Welcome to the Weekly Sceptic episode 83 (recorded live at the Hippodrome).
This week:
- Will Wragg is praised for being “brave” by Jeremy Hunt after sending intimate photos to a spear phisher and then, when blackmailed, handing over fellow MPs’ phone numbers
- The Tories issue a poster with the dubious claim that the U.K. is the second most powerful country in the world and prove this by including photos of an American jet and a Swiss ship
- Angela Rayner is caught telling porkies to avoid capital gains tax and David Lammy’s attempts to defend her make things exponentially worse
- Toby is described in the Telegraph as a “Right-wing hate figure” in a surprisingly positive article
- Plus everyone’s favourite section, Peak Woke, and premium content which this week includes:
- The Rock announces he won’t be endorsing either Presidential candidate because he’s too famous and doesn’t want to influence the result
- No Labels folds its tent, thereby giving Biden a much-needed boost
- And in the Based Department, Nick nominates Angela Rayner’s cushion for proving she was lying about the house she sold being her primary residence.
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Of course they want a war. And so do the Russian arms manufacturers. As, also, do the Chinese arms manufacturers.
The end of the Cold War was beginning to look bad for business. Luckily, we can probably put it back again…
You’d need to be rather “special” at this stage not to have grasped that this war, as Prof Mearsheimer and many others warned over decades, is the result of US regime aggression. That’s pretty much a given.
While that ought to raise a serious issue for us about how and by whom we were misled into this situation, of more concern probably should be where those same idiots are going to lead us next. Two big dangers. First,escalation of the existing war. Second, creation of another war by similar means
In relation to the former, here’s a summary of the current situation in and around the Ukraine (as of yesterday) from the indy pro-Russian pov – imo far, far more honest than what we get on the mainstream media here. (Remember, according to what the BBC etc were putting out, the Russian military was about to collapse and run out of missiles, a month ago!)
http://thesaker.is/sitrep-operation-z-16/
Lots of what ought to be concerning stuff about likely escalations from Poland and in Transnistria.
Tuesday’s attack on the security ministry building in Tiraspol in Transnistria could have been SAS, or it could have been FSB, but it was definitely a provocation by somebody.
Kaliningrad could suddenly come up too, especially what with movements of forces by NATO countries eastwards. The talk of a ramped-up “defensive” line in the Baltic states has always been scary.
“Tuesday’s attack on the security ministry building in Tiraspol in Transnistria could have been SAS, or it could have been FSB, but it was definitely a provocation by somebody.“
True, but I think, as Russian blogger Yuriy Podolyaka just pointed out, very reasonably, atm it’s in the interests of the Ukrainians to “unfreeze” the Moldovan conflict, not in the interests of the Russians, who would prefer to leave it until they’ve finished crushing the Ukrainian military in the Donbass.
Svetlana Picta interviews Yriy Podolyaka about Transnistria Conflict
Cui bono is always a shaky foundation, but when it’s all you’ve got it’s what you go with.
“Kaliningrad could suddenly come up too, especially what with movements of forces by NATO countries eastwards. The talk of a ramped-up “defensive” line in the Baltic states has always been scary.“
Yes, especially the reference to Polish military exercise movements “in the north and east”.
Might just be intended to pin the Russians, in their response to a potential Transnistrian aggression or Polish intervention in western Ukraine, with a potential other front to defend
As far as the latter goes, Liz Truss is patently a half-wit (just look at the picture of her wearing an idiot-bag on her face if you doubt it), but she is, incredibly, the UK Foreign Secretary, and she speaks for the UK neocon interventionist tendency and when she suggests doing in Taiwan what was done in the Ukraine and led to the current war there, it’s worth contemplating the implications:
“”We need a global NATO,” she said. “And we must ensure that democracies like Taiwan are able to defend themselves.””
Now China is a nasty place, run by a nasty regime – every bit as nasty as the worst woke, globalist lefty nightmare currently planned for us in the US sphere. But a regime being nasty does not mean that provoking a war with that regime is necessarily a good idea – that’s the neocon militarist and liberal interventionist fantasy, and while it’s only expensive in blood and treasure when applied to third world states, when applied to nuclear powers it’s the road to nuclear destruction.
Pushing a NATO equivalent into Taiwan means war with China, sooner rather than later, as it meant war with Russia.
And war with China means, at the outset, the end of the world economy as we know it, and as we have known it for the past few decades.
It also means a very high risk of escalation to nuclear exchanges. And that’s a price none of us should be willing to pay, imo, to resolve a dispute over whether Taiwan is a lingering rebellious province from China’s civil war, or a genuinely independent new sovereign nation state.
Your mileage may vary, but at least be honest about what you are willing for us all to pay, and to risk, for your theory.
“”We need a global NATO,” she said. “And we must ensure that democracies like Taiwan are able to defend themselves.””
Interesting. I wonder if it has occurred to her that other countries might decide to be as self-righteously interventionist? For the sake of argument, China might have looked at the reluctance of the UK Parliament to implement the result of the EU membership referendum as evidence that the people of the UK were no longer living in a democracy. Would China have been justified in intervening militarily to ensure this was done?
It’s about time the Western globalists wound their necks in and stopped interfering in other countries’ business!
You might want to think what China acquiring Taiwan might mean.
sceptics’ enthusiasm for Putin’s killing spree in Ukraine and condemnation of all efforts to help the Ukrainians is very misguided and shameful.
I see someone’s been reading the Mirror…
Are you saying The Russians have not invaded Ukraine and that they are not killing thousands of people and displacing millions of people??
The large majority of “sceptics” commenting here seem to support Putin’s actions saying he had no choice but to do all this killing?
Or… are you unaware of the significance of Taiwan?
If you look into the industries of Taiwan, you would understand how it would be very advantageous for China to acquire it and a major crisis for the rest of us.
Or, is it a throw-away meaningless comment.
You no doubt have filed suit against numerous US and UK agencies for the genocides they committed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia and Syria. Not to mention 1 million dead in Indonesia in the 1960s, god knows how many dead and maimed by Agent Orange in Vietnam and two nuclear strikes amounting to genocide in Japan?
You are misusing the term “genocide”, but on your last example it is interesting that the description of the massacres in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as crimes against humanity, which they most certainly were on any sensible definition – being the premeditated mass murder of at least 100000 unarmed civilians – has never become standard usage for any part of the political spectrum.
Don’t forget Agent Orange also severely affected the US soldiers reproductive systems
So it seems by the current generation!
Are you saying that the Ukrainian army didn’t spend much of the last 7 years killing people in Donbas? That the Ukrainian government wasn’t “killing its own people”, which was the justification used to attack Libya?
What do you think the Donbass rebels have been doing in reverse? And with Russian weapons and mercenaries?
That war would never have started without Putin
The war would never have started without Nuland and the CIA.
Are you a pacifist that doesn’t believe in war under any circumstances?
No tree is simply a paid troll.
Who departs when asked a question that hasn’t been anticipated in the script.
Do you think someone actually pays for that low-quality trolling?
Russia attacking Ukraine was nothing to do with Taiwan.
It was to do with NATO.
It was also to do with the war that’s been going on in Donetsk and Luhansk for eight years – in which, by the way, thousands of people have died.
First you say that those of us who disagree with you are “enthusiastic” about “Putin’s killing spree” – like we’re all vicious “kill, kill, kill” types. Then you say we think he had no choice. You know those two things are different, right?
Predictable ‘on message’ pre-formed comment from you as per contract – attracting a healthy 53 downticks.
14,000 Donbas Russians -including women and children- killed in Ukrainian Donbas shelling since 2014…’all this killing’ yes indeed!
Few people have enthusiasm for Putin’s actions, what they do have is a clear understanding that the West had 8 years to avoid this happening, scrupulously planned to ensure that it DID happen and is revelling in the fact that the usual global criminals can make absolute hay forcing the honest people to pay for their racketeering.
Almost as misguided and shameful as your misrepresentation of what “sceptics” think.
“Putin’s killing spree”. Lol. Is that from the Mirror or is it from a local rag, a step on from a shoplifting spree maybe? But I’m showing too much levity, because of course wicked Vlad looks like this:
Curiously uncanny resemblance to Doctor Fauci, “Doctor Death” himself!
By the way, @tree, were you so anti-Putin when he was Eton College’s darling, back in 2016?
(Before answering, please bear in mind that the war in the Donbas had been going on for two years by that time.)
“I wonder if it has occurred to her that other countries might decide to be as self-righteously interventionist?“
It’s implicit in the interventionist worldview that “we” will always be the dominant power and “we” will always get to set the rules to suit our convenience.
Pushing a NATO equivalent into Taiwan means war with China, sooner rather than later, as it meant war with Russia.
Presumably a month after the Chinese government has stopped fighting a war on its own people in order to eradicate a harmless virus.
Strange how China is continuously fighting viral epidemics, both human and animal, while being surrounded by US biolabs.
“Surrounded by”?
Or do we mean operating inside the country funded by Fauci?
It’s high time that Parliament formally filed a motion of ‘Any sane citizen of the UK supports this House in asserting that it no longer has any confidence in Her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.’
I posted Truss was a half wit on some forum and received a barrage of abuse for my trouble. Seems she’s got a lot of support amongst the sheep
I used to find her quite attractive but she’s aged really badly over the past two years.
But, yeah, she’s thick.
“Thick” = “dangerous” when nuclear weapons are involved.
She is not a half-wit , she is dumb and witless – she even thought Rostov was in Ukraine.
All her ridiculous remarks are scripted for her.
In a very strong field, of incompetents, she takes the Gold for the appointment most inappropriate in relation to ability and basic knowledge of the likely brief material.
( Dorries comes second)
Pushing a NATO-type arrangement into Taiwan smells like the sheerest bullsh*t.
“a dispute over whether Taiwan is a lingering rebellious province from China’s civil war, or a genuinely independent new sovereign nation state”
I’ve noticed that’s the way the BBC have started to frame the dispute. It’s false, because the government in Taiwan does NOT view Taiwan as an “independent” state.
