad things happening all over the world all the time. Those who wish to manipulate you make you focus on the particular one that suites them.
The UK had the right to decide on European membership. It didn’t stop the remainers busting a gut and almost stopping a democratic decision.
As in the 2010 election?
Arming a nation state’s military as a deterrent to invasion is not necessarily a bad idea, unless there happens to be a civil war already going on between Nazis and civilians, and you are inadvertently arming the Nazis – oops.
Arming a nation state’s military during an invasion is not necessarily bad, unless the nation state has no chance of victory and is desperately giving out weapons to civilians and released prisoners, while encouraging those civilians to throw Molotov cocktails at tanks – oops.
There is no way that it is ever moral to encourage civilians to attack a professional army like this. If you are having to resort to using civilians as cannon fodder (in the hope of some emotional propaganda), then the moral action is to negotiate and if all else fails, surrender. That is what a brave government would do. It may cost the government their liberty or even their lives but at least your people survive. But in these corrupt times, how many of our governments actually prioritise their populous’ interests over their own?
Gifts of Forgiveness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXwAU6LVb8Q
The arms industry and morality hardly fit together in the same sentence. Like the scum running Britain have any morals. Mu hahahaha. Theyll arm their Nazi friends and colleagues under the puppet government in Ukraine because thats the game theyre in. Kay Griggs made it abundantly clear that weapons sales is a HUGE part of the criminals game. And drugs of course. If you people want to live in a better world, you need to start campaigning for the decriminalisation of ALL drugs, to take this extremely lucrative industry out of the hands of the governmentcriminalinstitutions which are running the drugs worldwide. They fund a lot of their off the books black ops via the money from drugs sales. It is in their interests for drugs to be illegal and crimialised, hence why drugs are illegal and crimialised. Anyone who says otherwise, like David Nutt, loses their job. For example a RadioFive documentary about drug dealing police asset Meggy in Bradford laid the whole rotten game out – made it absolutely clear that heroin and the money laundering required to run this industry is under the control of the police aka the freemasons aka another component of the Rothschild crime and banking network. We need to shine the light of truth on this evil which is ruining the lives of all British citizens and many more around the world. Were being controlled by scum. Anna de buisseret who is a senior lawyer with the exceptional qualilty of integrity which is so lacking in her counterparts in the UK has concluded that we have a Freemasonic and Jesuit problem in this country which is preventing justice from being done. Traitorous filth, each and every one of them.
UK LAWYER,VET Anna De Buisseret FREEDOM RALLY / TIME TO ROOT OUT THE GUILTY IN OUR COMMUNITIES prt 1
https://www.bitchute.com/video/ZRvIZYm9CFlP/
Of course its very hard to ascertain what is really going on here, I cannot claim to be up to speed with this as I have no internet and I am now trying to focus more on music. Russ Brown for example put together this presentation showing historical perspective for the US elites arming and funding the Nazis in WW2, how this is history repeating itself, with a focus on how the US is constantly running a game of preventing Germany and Russia forming an alliance, as German brains combined with Russian resources would spell the end of the US as the superpower. Udo Ulfkotte wrote a book about this, how as a respected journalist in the German MSM, he was bribed and manipulated by the CIA to lie about the wars in the MIddle East and to stir up trouble and animosity with Russia. His life was soon ended soon after the book was released. Quote here:
What beast dominates? The German leopard or the Russian bear?
https://www.bitchute.com/video/9g0g7BfLRzY1/
The kakistocracy is shifting power the the East, and we see this actually happening. Thats one thing people can do to seperate the wood form the trees – test your views with what they are actuolly doing. This is surely a move to make this reality more real. Its like building a house for these people, they methodically put the pieces in place, one by one, to achieve their aims, then they play a game of confuse the masses to throw everyone off the scent and create chaos and smoke so they cannot be easliy identified. All western militaries have now been jabbed with the bio weapons, so the west is defeated before any bullets are fired. The west committed military suicide, thanks to the fact that our militaries are headed up by freemasonic traitors who do as theyre told and do not act in the national interest. And many are compromised as they purposefully select deviants for the top jobs as they will easily become blackmailable in return for the freedom to indulge in depraved acts. This is the war we are really fighting. The fact that our entire culture and everything we do revolves around the desires of a vile criminal mafia and its tentacles – one of which is the freemasons, a breed of satanism, and the police and military are all up to their eyeballs in this satanic cult. So thats our starting point, all power in the west is in the hands of criminals and occultists who are all signed up to the Rothschild satan club. And then abracadabra, were sending arms to the nazis, who work hand in hand with their Jewish controlled goverment and who are also armed by Israel. The world they present to us is a load of bullshit, its all a massive smokescreen to cover their lies and crimes. They make the truth seem like the most absurd thing, and complete lies seem normal.
