To think we cannot afford to support Ukraine anymore

I can answer this outstanding question. No I do not want my relatives to have to fight Russia.
That is why it is so important to send Ukrainians the means to defend themselves.

You think some Asian countries are part of NATO? The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation? Incredible ignorance.

It is precisely because Ukraine is sending their husbands and sons to defend against the Russian invader in blood that we in UK do not have to. All the more reason to pour arms and aid to Ukraine who is fighting the war for Europe.

But each of the NATO countries on the border with Ukraine from the old Soviet Block - ie Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia etc have made it quite clear that their assessment is that they are next. That is why they are giving so much to help Ukraine.

Given that the intelligence assessment of NATO is very much that NATO countries are next and you agree to staying in NATO, what do you think Britain buys by not being involved? If you were telling me the UK should withdraw from NATO, and you don't care about NATO assessments at least I could get where you are coming from, but you seem to be saying that we should stay in NATO and you agree with fighting for NATO when the time comes. But you aren't prepared to accept the very best intelligence assessments that NATO has that it would be better to fight Russia now rather than later.

That is why it is even dafter than Chamberlain. At that time the British government assessment was that doing a deal with Hitler would give us "peace in our time". It was wrong, and negotiating with dictators of that ilk has been shown to be a wong move time after time (and one would hope people have now learnt from history), but it was more understandable in the circumstances. Here, none of the members of the NATO alliance think negotiating is a good idea, they think it is daft and pointless. But you, without being privy to all the intelligence of the very best assessors we have, think that Putin will stop at Ukraine, and we can get away with not paying now without having to pay even more later. A stitch in time saves nine - yes you could save that stitch now, lazy people often do, as it is too much trouble to manage now, but it is stupid economics as well as poor morality.

Are you aware we are not actually at war in Ukraine? If they attacked Poland we would actually have to go to war against the Russians? A nuclear power. So you actually understand that?

it’s much better we fight this in this way by giving some funds to Ukraine to buy weapons than to fight it as an all out war in nato territory. You may be too stupid to understand that but I hope others aren’t.

PurpleButterflyWings

YANBU @Saysomething1234Obviously you're not going to get many people on here admitting to agreeing with you, but nearly a THIRD of people voting do

Aren't some things more important than money? And was the UK really in a much better position financially before the war?

Yeah, I think if we switched off that 0.5% of our GDP for foreign aid , we'd solve the NHS crisis overnight......

As the 5th richest country on the planet, we have no obligation but to look after number one. You tell em @PurpleButterflyWings

Such dated opinions with limited understanding of how our economy works and the dependency on other countries I’m out supply chain. We are a globalise economy and can not rely on nationalistic industries.

if there are global conflicts if significantly impacts us. Why was wholesale energy soo expensive???

This. I had the very same thought.

OP started out with man-in-the-street uninformed outrage and poor grasp of facts then veering to being well read on politics and global oil prices, with Russian propaganda thrown into the mix. Not a single care for Ukraine or the humanitarian angle or war crimes. Nope nothing to see there. Fixated on NATO, diplomacy and negotiation. Our cut-and-paste queen.

Oh dear, this thread is not going OP's way. I am pleasantly surprised and heartened by the ongoing support for Ukraine. Thank you all you mntters who get it.

@PurpleButterflyWings you had me at 'we need to stop now'. Agree with you 100%.

Not learning the lessons of history? Remember those troublesome Jews making a big fuss about nothing? No?

Have whatever opinion you want, just don't imagine its in any way relevant or interesting to anyone. It's not.

We have international obligations, and your opinion is ridiculous

In raw numbers, yes the £ we spend may seem like a lot but this completely ignored the bigger picture OP and is very short sighted.

Several points

Putin wants to expand Russia, not happy with his existing colonies, he wants to expand westwards, if we let him - where does he stop? Then we have another cold war on our hands which is significantly more economically damaging than what's happening now.

Ukraine will be worth a lot of money to those who side with them. Yep, it's very cynical but a country with the resources like Ukraine could be very financially well off.. who wants to help them rebuild and have firstndibs on grain etc? Of course we do, we'd get the war costs back in a year if we got some decent trade deals off the back of this.

Russia is a dying country, it already has a dangerously low birth rate and a small cohort of birthing age people, many of whom have left. It's economic performance is woeful for somewhere with that many natural resources. A country in that kind of trouble has two options, reform or go on the attack - lose this war and the one chance at a more stable democratic Russia becomes feasible (I doubt it'll happen but hey).

China... This is twofold, don't think for a second this hasn't given China pause for thought on its plans for Taiwan. They'll have seen the Russian armies performance, noticed certain similarities between their armed forces and will likely be much more cautious going forwards. Secondly, and tied to my last point re reform - Russia is our buffer between China and the West, without a stable Russia, China will basically make it a vassal state and all of a sudden has access to seriously damage Western Europe economically and potentially militarily.

Finally... Wars are good for the military which will pay dividends in decades to come. We've seen how ineffective tanks are on the battlefield without adequate support, drones in have shown us the future of ground attacks, we've seen the effectiveness of combined arms and communication. This might not sound much but if Russia goes full going ho, or China starts getting antsy and wants to expand - you'll be thankful of what we've learnt and that we have practical experience of how to apply it. I hate war like the next man, but this has been a very important war which will be taught at Sandhurst for generations to come.

Also if any of those things (food security, supply security etc) were important to you in any way op, you would not have voted for brexit. Stop lying Vladimir

So long as it is British made 🙄

YANBU @Saysomething1234 Obviously you're not going to get many people on here admitting to agreeing with you, but nearly a THIRD of people voting do.

We need to stop now. Also stop aid to other countries. Need to get our own house in order first. People losing their homes, livelihoods, jobs etc, people going to food banks, soaring energy prices, no pay rises in a decade and a half, cost of living crisis etc etc etc.

We need to rein in the aid we are giving to ALL overseas countries.

And IDGAF what anyone thinks about me saying this. I am entitled to my opinion. So sue me.

‘Woke liberals’ ‘sucks for Ukraine’ - the callous justifications of right wing people like the OP make me angry. It’s always ‘as long as I’m okay’ on every opinion they express. I hope you never have to live through the horrors that the Ukraine people have suffered only to hear ‘we can’t afford to save you’ from idiots like yourself.

Yes no limits on our support OP

really shortsighted and unbelievable selfish

“An expensive hat of morality” 😂😂😂…..really?

If you draw the line at nato, you’re kidding yourself if you think you’re doing anything other than putting the war off for a year or two by not standing up for Ukraine. It will be Poland or the Baltics next - they know that and so do we. Better for us the war is fought in Ukraine than closer to home- however bad that is for them.