The official position is constrained by US and Chinese pressure, but the choice in reality is very obviously between being part of China (a rebellious province, or the only remaining legitimate province, depending which way you look at it – a distinction without a difference in reality) or being a sovereign independent state.
You’d need to be rather “special” at this stage not to have grasped that this war, as Prof Mearsheimer and many others warned over decades, is the result of US regime aggression.
Of course it is! The US has by far the biggest arms industry in the world – $9.3 trillion at last count. How do you think politicians are going to keep all those voters in work?
Second largest is Russia’s and (proportionately) much more important.
Apart from hydrocarbons, it’s practically all they do now.
Escalation is inevitable.
Both Russia and the US alliance are locked in an existential battle.
The west has been wanting to depose Putin and take control of all of Russia’s natural resources for some time.
Putin has had enough and more than invade Ukraine has really provoked an attack on the western, USD reserve, financial system. So basically he is trying to depose them right back.
This is an all out war in which neither side has left any room for negotiation.
Putin will drag his country down with him and they will willing go down with him because they feel their country and culture is under assault.
Western oligarchs will drag us all down with them and most of the population will go along with it, because most of our people are at least as brainwashed as anyone else and think we are right.
We are completely screwed.
I think it’s a mistake to play the neocons’ game and personalise Russia’s activities as “Putin” doing this or that. Russia is not a dictatorship – that’s just part of the propaganda.
That’s not to say Russia is a land of libertarian milk and honey or that Putin is a saint, just that words have meanings, and the differences between Russia and US sphere countries are mostly of degrees rather than of kind.
Where there is a difference of kind, imo, is that the US sphere countries are in the grip of an aggressive universalist, expansionist ideology that brooks no exceptions and no dissent, in woke globalism, whereas Russia is a more pragmatic place, that has no similarly dominant and aggressive ideology.
Yes, morons in our part of the world love to see Putin as the sole agent of Russia’s destiny, leading a country of frightened sheep too uninformed and afraid to speak out. I think in psychology terms this is called ‘projection’ !
My limited experience of Russians suggests that they are just as opinionated as Western folk, are certainly just as well educated (often far better educated), they have strong family values and love children and they want to find a life partner just as much as most western folks.
There’s no difference between ordinary Russians and ordinary Westerners. We should be together going to war against the psychopaths.
Indeed, and the inability to paint foreigners as inherently evil in the modern interconnected world is a major thorn in the side of the establishment. I suppose that’s why it’s necessary to pretend that Putin = Russia and Russia = Putin. They must have their pantomime villain!
We should be together going to war against the psychopaths.
So very true, but the psychopaths are almost all on one side and it isn’t Russia’s.
There’s only one man waving his nuclear weapons.
Many, perhaps most, Russian’s see Putin as essential to the prosperity of their country. When they judge him against the previous two leaders, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, in their view he return a certain pride and prosperity to Russia which the previous two lost. Whether that is accurate or not (and it probably is to some extent at least) that is how much of Russia sees Putin.
Which is why the west is gunning for him personally and trying to provoke a regime change.
Good point. The essential political fact about Putin, from the perspective of many Russians (and this has been made clear time and time again, even by his opponents) is that he is perceived as rescuing Russia from chaos.
He has presented Russians with a way out of the mess created in the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s not a perfect way; but it’s better than what they experienced under Yeltsin (for whose policies and influence they often blame Gorbachev).
It’s not about personalising Russia’s activities as “Putin”
Regime change to take control of a country means precisely getting rid of the leader.
More so in the Russia’s case, where both the west and Russian people see Putin as a bulwark. He has shown himself to be a strong leader capable of defending Russia’s national interests.
Whether we like it or not it is all very mucb about Putin.
The west likes to personalises its hate and sees this as a way of appealing to the deliberately dumb-downed hoards, that now make up the bulk of its people. Appalling ignorance abounds, even at higher levels, we saw it with Covid and now again with Ukraine. The morons are firmly in charge and the future is accordingly exceedingly bleak.
Just remember that the media now is government propaganda, the fourth estate holding the Executive and Parliament to account no longer exists.
Coronavirus Act allows the Government to act with impunity on almost any matter, there has been zero proper scrutiny of the ludicrous UK decisions to go to war in Ukraine. We are at war by the very act of supplying Ukraine with weaponry AND applying sanctions to Russia.
Parliament is full of MI6 stooges, City stooges and those taking brown envelopes from lobbyists, be they arms manufacturers, US criminals, the war racketeers in the globe’s big banks etc etc.
They wouldn’t act in the interests of us lot in a million years.
All so very true, we are indeed in very deep sh*t.
“Misled” ( lied to) by the same people who lied to us about the “Covid Horror” and the Miracle Experimental (‘ not a Gene Therapy – promise!’) ‘vaccines ‘ ( which strangely do none of the jobs expected of a “vaccine”.
Biden rejected the claim NATO was engaged in a proxy war against Russia as “not true”.
Denying something is usually taken to be a straight admission by a politician…
Biden doesn’t even know what day it is……..these days, he probably doesn’t even know who Putin is.
He only has a shaky idea of who Biden is.
He’s objectively correct: For Ukraine to be fighting a proxy war against Russia, it would have needed to invade one of the still exising Russian client states in the area, eg, Belarus.
Yes, let’s pretend the eight years of Western-backed neo-Nazi terror in the Donbass never happened.
This …. ahem … amusing statement has absolutely no relation to mine. It’s impossible to fight a proxy war on the defensive. At best, one could argue that Ukraine is a proxy victim of Russian aggression against an USA-led block. Except that it isn’t formally allied with anyone, hence, this, too, doesn’t make any sense.
But it’s at least good to see that Russian propaganda is even worse than Chinese propaganda or – I’m unsure which it is – that Biden’s opponents cannot really be distinguished from his supporters: Both are just throwing labels around with complete disregard for their actual meaning, just in the hope that this must somehow result in a coherent statement of anything.
But it doesn’t. It’s just white noise.
I’ll allow you to bask in your own ignorant arrogance
The button you just tried to press has been removed a while ago.
At the end of the day the quality of Russian propaganda doesn’t matter. It will be down to military ability and resolve. As to proxy war rules, they just don’t exist.
Ukraine due to the stupidity and/or the utter corruption of its “leaders” has undoubtedly been primed up to fight a proxy war against Russia for the US. At the war’s end Ukraine will likely cease to exist, if it exists at all, in anything remotely resembling its pre-war form, how stupid is that. Zelensky must have known this, but for a great deal of US and/or oligarch money, him being now worth $800 million, the president of Ukraine has sacrificed his own country and and an untold number of his people. What an absolute criminal he is.
And the 14000 or so civilian deaths caused by those Ukro bombs and shells.
This war started in 2014, not last February. The real wonder is that Russia took so long to do something about it, but better late than never.
That was Russia’s war, with Russian weapons on both sides.
Duh.
Go back into your cave, Fingal.
as I commented on over @ TCW
“What we do not see or hear from our Empire of Lies is the exceptionally dangerous developments in Transnistria and Moldova where it would appear the NATO axes are attempting to add a flank against the Russian Special Military Operation’s move towards Odessa. If these developments are true and it appears they are, The Empire of Lies (USUKEUCANZOZ) are truly out for WWIII…..”
https://thesaker.is/sitrep-operation-z-16/
A quote from a military writer in the NER:
As a Pentagon Intelligence mandarin once put it to me:
“We can’t justify Intelligence spending or the Defense budget with ragheads (Muslims) in Toyota pickup trucks or gooks (Chinese) selling Walmart junk or Nike shoes. The Russian threat may be a strawman, but it’s a necessary fiction. It’s no accident too that the Pentagon is the largest building in the country. Real war for the Intelligence Community and DOD is the Beltway budget battle. You could do worse than think of the Russian bear as an ally in the annual scrum over tax dollars.”
That comment resonated with me for two reasons. First, it is similar to H Mencken’s Imaginary Hobgoblins model of pragmatic politics. Secondly, and regarding a budget millions of times smaller, my local authority (and I suspect many more) spent massively on schemes “to combat Covid” in the last two years. In reality, these were just local schemes, such as blocking up minor suburban roads, for which the supporters could not get funding for years. Then along comes Covid, and so the business plans suddenly were updated to begin “in order to combat Covid…” which instantly guaranteed approval at the next council meeting. There was no discussion about why putting up annoying road bollards delayed the spread of a respiratory virus; the first five words sold the plan. You could do worse than think of the Chinese Virus as an ally in the annual scrum over local tax pence.
The tactic has precedent. Previously, the business plans had to start “in order to Save The Planet”, before going on to proposing planting trees to block roads. Clearly, the proponents couldn’t justify road improvement schemes which blocked the roads, so it was necessary to introduce the fiction of Saving The Planet. (Doubtless they will go back to that tactic now that Boris’s Coronavirus Trick has exhausted its Fear Potential.)
The Pentagon’s Strategy is the same, with more zeroes in the figures.
Perhaps the WEF is adopting a similar strategy, globally, with even more zeroes?
The U.S. actually wanted a war with Russia.
The fact remains, Putin before the war amassed a huge concentration of troops around Ukraine’s eastern border, denied that he was planning an invasion, and then invaded. For some reason he preferred to call it a ‘special military operation’.
The US’s foreign policy may have been provoking, but Ukraine did not want war and Ukraine was the other party directly involved. Until about 3 months before the war, the US was not expecting a war, and it remains difficult to believe that it wanted one (whatever one means by ‘the US’ – the Pentagon?). Certainly Biden didn’t.
The idea that Biden is in any fit shape to want or not want anything is in itself rather comical.
I believe he still wants to touch and whisper at women and girls inappropriately.
Read Michael Brenner on that.
There are also strong indications that Ukraine wanted to invade the Donbas and Lugansk and that this the basis for the US intel projections.