An idea I have been considering is based around how we know that really, all these puppets like Putin and Johnson and Biden and Merkel and Macron – the whole rotten clownshow, are controlled ultimately by the same entities. Schwabs statement about Putin being a bitch of the WEF is now a very easy to prove example of this – how all governments are being controlled by the same criminal mafia, albeit set against each other in the Grand Chessboard game of divide and rule. So with this is mind, and knowing how the controllers plan things decades in advance, Im wondering whether this clearly scripted war (is anyone else noticing how fake and contrived the press coverage in the UK is – it comes across as being so disingenuous, but the morons are lapping it up and get very funny if you dont go along with the MSM narrative, usual mind tricks at work) and particularly the rationale for the war – the Nazi presence, the bioweapons labs, NATO breaking all the rules etc – are in fact carefully and intentionally laid traps to provide the justification for this very war. In other words, they have engineered this situation from top to bottom. They are collapsing the west, shifting power to the east. For decades and decades, the most cutting edge US tech (including missile and nuclear secrets) has been transferred to the East, a lot of this via Israel, who sell on the tech property legitimatelty as a result of the BSF BARD and BIRD “co-operation” agreements set upo by Kissinger between the US and ISrael. Basically Israel can “obtain” US tech and resell it, which is exactly what they have been doing – obtaining it and selling it the Russia and China. This has been going on for decades. This process is now coming to fruition, so now Russia is taking control of the territory which has been on many levels in the hands of the US thieves and deceivers.
Interesting article and comments:
10 Signs the War in Ukraine is part of the Great Reset
https://off-guardian.org/2022/03/14/10-signs-the-war-in-ukraine-is-part-of-the-great-reset/
Please stop with these op-ed “analyses” telling me what to think.
This is not why I’m here.
Might I suggest, that if all you’re doing is assuming rather than knowing, all the rest of the article is totally meaningless as it’s all based on an assumption that half the country wouldn’t much prefer to be under Russian control, than under US control (which is really the options at this point).
MoD view:
Who cares whether it’s moral or not? What an opportunity to test our weapons under real conditions!
My take on it is that nuance isn’t sexy or sells copy – including subscribers and income from podcasts. Being ‘extreme’ or ‘edgy’ gets you noticed, then what happens is that most just dial it back a bit, rather than say that there’s more than element of truth from each side of a debate or issue.
This is especially true of the war in the Ukraine, when the facts of matter have been severly muddied by both sides, including their ‘backers’.
“Of course, if we lived in a world without nuclear weapons, we could enter the war on Ukraine’s side and probably achieve a decisive victory over Russia – thanks to America’s overwhelming military power.”
Seriously? How did the US’s ‘overwhelming military power’ do in Viet Nam and Afghanistan?
I’m too young to remember in detail, but I seem to recall something similar happening in Afghanistan against the Russians and look how that turned out.
The USSR, which included the Ukraine, did make a strategic withdrawal from Afghanistan. So yes it does seem likely that you are too young to remember things all that clearly.
After invading for no particular reason or advantage to Russia.
You will find that no matter what Russia achieves with this murderous invasion, it will lose overall.
Your cover is blown.
Russia didn’t invade Afghanistan, the USSR did.
Oh dear, the obligatory stab at Assad as the very bad guy and the almost automatic, but likely highly speculative assumption that NATO would beat Russia in a conventional war in Europe. Hello, did somebody mention Afghanistan?
Not keeping up with military developments over the past few years seems to be endemic in the complacent West. If Russia really was such a pushover then just why aren’t we helping our nice new friends in the Ukraine with boots on the ground as Russia will not use nuclear weapons unless it faces an existential attack upon its own territory or the West uses them first. Billions have been spent encouraging Ukrainians to be “good Europeans”, what a pity to see it all go to waste?