Although in general what Ukraine, puppet government/let aline the people, wanted and wants is pretty irrelevant.
Have you not seen that Ukraine has democratic elections. Go and read the results. You should not believe the nonsense people on this site tell you.
And they voted for someone who, albeit clearly in the pay of an organised crime oligarch, nevertheless claimed his intention was to make peace with the autonomists. But in the event that figurehead was not able to deliver that policy because the nationalist thugs intimidated him out of it.
There are also strong indications that Ukraine wanted to invade the Donbas and Lugansk and that this the basis for the US intel projections.
I sincerely hope that nobody regards this as intelligence: Government which fought $civil_war againt $armed_insurrection for 8 years actually wanted to win it! In other news, it was reported that bears are catholics and that the pope defecates in the woods.
“Government which fought $civil_war againt $armed_insurrection for 8 years“
A government that fought a murderous 8 year civil war involving intentional shelling of civilian areas against people demanding just basic civil treatment – pretty much, mutatis mutandis, what we give to the Welsh and Scots as a matter of course. And that thought it was a great idea for its occupation forces in places like Mariupol to be made up in large part of nationalist extremist thugs who openly despise the population of the occupied territory.
Agreed. No intelligence there.
Ukraine had amassed up to 100,000 troops for a “final solution” against the Donbass and that is why Russia was asked by the Donbass to protect them.
Is this Russian propaganda? or did you make it up?
Have you been asleep for the past ten years or so. Rhetorical question, we know the answer.
ever heard the name Nuland? – go Gulag it…..
How about Chrystia Freeland – find out who her Grandfather was….
Otherwise a very naive view of world aspects.
His view is typical paid troll stuff.
Biden doesn’t want much more than his daily ration of pills.
Anyone who thinks that what Biden wants or thinks has any bearing on what is going on is – how can one put it – a little naive, perhaps?
If only he’d called it a kinetic military action, he could’ve won a peace prize
Correct.
If you were to read the words written on this site, you would believe that Russia was under some immediate existential threat, for which the only solution was to start murdering Ukrainians. The majority of people commenting on these pages seem to believe this.
If you really believe that, then perhaps you can explain why Zelensky rejected a peace deal – brokered by Germany – a week before the Russian military action?
And you might also want to explain why Biden was so quick to label Putin a “war criminal” and a “butcher” which effectively ended hopes of any reconciliation by the US and Russia.
If Ukraine didn’t want war it would have implemented the Minsk II agreements in the 8 years since 2014. It repeatedly refused to do so and France and Germany didn’t walk in as guarantors to read Poroshenko and Zelensky the riot act. Why? Because those two are US-protected mafia mobsters doing whatever the US wants them to do.
What did the US want them to do? Inflame Russia through targeting Russian speakers in the Donbass. What defines ‘inflaming Russia’? Killing 10,000 citizens good enough for you?
Minsk favoured Russia. At best it was a ceasefire, not a solution.
But in the end, Putin wasn’t bothered about implementing it either.
Russia was not a party to the Minsk agreements. Do keep up!
I think many people will find that opinion almost comical.
The US is almost always at war with someone. They freakin love it. The establishment does, anyway.
Provoking wars, fighting wars, instigating others into war, directly, by proxy, the lot. They can’t get enough of it.
Worth also considering the now quite serious possibility that the choices of our ruling regime, and likely forthcoming US sphere escalations mean that there is now a non-negligible prospect of our being formally at war with Russia in the near future. (A war does not mean a strategic nuclear exchange, at least not instantly.)
If that happens, it, and all the consequences, will be 100% the fault of British people – those who have sucked up the anti-Russian propaganda for decades, believed every obvious propaganda lie, and repeatedly supported and elected liars who have been wholly subordinate to US militarism and helped to destroy, with one war and subversion after another, any possibility of a rules based global order of the kind they so dishonestly pontificate about. As in so many areas, the woke globalist liars are exactly what they accuse others of being, and do exactly what they accuse others of doing.
For the record, once that line is crossed, I will no longer be commenting publicly on these issues (and doubtless there will be many here who might see war as a price worth paying for that
)
The truth dies in war, and democracy and internal politics end.
That doesn’t mean the war is any less suicidally stupid and evil. It just means it’s no longer possible to say so in polite public discourse.
(By war, in this context, I mean a real war, with a peer opponent that has the power to meaningfully fight back, or one that has actually attacked us. Not colonial slaughters of choice, such as every “war” our regime has perpetrated since the Falklands – arguably the last legitimate British war.)
@Mark: you have a good point that at some point (probably unannounced) we will be destroying ourselves in a war with Russia, and at that point any dissent will be considered treason, rather than just misinformation. The internments of bloggers, columnists and commenters will begin.
They might not have time to do that, of course, if things go as rapidly as modern technology allows….
Yes, just a few minutes to round up the dissenting voices, probably not quite enough.
There will only be direct war if Russia chooses it.
Thank you for your insight.
Of course it’s a proxy war.
Ukraine, with US support, broke the Minsk agreements.
Ukraine, with help from the West, have been waging war against ethnic Russians since the US led coup of 2014.
In that year 97% of Ukrainians in Crimea democratically voted to reject their neo-Nazi national government for closer ties with Russia.
Ethnic Russians in the east left the Ukrainian military and took their hardware to the Donbass to set up autonomous regions to protect their citizens fleeing from the Ukrainian army and neo-Nazi militias.
In February 2022 Ukraine were massing their military for a “final solution” against the ethnic Russians in the Donbass.
Russia recognized the democratic republics of the Donbass and were invited in to help defend them with their Special Military Operation.
Russia has not “invaded” the east of Ukraine as they were invited in and has not entered the west of the country. They entered Kyev to persuade Zelensky to negotiate. His handlers told him not to so Russia withdrew from Kyev.
They have entered the south to achieve their goal of de-Nazifying Ukraine particularly their stronghold in Odessa where neo-Nazis burned alive many pro Russians.
Article 51 of the UN Charter allows UN countries “self-defence” to protect its people from attack.
The UN World Summit Outcome Document in 2005 also allows for Responsibility to Protect.
Russia has tried to minimize harm to civilians at great expense to its own casualties.
The West are fighting a proxy war against Russia and are using Ukraine for their own ends.
Other European countries should not fear Russia as long as they do not join NATO (no eastern expansion was agreed back in 1991) and if they do not join any proxy war against Russia.
Imagine the response by the US if a hostile bloc sent weapons to a neighbouring country to the US.
Your assertion that Russia would not invade a non NATO country is pretty stupid.
What do you base this on?
Finns in Finland are very worried of an invasion by Russia. Finland is not a member of NATO yet, but it would appear that Finland is about to sign up.
Watch this space.
For a very bright flash!
Bring sausages!
Remarkably stupid of Finns to want to join a belligerent military alliance just as war looks most likely to break out. There’s zero rational reason to expect the Russians to attack Finland, which which it has had very good relations to date, as long as it’s neutral, but the moment it joins NATO it goes straight onto the Kinzhal and strategic nuclear targeting lists.
Then again, we’ve just seen what massive, systematic propaganda can achieve in the covid panic, so it’s really not surprising that the same forces can persuade Finnish turkeys to vote for Christmas.
I understood that the Finns aren’t to nbe given a vote.
Finns do as they are told by their Government. They are all forelock-tuggers.
I had a Finnish girlfriend in 1986. Tarja
We split up because she was only here for a year and we were too young to commit, but as neither had rejected the other we remained in touch.
She’s horrified that I haven’t been jabbed or tested and haven’t worn a mask.
She’s horrified that I haven’t been jabbed or tested and haven’t worn a mask.
What more do you need to know about Finns.
Finland has no monopoly on creeps.
That’s democracy at work.
I expect it’s really all about backhanders and politicians making money for themselves… isn’t it always?
Not sure that Finland is ‘neutral’ – I think Russia has been a bloodsucker for many years, making demands on Finland and the Finns too scared to do anything about it. I doubt that Russians pay for the services Finland provides.
Russians don’t even pay their parking tickets in Finland – they just drive back over the border and the traffic wardens just shrug their shoulders.
I think Russia has been a bloodsucker for many years, making demands on Finland and the Finns too scared to do anything about it.
So the Finns are really worried because Russians don’t pay their parking tickets. Really bad of Russians and no wonder the Finns are so scared. Although it seems still not too scared to apply for membership of NATO just as a war might break out. Come on now.
The Finns must have a death wish, but they won’t be a problem compared to Ukraine. Then it might be Sweden’s turn. What’s wrong with the clowns in charge of these countries.
What do you base this on?
Try history.
Excellent summation.
If the West didn’t want this war, it would have realized Minsk 2 instead of sabotaging it, it would have engaged seriously with Russia’s detailed and valid concerns instead of arrogantly ignoring or denying them throughout 2021 and it would have signalled proportional responses to any Russian militaristic moves instead of ‘maximum penalty in all cases’.
The latter ensured that he went in and ensures now that going ever further, beyond Donbas/Lugansk/Crimea towards Transnistria/Novorussia at least, is now the absolutely rational strategy for Putin.
What I find most evil is the Western MICs and OGMCs deliberate scheming for this war- cui bono always suggested this and it simply cannot be denied anymore.
What I find most stupid is the oversight of the very negative consequences of the Western strategists hubris and arrogance, namely the Russia/China&co tieup and de-dollarization.
What I find most terrible is the openly practiced Russophobia and the openly argued for pursuit of ruining and illegally expropriating Russia and Russians just for the sake of it (Baerbock, Castex etc.), as if all lessons about Versailles’ consequences have been forgotten, and the extension of that ‘teach them a lesson’ mindset towards China/Taiwan, although the latter is currently only articulated by the most braindead and corrupted of our species, like £3.000 lunch ‘lady’ and £500k a pop frequent flyer Liz Truss, but sadly, these are the exact people seemingly rising ever more in numbers and ever further up the political, media and corporate ladder in today’s degenerated West.
Put simply:
We’re f***ed.
I’m not quite sure what the point of this article is. Of course the Ukranian’s have become in many respects proxy fighters. So what? It isn’t often said, because it is an obviously largely true statement that is nevertheless unnecessarily reductive and being reductive when talking about someone or a people can be seen as rude and can be taken the wrong way. A statement that is similarly true, a little too reductive, but not particularly startling is “you are controlled by your wife.” Like for all people in a relationship, in my case it is often quite true, but to phrase it like that is unhelpfully reductive. I would never use that phrasing to describe myself, but the fact is quite a lot of the time, I am, like when she knows I’m going to the supermarket and calls up and asks me to get some broccoli. It doesn’t mean I’m in a coercive relationship, it’s just a useful fact of having a relationship at all.
Has Ukraine been “commissioned” as a proxy army. No. Have they entered into a contract to be a proxy army? No. Do their generals report to the US or NATO. No. To re-iterate my point: the only reason it is “saying the quiet bit out loud” is to the extent it isn’t helpful because it is reductive of the relationship between the West and Ukraine and “being reductive” about a people can be taken the wrong way, so it is a form of language best usually avoided.
The purpose of the article is to provoke the “sceptics” to developing even more pro-Russian invasion views.
It would seem the only country not responsible is Russia (in this tiny “sceptical” world)
‘tree’ replying to TheBasicMind. Just wonderful!
For someone to be fighting as proxy in a proxy war, that someone must have been the attacker and he must seek to expand a political sphere of influence.
Or, in this case, the opponent has been baited into kicking off the conflagration.
A bit like someone getting right into someone else’s face and enquiring from a distance of 2mm whether they want a fight and then getting hit.
The redefinition of established terms in order to suit an artificial narrative didn’t work for Corona. And it doesn’t work for the war in Ukraine either. The Russians have not been attacked and nothing which could be regarded as provocation happened even somewhat recently, either. Putin seized what he believed to be an opportunity to get Ukraine back under Russian control while the so-called West was still busy with Corona-self-harming. This happened entirely on his initiative. Ukraine cannot be a proxy actor because Ukraine didn’t act, only react.
“Putin seized what he believed to be an opportunity to get Ukraine back under Russian control while the so-called West was still busy with Corona-self-harming.“
This is just flat false, insofar as it ignores all the contextual information we have about the long buildup to the SMO, that has been laid out for you here repeatedly.
Referring to Russia’s actions as “Putin” is childish propaganda, and you are just wrong in your usage of the term proxy war (as should be obvious from its use referenced in the article atl).
Putin is the head of the Russian government. Hence, he’s the guy who controls Russian policy.
You needed to insert “and isn’t senile” after “government”.
And Biden controls US foreign policy. Give us a break.
Repeating the same comment again and again won’t make you any more right.
But that’s what troll are paid to do.
The war started in 2014, but you know that already and choose to ignore it, like the paid troll you are.
Conspiracy theorists were right yet again when warning nuclear war with Russia and China will happen as part of the great reset.
Considering America, via the Rochefeller Foundation, were big donors to the Red Revolution, and Schwab confirmed Putin is in the WEF club, I think it’s fair to assume the war is entirely manufactured.
Well, it hasn’t happened yet. So they haven’t been proven right just yet.
The war is happening and the nuclear threat has been made. I have a feeling neither of us will be able to dispute this if the nuke threat is fulfilled.
You could be right about it all going nuclear. Russia’s mission is to exist, while the US has the destruction of Russia as its main goal. Those two things do not fit together well.
Putin was in the WEF club but obviously no longer.
Want expand on this very assured claim?
Can you prove he is still a WEF member?
Can you prove he’s not? At this point his current status is a darling of the WEF Young Leaders club, confirmed by Schwab. Until we hear otherwise, we can assume he’s doing what he’s supposed to do.
And when – not if – communist China joins their communist partners in this war, will you still be whoring for Putin?
I don’t think on balance that Russia (as opposed to Putin) is acting in concert with the West. The economic moves being made by Russia at this point are anathema to the debt based Ponzi scheme that passes for Western capitalism.
Yes it is manufactured, but only by one side. Hint : that side isn’t Russia.
It’s probably pertinent to remember at this point that the Great War, what we now call World War One, was started because nobody would back down.
They all thought it would be a jolly jape and home by Christmas, then they realised it was the first fully industrial war – right about the time they cavalry charged into an operational machine gun position.
The current situation sounds eerily similar. Including the same lack of concern for the level of carnage modern weapons can unleash.
As I’ve said before, the people in charge should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch Threads on repeat until they get it.
We have a population that is scared of a bit of a cold, not scared of nuclear annihilation. I don’t get it.
“As I’ve said before, the people in charge should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch Threads on repeat until they get it.”
I think they should be strapped to the front of the lead tank in any invasion!
Do you mean Putin?
No. I mean the belligerent Western leaders who are responsible for so much misery in the world – and who have provoked Russia for years.
tree and RW have voted you down. You must be over the target.
Poor stuff tree, no bonus if you don’t do better.
It’s probably pertinent to remember at this point that the Great War, what we now call World War One, was started because nobody would back down.
It’s a bit more complicated than that: By that time, all continental great powers had their armies organized in a way the Prussians had invented in the 19th century, with a fairly small standing army as training force for conscripts who’d be moved to the army reserve after a few years of service. In order to get ready for a war, such an army has to be mobilized: Reservists needed to be called back to their units and fitted out. This was a transport-intensive weeks long task which required detailed advance planning to work. As the army wouldn’t be ready for war until mobilization was complete, everybody had to mobilize once anybody started, to avoid getting overrun before his own army became operational.
After the Sarajevo assassination, influential people in Austria-Hungary wanted war with Serbia. Because of this, they first sent an ultimatum the Serbs were guaranteed to reject and started a partial mobilization directed at Serbia. To this, the Russians responded with mobilizing their armed forces. This drew the Germans in who first asked the Russians to stop their mobilization and then, as they refused, sent another request to France to declare itself neutral. For some reason, France responded to that with mobilizing which left the Germans no choice but to mobilize as well. After all of this had happened, the only technically feasible option was to carry on as planned for this case. This meant the German army invaded Belgium and in response to that, Great Britain declared war as well.
“and in response to that, Great Britain declared war as well.”
That worked out well.
I was born in 1961 and remember lots of “Aunties” I was ordered by my Mum to let hug and kiss me.
It was only when I was a bit older that I understood that the men they would have married and had children with died in WW1.
Not too relevant to today, but thanks all the same. .
I think you’ve drawn a parallel to the current time more than a contrast.
Basically you are describing how all the nations semi-unwittingly manoeuvred into a point of no return. In that case it was by troop mobilisation.
As I see it, they are doing the same today except in a different way, largely through economic warfare that is hard to back down from. My worry and that of many others isn’t that Putin is a madman, but rather that leaders in both sides never back down and don’t leave room to negotiate because they personally have everything to lose and nothing to gain, and everyone else be damned. Like in WWI.
Pretty good summary.
“We have a population that is scared of a bit of a cold, not scared of nuclear annihilation. I don’t get it.“
The propaganda machine has been directed to scare people about covid while whipping people up into a froth of hysterical hatred of Russians and jingoist war fever.
Not really complicated, unless you had delusions that people are resistant to such propaganda. And I think we’ve all been disabused of that one over the past couple of years.
“right about the time they cavalry charged into an operational machine gun position.“
As an interesting (for me) aside, the first German death inflicted by the British Army in WW1 was done from horseback with a sword, the pattern 1908 cavalry sword (I have a couple in my collection):
“The Pattern 1908 sword was such a departure from previous models that a new accompanying sword exercise was needed, and was incorporated in the new Cavalry Training manual of 1912. The single purpose of the new sword was fully reflected in this new sword drill, where it was simply stressed that ‘each man should ride at his opponent at full speed with the fixed determination or running him through and killing him’. In contrasts to previous sword exercises, ‘eliminating as much as possible the intricacies of the art’ [of swordsmanship] that did not serve this purpose was impressed upon instructors and pupils alike.
It was this pattern that was to see service in the First World War, where, in the open stages, cavalry with swords routinely made the first contact with the enemy. Here the new sword (and its officer variant the Pattern 1912) and sword drill performed well, even accounting for the first British ‘kill’ of the war, by Captain Hornby, 4th Dragoon Guards, in a skirmish with the German 4th Cuirassiers.“
Radiation is the only thing that will really rid us of The Covid Virus.
Radiation, coming soon to a place near you.
It looks to me as if all Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have saddled up, and left the stables. We have Pestilence, Famine, War, and Death; all apparently at the behest of madmen, especially US lunatics and senile cretins. These persons are aided and abetted by a Churchill impersonator and a remarkably stupid woman in the UK, neither of whom are competent enough to handle the situations they are helping to create; let alone put out the flames they are fanning. The language, especially from Truss, is extraordinarily rash and ill-considered.
Whilst it’s difficult to believe that all the posturing and drum-beating from the UK government (such as it is) is mere camouflage or diversion to draw attention away from Johnson’s petty woes, the appalling state the country is in and will be further plunged into, nothing would surprise. Using war as a tool of domestic politicking is beyond criminal.
I’m a bit stuck to think of any “proxy” wars, fought since 1945, that have worked out well, either for the instigators or their proxies.
Well we know this will work out very badly for Ukraine, which could well disappear. De-dollarisation of much of world trade may also work out badly for the main instigator, who it would seem hasn’t thought things through properly. No real surprise there then.
Don’t you have anything better? Noah
NATO ex officer express his opinion : “I think we are in a proxy war with Russia. We are using the Ukrainians as our proxy forces”… and Noah gives it as proof of his ideas.
If American commanders thought the same way they would have to attack Russia with nuclear weapons immediately after Russia published a propaganda video showing a nuclear attack on the United States as on countless other occasions when a Russian officer threatened a nuclear waras on countless other occasions when a Russian officer threatened a nuclear war.