You should check to see if NATO has ever had a war with Russia in Afghanistan. Or any war in Afghanistan.
America IS NATO………..
Our weapons (not defensive equipment, weapons) will prolong the war and lead to more death. Obviously that’s‘wrong’. Action calculated to result in the needless, pointless deaths of innocent people is always ‘wrong’. But our leaders have decided a prolonged and bloody war makes very good strategic sense. It won’t be their kids dying, after all.
It should be possible to have an open debate about this, but they’ve made that impossible (deliberately) by framing the supply of weapons as being ‘aid’.
Aid doesn’t splinter bones and splatter blood. it doesn’t cause death and misery. It’s not supplied by Lockheed Martin.
Our weapons will prolong the war. That’s the intention. It’s a strategic gamble, enabled by our gullible population. Just like lockdowns were enabled by gullible idiots clapping like seals for the NHS.
We in the west have the governments – corrupt, cynical, exploitative warmongers – that our gullibility deserves. It’s the people in Ukraine who will pay the price of our stupidity.
There are reports and pics/bids from Pisa and Germany that aid containers are emptied and filled with weapons instead.
Wouldn’t surprise me at all anymore.
Well you are quite gullible.
Fuck off tree.
https://newsrnd.com/news/2022-03-15-italian-airport-workers-refuse-to-load-weapons-into-ukraine-under-cover-of-humanitarian-aid.Sy
So you might consider the russian invasion wrong, as it leads to so much suffering.
Why can’t you say this? Is it not in the sceptics handbook?
But no, you blame the invasion on the west.
“But no, you blame the invasion on the west.”
As do most informed commentators on the subject. You just don’t hear from them on the BBC.
‘Our weapons (not defensive equipment, weapons) will prolong the war and lead to more death.’ So what are you suggesting – anyone who gets invaded should always just give up?
The whole point of arming Ukraine and tangling NATO membership in front of them was to provoke a Russian invasion, so that the MI and the OMG complexes get their dough and the neocons could prevent Germany from getting ever closer to Russia.
None of them ever cared about the Ukrainian people, to the contrary, they used them as pawns and cannon fodder most deliberately.
(I doubt they even contemplated the alternative to the closer Europe/Russia relations developing aka what’s happening now, namely the Russia-China& axis and de-dollarization, and harbored automatic regime change delusions only instead.)
Sending more arms to Ukraine now though will only prolong the conflict for a few more weeks and kill more Ukrainians unnecessarily- not that they would care about the latter.
Doing what Tony Blair, the Poles and the US chicken hawks want might save Ukraine, might lead to regime change in Russia, might stop the Russian/Chinese axis and de-dollarization, but at the certain expense of nuclear war and deserted total wastelands in a decimated Europe incl. the UK (which wouldn’t bother the Americans much and Tony Blair would likely flee there, and Bill&Klaus will also be in favor of its depopulation part, so I wouldn’t yet rule it out… ).
There is one point missed here.
If Ukraine ‘wins’ the ‘conventional’ conflict then Russia still has the existential problem that it started with.
And why should it then throw its hand in?
Whatever is expected by armchair warriors in the west, it probably doesn’t include a nuclear exchange in Europe, but that is where we are heading, because all other options will have been exhausted by Russia. And from what we now know, the Russians have an unanswerable deliver system, while the US trials of a similar delivery system are so far unsuccessful.
Perhaps someone needs to point out to those European countries currently housing US nuclear weapons that, because the US will use them to try to take out the new Russian nuclear delivery systems that will hit E.g. NORAD without being stopped, then the Russians will take them out first rendering swathes of Europe uninhabitable for decades.
How likely is that really?
Have all other options been exhausted by Russia tho?
Currently only ~30% of Russias ground forces are deployed in Ukraine, Vs everything Ukraine has, I’m not sure about airpower, but it doesn’t seem to have been utilised to it’s fullest capability as yet.
It’s a bit early to be writing them off and wetting our pants about mushroom clouds, which seems highly unlikely given the immediate response, and complete destruction it would bring to Moscow.