As as usual, many conspiracy ideas and few facts from Noah
Indeed … time for the website to be renamed again.
How about “Putin’s Daily”
Time for you to rename yourself, tree. How about Biden’s Lapdog? Gate’s Little Helper? Johnson’s Johnson?
That is freedom of speech.. I don’t know how is it in the UK but such wiews as can be read here are often censored in the EU. Some of them can be even considered as a crime here in Czechia.
Even though Putin’s useful idiot and Russian trolls upset me I respect The Daily Sceptic for providing them space and not censoring them
Some more balanced pieces would be welcome anyway
Have you considered the possibility that, rather than being Putin’s useful idiots or Russian trolls, we’re primarily concerned with the interests of the British people and know that our politicians are corrupt, lying, traitorous globalist scum?
Another splendid discussion piece. Thank you.
General Breedlove was remarking that the USA was in a proxy war with Russia, not NATO.
Are they? I have no idea and neither does anyone else on this thread.
Maybe that was what President Biden meant when he said NATO was not engaged in a proxy war with Russia. Maybe he meant that the USA was…who knows…maybe who will ever know?
Really this blame/name calling is just a whole bunch of silliness.
A totalitarian state has invaded its neighbour. It has conducted many wars.
That’s it.
What we should be doing in this country is taking a long hard look in the mirror
If you wish for peace, then prepare for war.
And we didn’t; our elected governments neglected their first duty to the nation, over 30 years.
That really is all our faults; our true responsibility for this catastrophe…and yes, we may very well have to pay a savage price for that dereliction.
Why does it matter to us where the border between Russia and Ukraine lies?
When Ukraine has been annexed in totality and another country is in it sights, would you care then.
Are you aware of the minerals in the Donbas, that Russia wishes to control?
Why does it matter to the people of the UK? It’s not our land or minerals being fought over or our lives at risk, providing , of course,we keep out of the conflict.
We should have kept out of it but being America’s poodle, we jump when they say jump. Not forgetting that Johnson was born in New York and had dual citizenship until around 2016.
Why does it matter to Finland and Sweden, for that matter? Clearly they feel threatened. NATO members on the Baltic feel threatened. If they are invaded, we are obliged to intervene. Objectively, far better to make some kind of a stand now.
What do you mean by “make some kind of a stand now”?
You can work it out.
I can’t be certain, which is why I asked and gave you the opportunity to show you’re not a nutter prepared to risk nuclear war.
There is only one nutter threatening nuclear war.
But not, I think, first use……yet.
Bon voyage!
I note your repeated refusal to answer straightforward questions.
Oh no, Near, you had the ‘Bon voyage’ from the cretin. You must’ve been getting a bit too close for comfort.
Feel honoured.
Did they feel threatened before Biden was elected?
Not as far as I can gather.
LOL – Russia is the largest country in the world! It is already rich in minerals. Dombass on the other hand is predominantly Russian speaking and they have been persecuted for the past 8 years by the Ukrainian nazis!
More than persecution, it’s been ethnic cleansing. But those in the Donbas speak Russian so the west ignore it.
Why did the British Prime Minister sign the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity while simultaneously implementing massive cuts in defence spending? I have no idea. That seems to me to have been a very stupid thing to do. The Prime Minister at the time? That would be John Major.
You haven’t answered my question.
That’s all the answer you’re going to get.
I accept your surrender.
My previous remark refers.
foreign are we?
verb at the end of the sentence…..
“Why did the British Prime Minister sign the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity “
You’ve tried this one before here, and had the actual wording pointed out to you.
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf
There is no “guarantee” of territorial integrity by the UK regime, only a promise not to attack it ourselves.
Were you aware and chose to lie, or do you just have a poor memory?
‘….commitment to seek immediate U.N. Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine……if Ukraine should become a victim of aggression…..’
It is not, of course, a binding agreement. I have never maintained that it is.
But it is a commitment or, as we say in English, a guarantee…..
Bon voyage!
“‘….commitment to seek immediate U.N. Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine……if Ukraine should become a victim of aggression…..’
It is not, of course, a binding agreement. I have never maintained that it is.”
That would be an extract from section 4:
4 The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and The United States of America reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.
[bold added]
Funny how selectively you quoted it.
So, not a “guarantee” of “Ukraine’s territorial integrity”, as you tried to make out. Not even a commitment to go to the Security Council in the event of a conventional attack.
But I’m sure you’ll be back trying to portray it as such again in a few days.
Semantics.
In a spirit of helpfulness, let me try and make the English here a bit simpler for you. It can be tricky for those for whom it is not their first language. The treaty is also in other languages. Maybe one of those would be easier for you?
provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,
if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression (no punctuation)
or an object of a threat of aggression (no punctuation) in which nuclear weapons are used.
You see now? Two separate commitments, guarantees.
If it meant one guarantee, the text would have included commas.
Hope that helps.
Who should we believe – the guy who makes the decisions or the guy who is retired?
If Covid is anything to go by, the retired guy.
“Who should we believe – the guy who makes the decisions...?”
This guy?
https://twitter.com/DrLuetke/status/1519761716111978497
LOL! I don’t think so.
With every article Noah carl writes, the pack of “sceptical” followers becomes more and more supportive of the Russian invasion.
The author must have noticed this. I wonder if this is some type of experiment to see how far the following can be guided in a disgraceful direction. The “sceptics” reinforce each others’ opinions in a type of positive feedback, and the collective view becomes worse and worse.
Does the author support the views that he is encouraging?
I don’t see Noah or anyone else ‘supporting’ the Russian Invasion. To criticise Nato/USA/Ukraine is not to ‘support’ the Russian invasion, it is to be aware of the antecedents to the conflict and not just believe the propaganda that we are being fed by the MSM, which is that Putin is a madman who has suddenly decided, with no provocation, to invade Europe. That is what being a ‘sceptic’ is to me; it is to be someone who applies critical reasoning to problems and questions narratives and maniplulated ‘news’.
The assumption that there are only two conflicting viewpoints here, namely, the Russian propaganda and the American propaganda and that everybody must either agree wholeheartedly with one or the other is wrong. Critical reasoning would recognize that RT is as mainstream as the New York Times, just under different political control.
As for antecedents to this conflict: Much of present-day Ukraine is territory Russia forcibly took from the so-called Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth during the three Polish partitions. The Poles actually managed to reconquer a part of it in 1918/19. At the end of the second world war, Russia annexed it again and drove out the Poles who were supposed to settle in the former eastern provinces of Prussia instead. I don’t quite have an idea how to fit this in any of the currently popular narratives but it’s certainly related to the situation as well.
Who did the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth take that land from in the first place? Thieves themselves!
.
Who has a divine right to any piece of land on the planet?
The concept of a ‘Sovereign nation’ exists only in the minds of bureaucrats who adore making rules and drawing boundaries.
You don’t say that when some refugees want to come to the UK, do you.
No..you say something much nastier.
I have never expressed anything negative about refugees. In fact, unlike you, I have had first hand experience of refugees. I was in Hong Kong and witness the refugee crisis after Mao’s ‘great leap forward’.
Take your nasty little mind and shove up your arse.
Kindly explain what Russia wants with a broke, corrupt, tin pot country when Russia itself is the biggest country in the world.
There is nothing in Ukraine Russia wants or needs other than, perhaps, security for gas pipelines.
In other words, what is the motivation for Russia invading Ukraine if not to ensure NATO doesn’t continue the slow march across Europe Trump was happy to stop, but which Biden want’s to resurrect.
The problem isn’t Putin, the problem is the western left wing who know nothing other than conflict. Children who don’t understand the consequences of their reckless actions functioning under the pretext of being ‘kind’.
Irony upon irony, Trump painted as a cruel, heartless oaf by the left, and the world was never a safer place when he was POTUS.
The watchword Trump used to great effect was No!
That single word is the source of all ills because the left simply cannot bring themselves to be ‘cruel’ enough to use it.
Look at the world around us, our children are now raised with ‘understanding’ despite every child’s desire to be directed until they are mature enough to take responsibility for themselves. ‘No’ is an alien concept to them these days.
That follows through to adulthood when nothing is taboo or off limits because they simply do not understand boundaries or respect for others.
A uniquely leftist position.
My guess would be that the Russian government would prefer Ukraine to be a satellite state like Belarus, if only because its black sea naval base is on nominally Ukrainian territory. But that’s just a guess and not based on inside knowledge of anything.
The Crimea isn’t nominally, historically or demographically Ukrainian.
And they’ve already restored it to Russia.
Crimea was historically Mongolic state (Crimean Khanate). The Russians annexed it in violation of existing treaties in 1738 and Stalin later deported the native population. It became part of the Ukrainian soviet republic in the middle of the last century and was part of Ukraine until the Russians again annexed it in 2014.
There’s no use arguing with any historic rights here: The Russian empire is a collection of lands and peoples the tsars subdued with military force and since Russia never fought a war against the USA so far, it wasn’t dismantled using the Self-determination of the peoples! pretext another guy ruling a multi-ethnic empire carved out of a continent with the help of a campaign of genocidal warfare against its native inhabitants invented out of thin air.
Now, what was the point of this attempt at redefining gravity as the force which makes things fly upward?
The thing is Putin did invade Europe, without provocation. Certainly anything that justifies what he is doing.
If you believe otherwise, then you are a victim of propaganda.
If you think there is no support for the Russian invasion on this site, go and look for an article that criticises the invasion, or some comments that do so.
‘without provocation’
That’s a good one.
Russia is part of the European continent you utter imbecile.
What propaganda are we in the UK subject to? None, other than our own.
Most of us on this site have the ability to question and criticise both sides of the conflict, unlike you.
As with everything else, you simply swallow the narrative, propagandised or otherwise, of the consensus.
You haven’t a critical thought in your tiny mind, which makes me wonder how you manage to get through daily life.
Hmmm. So you balance all the information do you? Both sides, but you believe only the russian stuff. The stuff out out by the country that has shut down all independent media and jails people for mild protesting against its war.
Same goes for all your other views where you feel compelled to oppose the establishment.
It’s because they are the “establishment” that I question them, not oppose them.
The distinction is lost on your tiny little mind though.
Apparently, 15/18 sceptics believe Putin didn’t invade Ukraine. Their little thumbs tell us this.
Moron.
Every conflict has the USA or UK at the heart of it. Their warmongering will eventually lead to nuclear war if we allow these maniacs to continue like this. I don’t blame Russia for protecting its borders or its people in the Dombass. They would not have had to go that route had NATO and the UN completely ignored what the Ukrainian army was doing in the East.
There is only one maniac threating nuclear weapons use. Guess who that is?
It’s Putin.
Bizarrely, the one who speaks the loudest about propaganda is the most brainwashed her/himself… Every country possessing nuclear weapons is threatening usage of this weapon, because that is the key and only reason of possessing it. Also, perhaps you have missed the North Korea’s recent threats, or unaware of China’s doings. Check it out. Moreover, Ukraine itself, albeit not possessing the nukes any more, threatens to use so-called “dirty nuclear bomb” made from radioactive waste materials from the nuclear power plants it has in abundance. BBC has forgotten to mention this, but if you are sharing your opinion so forsefully here, you should educate yourself a bit better. But let is leave all the “threats” [made by everyone possessing this type of weapon] alone, and try to recall who has made the very first nuke and who has actually used it without any warning??? You know, barking dogs rarely bite, but the ones that bite do so with little warning.
I hope leaders of our little planet are wise enough not to use this thing ever again.
Yea, all those Russian military bases bristling with nuclear weapons surrounding the USA. Disgusting.
Blow it out your ass troll. You have no idea what you’re talking about, as usual.
Ever heard of ICBMs?
Proximity is not the issue.
N. Korean “ICBMs”[sic] can’t reach much further than Japan you utter cretin.
Spolier alert!
if only….
Well 14/17 sceptical idiots.. who else has made such threats?
Were people not sceptical of the prevailing consensus we would still be amputating limbs without anaesthetic you utter imbecile.
True. It is so bizzare to witness how biased the press is here in the West, completely ignoring one of the bloodest conflicts that go for years, but making a soap opera out of another. Amount of offe me that Kyiv’s regime made towards poor Donbass region is heartbreaking. Yet, noone knows about it here, as it never made it to the BBC news!
Protecting its borders from who?
Any sign of the Jacques Baud article in the Postil magazine appearing in the Daily Sceptic, Noah? Third time of asking. Similar topic, except with masses of detail.
https://www.thepostil.com/the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine/
https://www.thepostil.com/the-military-situation-in-the-ukraine-an-update/
https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/09/former-nato-military-analyst-blows-the-whistle-on-wests-ukraine-invasion-narrative/
Fingal must be on leave.
He’s painting his cave.
Happy to see that no one’s tempted to get into pointless exchanges with his colleague though.
Let me at him……..
Steady on there!
OK, let me at IT……
Yes, twiggy’s certainly taken up the slack left by Fingy, though Fingy is far more rational. That is not to say they are very rational; it’s just that twiggy is particularly irrational/dense.
And where’s Aunty Jen?
It’s just two shades of stupid. Nothing rational about either of them.
Agreed. That’s my point, you just said it better.
And we were told Trump would cause wars.
Never felt as safe in all my life when he was running the show.
Sick left wing. All they know is conflict, at every level.
Yes, in todays twisted, depraved and highly confused West, not going to war is a form of aggression. Up is down, black is white, war is peace, freedom is slavery etc etc etc etc!
‘Wokism’ is trying to tear society down but they have hidden it behind social agendas. The people pushing it are usually weed smoking mongs who dont know what day of the week it is or ‘degree educated’ nobheads who think they are above everyone but earn as much as your Tesco shelfstacker yet spend their whole life pretending the world is a land of unicorns and rainbows.
There was one on a phone-in the other week “Why is the country run by businessmen and not normal people?”. That’s a point I hear cried a lot from Labour followers.
I don’t know. Why would you want your country run by successful people who know the ins and outs of finance and not a bloke called Andy who has worked at a chipshop in Morecambe for 30 years?
I remember being very struck by the peace signs being held up at Trump’s rallies in 2016.
At first I wondered if they were simply underlining Hillary Clinton’s reputation as a hawk; but came to the view that as someone outside the main game of the military-industrial complex, Trump was not into war.
Let’s be brutal: NATO is at war with Russia, using Ukraine as its ‘theatre of operations’.
As a result, every NATO member supplying weapons to Ukraine is a legitimate military target and any diplomat, politician or military f***wit who says otherwise has mental health issues so severe that they cannot continue in their duties.
The UK is at war with Ukraine and if Russia wished to, they could legitimately bomb UK strategic sites. The UK has committed a litany of illegal terrorist actions the world over for centuries and could have zero complaint if they finally got some comeback.
I am not a Russian, I am not a Putin apologist, I just hold my own criminal and execrable showers of politicians to the standards any sane person should hold them to.
Right on. The stench of hypocrisy is overwhelming.
NATO = Biden/Obama.
What NATO is doing is placing a child in a cage with a bear and poking the bear from a safe distance. And when the bear is attacking the child, they scream and shout to encourage each other to go after the bear. Is that the ultimate aim? To put
thebearRussia down?I was in a taxi today, and the driver was like: “we need to get our hands dirty with the Russians”… The trick has worked. And no, he was not concerned about nukes, or thought of any alternatives. Good guy, full of heart for Ukraine. I felt embarrassed, and sad. If the crowd is led in that direction, there is no hope for poor Ukraine, and little hope for our little island too!
I am sure that the only way to stop this madness is to start proper negotiation with the aim to settle this conflict. This will disarm the Russians. But who is to make such decision? Biden????
No… Russia is at war with Ukraine. Some NATO countries are providing to Ukraine, who are the victims of the russian aggression.
That certainly seems to be Scott Ritter’s take on it, not only that NATO is at war with Russia using Ukraine as a proxy, but that it is arming its proxy with outdated weapons pretty much guaranteed to increase the Ukrainian body count.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTskt_VjDq0
Well said.
As a little aside, one not directly related to the subject of this article, but worth bringing to peoples attention nonetheless are sanctions. These are supposed to be hitting Russia financially as hard as the weapons that NATO and the west are flooding into Ukraine are intended to hit Russia militarily. How’s that working out? Well, we all know that cooking oil is now being rationed in supermarkets and prices of just about everything are shooting through the roof, fueled in part at least by the war. So, the sanctions are clearly hurting us, but what about the Russian economy: is the Ruble collapsing? You don’t need to know anything about the financial markets or technical analysis to ‘read’ the weekly chart attached. The story it tells is plain for all to see . . .
Another backfire; Except we know that We, and not Russia, are the real enemies of the Globalists.
I don’t agree with that.
Russia understands precisely where the globalists are heading, a global USSR.
Russia is a young country, only emerged from communism in 1988. The Russian people are enjoying their new found freedom, even if they don’t quite know how to handle it.
Think of it this way. Aircraft carriers are the means to export war. The USA has twenty carriers, the Russians have one.
Who is the threat to who here?
You misunderstood me – or perhaps I wasn’t clear. I agree wholeheartedly that the USA is the greatest threat to the world and have been saying it tirelessly for the last 25 years; I just meant that the effects of the sanctions (like covid) seem to target us and our way of life, rather than Russia.
That’s my thinking too, cs – and is the primary point of my post. I think we’re all on the same page!
Carriers are now defunct due to Kinzhal
The Russians are free to vote for Putin. Only approved opponents are allowed to stand against him.
Unapproved ones are murdered or jailed.
The inability to see one’s own shadow is a fundamental shortcoming. Maybe a look in the mirror from time to time might be useful?
Just like the west then…..
Shitwit.
The value of the currency is not the only measure of economic strength. For that matter, the dollar is soaring.
Russian GDP is forecast to tank by over 10%.
That’s riot-provoking level.
I know, Fingy, but what ya gunna do?
Funny question.
Watch, I guess.
No answers, then.
Bless.
You’re correct Fingal, USD$ is soaring, fuelled by unprecedented quantitative easing, aka money printing. It’s a bubble that will surely burst, just like the 17th century Dutch Tulip bubble, the 90s Dotcom bubble or the noughties housing bubble. If I had to bet on which currency will crash first (they’ll both crash eventually), I’d bet my house on the dollar over the ruble.
As for Russian GDP, ours could easily be in just as bad shape and the consequences equally severe. I blame the sheer folly and ineptitude of our own leaders rather than Putin the bogeyman and Russia the scapegoat – which is the spin our feckless government and totally useless MSM will try – and are trying – to put on it.
Russia holds considerable reserves in precious metals and has been steadily building up those reserves over the past few decades. Contrast that to the UK, where their stores of precious metals were pawned off at bargain basement prices.
Yep – a reality check. Look at the Ruble.
The whole world knows the war is just an excuse for stupid Americans to have a go at Russia. That why 8 out of 10 earthlings(i.e. the rest, not the west) Support Russia’s action to frustrate NATO (America’s foreign legion) You know I think it’s working, NATO nations are getting sick of food shortages, price rises and basic hardship. After 2 years of covid19, we barely had a pot to piss in anyway. And now BJ thinks it’s OK to have a war with Russia, as if we have not already heaped enough debt on our kids’ shoulders!!Boris is a tool, how can we dump the fat blond freak?
People who don’t care about reality don’t care about debt either.
perhaps if Russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine…….
Perhaps if the Ukrainian army hadn’t regularly attacked the Russian-speaking populations in the east of Ukraine over a period of six years.
Lord Stupid assumes that populations agree with their leaders!!! Especially in China.