Not only has Russia not deployed a major portion of its forces, those it has deployed seem to be mainly inept conscripts with no experience and it has kept its elite units and top line equipment back.
I think the question is why is the west arming Ukraine?
It is one of, if not the most corrupt country in the world. It has been asset stripped by a series of political events since the wall came down. It was a hugely productive, successful industrial nation at one point, now all gone.
So what exactly does the west get in return for all these weapons they are just handing over.
The perpetuation of the conflict is merely creating a growing refugee crisis, but they’re not fleeing from much, so what’s in it for the west?
Are we to believe that Putin’s next target will be surrounding nations, many of which are members of NATO, and if he sets foot in those countries, the gloves are off.
It has been stated by many that Ukraine would never be part of NATO, the reasons now are pretty obvious, so the reasons for the war are hardly going to produce another NATO country if Putin withdraws.
The west had virtually abandoned the country, but seems to have stalked it to bring it into the western fold. But that simply ruined the country. Why does the west suddenly rush to the aid of a country it’s blighted with its malignant lust for more nation occupancy?
Clearly the military isn’t up to much if the principle weapons of defence appear to be Javelin anti-tank and Stinger antiaircraft ordnance.
So where’s the payback for the west. Had they been concerned about the humanitarian issues, why were they not arming the Donbas against Eastern Ukraine’s murderous war against the region?
Where was the western attempts to house those people with families in the UK?
So just what is the payback here?
How on earth do you make out that Ukraine is more corrupt than Russia or Belarus? Prior to this war, Ukraine was a country on the up, despite Putin’s proxy war in the Donbass.
‘Prior to this war, Ukraine was a country on the
up,take,despite Putin’s proxythen after a CIA-backed coup, it started a war in the Donbass.’Previous Ukrainian presidents were Russian stooges, like Lukashenko in Belarus is now. It was Russia that made Ukraine corrupt, just as Russia itself is spectacularly corrupt and wholly dependant on hydrocarbons for its existence. It was not a CIA coup and the very idea that the CIA could have pulled that off in Ukraine. Russia’s backyard, without the Russians noticing is laughable. Lots of people queuing up here to tell Ukrainians to accept Russian domination.
In no sense is anybody making the Ukrainians defend their country. Sending weapons simply gives them agency, the ability to effectively fight if they choose to. There is nothing immoral about that.
I personally think we could do more. Mutually assured destruction prevented nuclear war in much more fraught situations in the past. Why would everyone go insane now?
Conservatives are as emotional as anyone. They just think a tedious intellectual argument places them above others. But these weak, finger on the scale arguments, suggest to me that conservatives being right about covid and the woke are exceptions. I wonder if their populism is mostly skin deep.
If fear of taxes is going to prevent conservatives from acting to defang the billionaires who fuel the globalist elite, conservatives will never be effective. You can rightfully earn 100 million or so. Beyond that it is the fruit of rent seeking and cronyism.
The world has a chance now to take stock.
Russia seems suddenly reluctant to reduce Kiev to Rubble with artillery as they did with Berlin and Grozny. And as Britons did to Munich and Hamburg, if it were me not Putin, it would be different. I’m of the Bomber Harris mindset, Arthur Harris conducted the 1,000 bomber raids dropping 10,000 tons of high explosives per night over large populated cities of Germany. It was helpful to end the war quickly, which is my main hope now. But I marvel at Putin’s restraint. Harris, by comparison , famously remarked that he regarded the entire civilian population of Germany was worth less than the healthy bones of a single English grenadier. I can dig that idea! As a father I believe I would have agreed with all my heart, and I would have broke every sinew to drop even more bombs or get the Atom Bomb to end it in one day. So, to me, Putin’s patience over Ukraine has been absolutely remarkable, he’s given the shitty world a chance to take stock.We should make use of that chance , and dump the crazy warlike leaders of Britain and America.
“I’m of the Bomber Harris mindset, Arthur Harris conducted the 1,000 bomber raids dropping 10,000 tons of high explosives per night over large populated cities of Germany. It was helpful to end the war quickly, which is my main hope now. But I marvel at Putin’s restraint. Harris, by comparison , famously remarked that he regarded the entire civilian population of Germany was worth less than the healthy bones of a single English grenadier. I can dig that idea! “
I can understand that approach, and to some extent it has intellectual legitimacy, in theory.