The BBC has been referring to Britain’s “war aims” too. That may soon become a standard term.
US retired general Philip Breedlove sounds as though he’s cut from the same cloth as the guy who was once his deputy in NATO, British retired general Richard Shirreff.
Soon after leaving his post as deputy “supreme allied commander” in NATO (“DSACEUR”), Shirreff penned a book entitled “2017: War with Russia”. Appallingly badly written, it’s basically public relations for weapons companies, saying that what’s really really needed is lots more “kit”, and once all the “kit” has been bought, then Britain’s finest, allied with rightwing types in places like Estonia, will easily be able to show those Russkies what’s what. It comes across as infantile. Needless to say, Shirreff’s pater was in the army before him, and it won’t surprise many to know that he went to private boarding school. He’s probably encountered few particles of the stuff called “reality” in the whole of his life, the silly s*d.
If what he writes in that book reflects actual military thinking in the west, then given the strategic lack of understanding of Russia that is so evident in it the rulers of Russia have got little to worry about militarily. I doubt the British brass are in fact so stupid, but who knows? It’s possible. After all, war is all about money.
Another thing, @Noah – if the US and its satellite powers are planning a major war, then you can bet your bottom dollar that what they would dearly love in the near future is a provocation.
I’m stating the obvious, but they would want to present it as Russia’s fault, and themselves as only wanting “peace” and “security”.
What kind of cloth is Putin cut from, then? KGB straight-jacket canvas?
It’s not a proxy war, it’s a direct war between Russia and the west. That was the case from the first day.
Noah Carl’s view that recognising Russian sovereignty over Crimea/the Donbass would be enough to satisfy Putin is naive in the extreme. Dos anyone seriously believe this? He hasn’t even finished with Ukraine yet, and he’s already set his sights on Moldova.
idiot
Twat.
Fantastic quality of debate.
Deluded.
A slight improvement.
Owned
And shameful. Coming here to encourage hatred and urge on the dogs of war.
That’s what the vast majority of posters on here do, with their blaming of the west and excusing / supporting of Russian’s invasion of Ukraine.
twats are useful chum. You’re a prick.
You still haven’t expressed a point of view.
Neither have you. You just parrot establishment propaganda.
Do you have a point to make?
Bloody hell, no sooner is Fingy off the plane from their hols that they are right back in the saddle.
That’s dedication.
Yo Fingy, is it time an’ arf on ‘ere, bruv?
Must have taken over when that cunt Tree finished his shift
It was seamless, bruv.
If he thinks he knows Putin’s final objectives, he is mistaken.
I think he is really writing this stuff to provoke worse comments from the “sceptical”.commenters.
Some sort of experiment to see how extreme their views can become.
You have a great mind, twigs. Stand aside, Augustine, be seated, Aquinas, close your mouth, Calvin, there’s a new kid in town.
What an arrogant and disgusting comment – so the tragic Ukraine war was provoked in order to start a ‘proxy’ conflict with Russia while not actually fighting Russia …who could have guessed?
From Afghan wedding parties to Iraqi shepherds, from Hiroshima civilians to Syrian market stall owners, from Yazidi girls,to Vietnamese villagers,Libyan carpet sellers and Kurdish female Freedom Fighters…the US has always been so “heroic” with other people’s lives.
Yeah, like ridding the world of Hitler and Imperial Japan…
Grow up.
The key point to remember is that the American arms industry is worth $9.3 trillion.
Surely having a Global Thermonuclear War is a small price to pay to keep those manufacturers from falling on hard times?
Second largest arms supplier is…Russia. And a much bigger percentage of their economy.
Second largest – but much smaller. However, they are doing their bit to keep the World’s arms manufacturers in business.
Using logic (look it up), Could you explain your thinking on how arms companies would benefit from having had this nuclear war?
Your comment is hard to rationalise, so please explain.
Given that the GDP for the USA was $23 trillion in 2021, your figure looks quite unlikely.
Perhaps you could justify it?
Biden won’t know if it’s day or night.
But he can smell it if he’s crapped himself.
What debating skills….
It’s comment, not debate, that the utterly corrupt paedo wretch is now so clearly senile.
You’re addressing a mirror.
Slowly and surely, the comments are descending to absurd levels.
There is a strong trend towards hurling abuse at key figures (excepting the russian aggressors) and anyone who has an opposing opinion.
I suspect that even the craziest of the “sceptics” don’t really believe the garbage they are peddling.
Let’s see how they progress, when the next pro-russian-invasion article is published.
Then why don’t you stop commenting, twigs? You’ve reached a point where you’re inflicting pain on yourself. Just stop, sausage.
Why should we stop drawing attention to the views of crackpot conspiracy theorists and appeasers, Immoderate Imbecile?
You’re paranoid.
The facts here are straightforward.
Russia, USA, UK guaranteed Ukrainian territorial integrity in return for it giving up nuclear weapons in 1994.
in 2000, Putin took over as President.
Since then Russia has invaded Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine (twice).
Putin has also circumvented rules limiting the Presidency to two terms.
‘“I had a sense in the early 2000s that Putin was a cold realist and knew precisely that what he was saying was propaganda……..Some 20 years later, he’s surrounded by yes men—power will do that to a person—and he has now come to believe these lies.”
Greg Carleton. Associate Professor of Russian Literature/Culture, Tufts University
Putin is seriously ill, on medication, which has affected his judgement.
A totalitarian state led by a mentally ill dictator invades a neighbour, yet again.
It’s just as simple as that.
All the rest is politicised, agenda driven, propagandised, hot air, and far too much of it.
“…there’s lots of evidence the U.S. actually wanted a war with Russia “
No, there’s not any evidence and offering up a comment from the most discredited Congressman in America, Adam Schiff as “evidence” is flat out stupid.
Carl appears to have jumped the shark with his childish faculty room anti-Americanism.
Strange because the US has been moving the NATO front line closer and closer to Russia’s borders every since the end of the cold war. The US are the most aggressive nation on earth. They have no concept of other nation’s sovereignty – just look at what they have done since the end of WW2.
Noah Carl is in some sort of alternative universe where the USA has launched an unprovoked invasion of Russia in a region called Ukraine.
To try to get back to the real world: Russia has invaded Ukraine. The last thing on Earth the Ukrainians want is to live under Russian tyranny and they are fighting literally to the death in their determination to try to prevent this happening.
How do you know what the real world is? You certainly won’t get it through MSM. Russia is certainly no saint but the fact that NATO ignored the Minsk agreement and set up a puppet government on Russia’s long western flank, a puppet government that persecuted the largely ethnic Russian population in the Donbass region for the past 8 years should surely ring some alarm bells, no?
Mearsheimer, now Breedlove: Noah the West-hater desperately sifting the utterances of us 8 billion humans for any comments to back up his prejudices, whilst taking care to avoid the anti-Semitism that many of his fellow travellers often reveal. Meanwhile, the evidence against the war criminal Putin is measured not with quotes, but with body bags and mass graves…
The staggering lack of logic and factual basis (never mind moral compass) in these pro-Russia / anti-West spin pieces should come as no surprise, as that would be the only way to desperately attempt to justify the most flagrant act of extreme military aggression in human history.
I say that because not only has the regime of the largest country in the world sent its forces to engage in a frenzy of destruction and mass murder in a much smaller neighbour, but is now on a daily basis threatening to annihilate the entre population of the planet if any third parties directly stand in their way (through initiating nuclear armageddon).
In that sense this fascistic project has already far exceeded the evil of the Hitler government and its threats to kill all of Europe’s Jews if war broke out (a threat it came close to carrying out).
To look at some of the specific content in this article,
As I noted in a previous post, there’s lots of evidence the U.S. actually wanted a war with Russia…Indeed, Congressman Adam Schiff couldn’t have been much clearer when he stated on the floor of the U.S. Senate, “The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”
A) To state that the views of a single Congressman represent those of the US government or general opinion in the country is beyond ludicrous
B) In any case the phrase ‘wanted a war’ implies an aggressive stance and design.
In fact Adam Schiff was very concerned about the increased aggression the Putin regime was showing in east Ukraine in 2020, its refusal to accept negotiations and ‘off-ramps’, and (presumably) worried that this sort of expansionist agenda could escalate into a direct confrontation with the US itself.
In other words it was a militarily defensive position, the exact opposite of ‘wanting war’.
The same point applies to the similar comment made by Philip Breedlove quoted as ‘evidence’ of aggressive intent.
Also, re:
Biden rejected the claim NATO was engaged in a proxy war against Russia as “not true”. Who should we believe – the guy who led NATO operations in Europe for three years, or the guy who didn’t?
A) Being engaged in a war, proxy or otherwise, is not the same as wanting it.
B) Breedlove has not been NATO Supreme Allied Commander since 20016, in other words for six years.
C) In any case, unless I missed the military coup, US foreign policy is dictated by the President and his government, not a representative of its armed forces.
So the answer to the question is not the one the author is angling (or ‘nudging’) for.
All of this increasingly desperate pro-Russian propaganda is designed to distract from the simple fact that the country is engaging in a repugnant military project based on repugnant neo-fascistic / ultra-nationalist motivations.
Finally on the decision to continuously publish these pieces in the Daily Sceptic.
I am not calling for censorship (though the owners of the site clearly have a right to reject material they feel to be factually baseless, inappropriate or harmful) and understand the motivation of questioning government and general opinion in the UK.
But doing so in this completely biased manner has simply led to the forum being used as a gullible propagandist mouthpiece for a far worse and far more deceitful totalitarian regime and system.
In other words being the opposite of sceptical on the most important issue of the day.
What an outstanding article, thank you. Who has the power to STOP the USA before anymore harm is done? I guess we can rule out NATO. The EU and Britain the USA’s lapdogs, won’t stand up and do the right thing. That leaves China. Well they are doing their bit by buying “stuff” from China and paying in yuan. Will it be enough to keep Russia on its feet? I hope so. when will the American people have a enough? Soon I think, when their food shelves are totally empty.
It just keeps on getting worse for Putin.
Germany will move, is moving, towards a complete embargo of Russian gas.
‘Even record high non-Russian imports would not be enough to sufficiently refill storage ahead of next winter. Europe would need to reduce demand by at minimum 400 TWh (or 10%-15% of annual demand). This is possible. A portfolio of exceptional options could abate at least 800 TWh.’
Bruegel 05 Apr 22
‘Assuming very low short-run substitution elasticities, an 8% energy adjustment to oil, gas, and coal consumption leads to a 1.4% of GDP loss, or costs of €500- 700. In a last scenario where we model a more extreme 30% adjustment in gas usage, the economic losses rise to 2.2% of GDP (2.3% of GNE), equivalent to up to €1,000 per year per German citizen’
ECONtribute Policy Brief 028 Mar 22
Where is the diplomacy and calm voices that are required? To my mind, this open aggression by NATO and the western governments – and yes it is by NATO because they didn’t honour the Minsk Agreement or even try to broker peace – has but one objective: the overthrow of Putin and annihilation of Russia as a world superpower (and yes I know they’re not so powerful as they once were but they still have a lot of nukes!). It is extremely dangerous and we have nowhere near the statesmen/women that in earlier times and in less dangerous situations would have somehow calmed the waters and at least talked. Now, we have a bunch of would-be Churchills, Eisenhowers etc who want to prove themselves. And the western media fans the flames of war, regardless of the quite unimaginable consequences We are so close to a nuclear confrontation.
Yesterday, I watched Mike Yeadon talk to James Delingpole and MY mentioned the Deagle population forecast for 2025. Deagle was a highly connected part of the US administration. This forecast is incredibly depressing and you have to ask yourself how exactly would the US and UK’s, not to mention a number of other countries’, lost up to 70% of their populations. My guess is not a virus but a limited nuclear confrontation. It is the only thing that actually made sense. In which case, this whole situation we are currently in, also makes some sort of grisly sense. I hope Deagle was wrong. I hope that some small voice of calm and peace starts to be heard but statements like the one made by this former chief of NATO are incredibly dangerous. If true, then this really is WWIII and I can’t stop thinking how we give power to tired old men and women who have nothing at all to offer the human race, no vision, no inspiration, nothing except the same old, same old b*ll*cks. If we, all of us here, truly want the change we keep on going on about, we’re going to have to do better than this. I think it’s time to march to a different tune. Let’s throw these old men and women out. Not sure how yet but they do not deserve to be in power and they only have it because we give it to them. Let’s take it back. They certainly do not serve us, they serve some dark agenda that is against humanity, against life and anything sacred. Sorry for my rant but this has got me really worked up.
Where did you see the Delingpole/ Yeadon chat please ?
It’s on James Delingpole’s podcast interview with Mike Yeadon on Odysee. Not sure if they allow links on here. If you google James Delingpole with Mike Yeadon on Odysee that should do it though. Mike doesn’t mention the Deagle thing until right at the end of the interview though.
“Yesterday, I watched Mike Yeadon talk to James Delingpole and MY mentioned the Deagle population forecast for 2025. Deagle was a highly connected part of the US administration.This forecast is incredibly depressing and you have to ask yourself how exactly would the US and UK’s, not to mention a number of other countries’, lost up to 70% of their populations”
Am very surprised that anyone would take these ludicrous Deagel ‘forecasts’ as anything other than a source of comedy (but with nasty propagandist underpinnings)
A social media post claims that a “major military industrial corporation” projected Western populations would be cut in half by 2025 “inexplicably”, with the post linking the dire prediction to “future biological warfare” following the COVID-19 pandemic.The source of the post’s projected population figures is not a “major military industrial corporation” as claimed but an obscure website, which itself admits made the predictions based on pure speculation.
Deagel.com has described itself as a “non-profit, built on spare time” that is “not linked to any government”. Nevertheless, it has previously been falsely identified as a secret US intelligence agency and a United Nations-linked group in posts and articles sharing misinformation based on the site’s groundless projections.
As noted previously by AAP FactCheck, the website’s grim forecasts have proved inaccurate. For example, in February 2012, it predicted the US population would fall to 248 million by 2020 – when in fact it reached around 330 million.
The 2025 projections are no longer displayed on the Deagel site, but an archived version from the beginning of the year shows predictions for large population declines in Western countries – but increases in countries like India, Brazil and Indonesia.
Contrary to the post’s claim that the depopulation prediction was unexplained, a disclaimer at the bottom of the page gives the reason for the massive decline as “the collapse of the Western financial system”.
The post’s reference to the populations of Western countries halving by 2025 is not a prediction from a major military industrial corporation, as claimed, but is taken from an obscure website with a history of making unfounded and inaccurate forecasts based on the future collapse of the financial system.
False – Content that has no basis in fact.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a predictable response to the expansion of NATO eastwards, which understandably is seen as a serious threat by Putin’s government.
It’s also a betrayal: the United States and other Western nations went out of their way in early 1990 to assure Russia that they were not planning any major moves. Secretary of State James Baker, for instance, told leader Mikhail Gorbachev: “not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction”.
The American empire will always lie when they think it’s in their interests. It’s a mystery why anyone believes them any more.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a predictable response to the expansion of NATO eastwards, which understandably is seen as a serious threat by Putin’s government.
Yes, the essentially peace-loving Putin regime showed how fearful it was about the prospect of the defensive alliance known as NATO attacking their country (the largest in the world with over 6000 nuclear weapons) by invading the strongly western-aligned and NATO friendly Ukraine which is surrounded by NATO members.
Then going on to threaten the hundreds of millions living in Ukraine supportive countries (including NATO members) with nuclear destruction if they dared to directly intervene.
Knowing that any such first use of strategic weapons would almost certainly lead to the near annihilation of Russia’s own population (MAD), indeed of most of humanity.
Clearly all acts of desperation borne out of an existential terror…
“the defensive alliance known as NATO”.
You are pathetically naive sunbeam.
You are pathetically naive sunbeam.
And apparently also devoid of the capacity to have my naivety sympathetically alleviated by any actual fact or content…
I’ve given you all the facts you need. I can only assume that you’re young and blissfully unaware of American imperialism over the last 100+ years. Grow up.
I’ve given you all the facts you need.
I’m a bit confused now*, because you seem to be both vehemently challenging the extent of my knowledge (saying that I am unaware and naive about certain things);
But at the same stating here that I actually have full awareness of the same subject, because all the extra facts I (again according to you) require add up to the zero that you have given me in your two responses
Even if I was to take your claim of fact gifting to refer to your original post, I have scoured it for any evidence that NATO is not a defensive alliance (the only part of my own quite extensive post you felt willing to query, for obvious reasons) – and found nothing, only mentions of its expansion into Eastern Europe.
Expansion caused, of course, by those now liberal democratic nations which had broken free from the ruthlessly oppressive and tyrannical USSR seeking some sort of protection from the similarly totalitarian Putin regime – which has openly been attempting to re-instate the Soviet Union area of control (or even earlier Tsarist empire) through military conquest.
The same Russian regime which has, indeed, just invaded the non-NATO Ukraine.
I can only assume that you’re young and blissfully unaware of American imperialism over the last 100+ years.
Well thank you for the compliment about my age, but apart from that we have the old ‘Quick, look over there!’ distraction technique.
Anything, but anything to avoid addressing what the Russian government is inflicting right now in Ukraine (multi-million levels of homelessness, mass injury, rape, death and destruction).
And also threatening on a now near daily basis to wipe out all of humanity if any external forces directly intervene
Grow up
Thank you again for the complimentary assumption about my age.
In any case how many Ukrainian children (and indeed youthful Russian soldiers) are not going to have the ability to grow up because their lives have been taken away during this ruthless act of extreme military aggression? (one backed up by some of the most repulsive and humanicidal threats made in all of history).
* I predict that you or another poster will make a comment along the lines of ‘Yes, I can see you are very confused’ (which of course would be a completely different meaning of the word) .
But possibly not now that I have pre-empted this well known ad-hom debating tactic. The ball is in your court!
The curious use of the English language and overlong, aggressive, pro Putin bluster of many comments on here are now explained.
Russian internet trolls based in an old arms factory in St Petersburg are targeting world leaders online and spreading support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Online operatives were found to be ordering followers to target western media outlets and politicians, according to research funded by the UK government, which plans to share it with major online platforms and other governments.
Many of these followers, ‘fellow travellers’, belong to fringe political organisations in Europe and elsewhere in receipt of funding from Putin’s Russian political agencies.
The headquarters of the ‘internet research agency’ is allegedly located in rented space in St Petersburg’s Arsenal Machine-building Factory, a company that manufactures military equipment and technology.
The ‘internet research agency’ belongs to Yevgheny Prigozhin
Prigozhin’s activities on behalf of the state have made him notorious……Prigozhin, senior employees and his company are all under US indictment.
Rumbled
Traces of the operation have been detected across eight social media platforms including Telegram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok.
Key tactical innovations of the operational methodology include the use of commenting behaviours, use of VPNs and deliberate amplification of ‘organic’ content supporting the Kremlin’s position. All of these methods help to avoid detection and interception by social media platforms.
Hallmarks:
Calling on subscribers to target the social media profiles of opponents and Kremlin critics, including prominent politicians and world leaders, and spam them with pro-Kremlin comments.
Asking them to turn on VPNs and spam the comments sections of specific links to Instagram, YouTube, and Telegram.
Focusing activity on posting comments, rather than authoring original content – a tactic likely to decrease the risks of being detected by social media platforms for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour and/or harmful content.
Searching for ‘organic content’ posted by genuine users coherent with the lines they want to push, and then working to amplify these messages, in order that such views are distorted as the norm. This means that, provided the content they post is not too offensive, they are unlikely to be subject to de-platforming interventions.