My problem with it in practice is that, in my experience, those who claim to embrace it are often the first to whine like toddlers when the same approach is used against their own side.
If you’re happy to dish it out, you should be prepared to take it in turn.
This article from 2014 seems remarkably prescient and sets the scene for what is happening right now in Ukraine. Wars are the escalation of squabbles by ruling and owning elites over sources of raw materials, markets, areas of strategic significance, and political intrigue. My sympathies lie with those ordinary folk enduring or fleeing conflict in Ukraine, those in Russia suffering from the effects of sanctions, and all of us in Europe who will shortly be doing likewise. We’re all just cattle…
https://www.globalresearch.ca/a-world-war-in-the-offing-why-us-nato-geopolitics-could-lead-to-a-third-world-war/5399125
Zelensky was a comedian – not a member of an “elite”.
Nothing the US does is based on any semblance of morality.
This follows Noah Carl’s previous suggestion that NATO is to blame for the Russian aggression. Is the man on Putin’s payroll? To make comparisons between Assad’s Syria and Ukraine is perverse. Beyond scepticism, into apologia.
Arming the Ukrainians is simply the least bad option, Noah.
I keep rereading this article, each time with mounting incredulity…..Noah Carl appears to be saying that the West should stand aside and let Putin get on with it. How is that a moral position to take?
‘It’s possible…the Ukrainians will hold out long enough to bargain for a good settlement’.
You mean like someone beating you up in the street, trying to take all your money, then agreeing to take just half of it and telling you you’ve had a good deal?
one simply does not give in to the likes of putin and hitler.
chamberlain, daladier and the entirety of europe found out why.
Noah Carl’s article is defective in many respects.
Firstly, the Yugoslav wars did indeed go on a long time. But in that case there was a UN arms embargo. Instead, we in Europe sat back to watch as the Serbs (who had inherited almost all the military equipment from the break up of Yugoslavia) pounded Sarajevo into the dust. Just as in Ukraine, an arms embargo effectively gives the aggressor all the advantages.
Secondly, it’s wholly unreasonable to assume that Putin ‘only’ wants half the country. Just rubbish. Would we be willing give up half our country?
Thirdly, by Noah’s logic, we should only resist aggressors if we’re certain of winning. But it’s not always at all clear who’s going to win at the start. By any military logic Britain should have sued for peace against Hitler after Dunkirk – but instead, we went on to win. Meanwhile in Ukraine, the possibility of Russian defeat is already genuine, just a couple of weeks into the war.
Fourthly, the issue is not just about Ukraine. If Putin were allowed to get away with seizing Ukraine that it greatly encourages military aggressors everywhere, including China in Taiwan. Doing nothing in Ukraine would hugely increase the chance of war, including nuclear war. Resisting Putin also carries a risk of war – but that’s on Putin.
Fifthly, his analysis of Syria is all wrong because he refers to the rebels as if they were all the same. It was precisely the refusal to arm the moderate Syrian rebels early on that allowed the more extreme groups to gain control. How bizarre to criticise lesser US involvement in Syria while condoning Russian direct intervention. Russia saved Assad from almost certain defeat. The US (via the Kurds) fought Islamic State (who were themselves fighting Syrian rebels) not Assad.
Putin is never going to step-down by legal means, so a civil war at the end of his rule (whenever it comes) is always a possibility. There’s nothing the west can do about that.
17 july 2014 russian troops acting out of east ukraine shot down flight mh17, a civilian airliner killing all 296 on board.
russia denied responsibility and immediately claimed, amongst other claims, that it was ukrainian troops that did it.
putin started this in 2014 and the only reason russia now invaded ukraine again was because he was not made accountable in 2014.
he got away with it.
and he will continue to be a threat until he gets stopped once and for all.
Of course what is happening is driven by the arms companies who just see any war, as long as possible, as profit for them. I suppose the arguments in favour of what is happening is that it will drive Putin to the negotiating table and discourage him from attacking other former Soviet countries. In any case Putin will only negotiate if he is not seen to lose, so hopefully a solution can be found that stops the bloodshed on both sides and both can grudingly accept. Lets face it nobody will get a clean win from this, so its time for both sides to be sensible and accept compromise.