To be alarmed at Starmers plans

No, they are paid to protect OUR country, not to fight foreign interventions and wars.

You're getting awfully hot under the collar about something that is not going to happen, almost as if you were setting out to be inflammatory.

We are not going to be sending the UK's young to fight in Ukraine. Stop the ridiculous hyperbole.

Good for him? Will you go and fight? Will your sons and daughters go? Or you want to send somebody else's children there? Good for him, my arse.

Will this bastard Starmer send his sons to fight? Like Blair did not send his sons to Iraq? Or better still, let fat Starmer go and fight - he is all for it. I don't want our boys to die, why do we have to be involved in every conflict?

I'm hoping that Trump will bring an end to it all.

Do you know where the figure 1.7 million comes from, AlexP24?

I did ask halfpastten but no answer.

Shame, some of mine has already been wiped out.

@WishinAndHopin You clearly have no idea what is like to live with ‘ethnic Russians’ within your own country. People who celebrate annually the start of the occupation of the Baltics and other former USSR republics and disguise it at celebrating nazi defeat. People who refuse to speak the language of that country other than Russian. If you want to know where the corruption is in Latvian and Ukrainian government I can tell you it is coming from ethnic Russians - they even have their own parties for god sake! If they like Russia so much then they need to pack up and head back to the motherland. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Russian hater. We have Russian friends and a couple of Russians married into the family but they are not supporters of the war and are ethnic Russians who speak the language of the country they live in. Do you believe that large swathes of the UK that are occupied by other nationalities should be exempt from speaking English, should have government legislation written in their own language and refuse to integrate with wider British society- of course not and this has led to the rise of parties like Reform and UKIP. Should the English enclaves in Spain be captured by the UK because there’s so many Brits there who refuse to speak to language and integrate with Spanish life?

His main duty as a leader is to save lives, and as a smaller country threatened by a much larger one, this involves negotiation - not sacrificing hundreds of thousands of people out of ego, sticking to the same failed tactics

If our leaders had had that attitude in the 30s & 40s we'd have welcomed Hitler & the Nazis into Britain with flags and marching bands

We should stay out of it. I dont want my family wiped out on the alter of Ukraine. Has anyone noticed the silence from most ofvthecrest of Europe? Why is it always the UK that likes to put themselves in the middle of any crap. But mayb its down to who your leader is, and Starmer is scarily incompetent.

I agree.

Gosh the anti Starmer 'think pieces' are coming thick and fast tonight. I'm starting to miss stupid posts about penis beakers and the like.

@WishinAndHopin I would be interested to know if you were born under USSR and lived under communist rule? If not, then you’re unlikely to know what you’re talking about. I was born in Latvia, bought up in Ukraine and the came to the UK just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Understand that you don’t want ‘your resources’ drained by the war in Ukraine but Russia should not be able to take countries ‘back’ as and when it pleases. We’ve lost family, friends and fellow citizens in this war. I have spent so much money relocating family that I’m up to my eyes in credit at the moment. Livelihoods and homes have been destroyed and unlikely to be rebuilt in my lifetime. Life ruled by the KGB even in a village was tough, relatives and friends imprisoned in the early 80s and a grandfather and great uncle sent to a gulag and great aunt who was locked up and tortured in the Stūra Māja in Rīga, she died there too. Unlikely your own past is as chequered but if it was then I imagine you wouldn’t want foreign aid pulled from your country. Ukraine isn’t perfect, there is corruption within the government of course. And to clear this corruption will take several generations, but let’s be honest the UK isn’t perfect - it’s brimming with benefit scroungers and the corruption is there too, you only have to look at your own MPs putting themselves, second homes and expensive before their own constituents, covid contracts for the comrades - and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Hasn't Putin been after Ukraine longer than this, though, with his vision of returning Kyiv at least to Russia? I understood that there were efforts to destabilise the Donbas by Russia fomenting unrest and pushing more ethnic Russians into the area to claim that the majority requested Russian support.

I don't know how this conflict will resolve. But Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are watching closely, as is Moldova.

And "we" as in EU/UK are already engaged in a hybrid war. Even if a negotiated peace deal were struck, the hybrid war would continue for as long as Putin prevails as leader. So it would be a face saving public sticking plaster, at best.

Don't young men count as people? Also why do you assume I'm also not appalled by Gaza? The proportion is just a fact. Those young men are mostly conscripts, they didn't willingly sign up to be slaughtered either.

Not just today. It’s going to be a very long, tedious 4.5 years.

We’re bleeding hearts in England and love to get behind a cause all guns blazing without stopping to think critically and objectively.

Banging pots for nurses, millions on furlough and idolising an elderly man walking round in circles in his garden. It’s not hard to see how in 10 years time politicians will be citing Ukraine as the reason we can’t afford to fund beds for people in A&E.

Yes Russia invaded, and that was very, very wrong. Putin turned a small civil war into a serious international conflict.

Zelenskyy's response is a failure and unjustifiable. His main duty as a leader is to save lives, and as a smaller country threatened by a much larger one, this involves negotiation - not sacrificing hundreds of thousands of people out of ego, sticking to the same failed tactics.

Ukraine has a large ethnic Russian minority; the country has been involved in a low level civil war since 2014, with ethnic Russians rightly or wrongly perceiving themselves as persecuted. Some regions in which they are the majority wanted to separate.

Zelenskyy appealed to both Ukrainian and Russian speaking sides in his election campaign and promised to unite them and bring peace. He has beyond failed to do this. Clinging on to separatist regions by force is not what he promised voters. He has polarised the country even further by accusing anyone who remotely disagrees with his tactics as being pro-Russian. Now Ukrainians have no polticial way to get rid of this literal comedian who is leading them to their deaths.

Also foreign powers were pumping Ukraine full of arms and aid preparing for a Russian invasion, which became a self-fulfilling prophecy because they gave Russia a reason to feel threatened. Also after the war started, Boris Johnson immediately made it clear that "Putin must fail", which was the complete opposite of negotiating and left Putin with only two options: win or fail, so no incentive to stop. The sanctions made this even worse; there should have been offers for ways Putin could get the sanctions lifted. There was just no carrot to get him to stop the war, and every reason to continue.

Russia and Putin have their own colossal responsibilities and roles in this, but that's not in our control. As for the West, Europe and Ukraine: they need to cut their losses, and focus on saving lives and preventing this war from ever-escalating.

If they don't, it's guaranteed WW3. Ukraine CANNOT win this because they are much smaller and have less resources. It's that simple. They need outside help, which can only end in major international conflict.

Remember, this drawn out war is using up and weakening Western resources should something even bigger occur. It is in everyone's benefit to stop.

We need to focus on giving Putin incentives to stop. This will mean Zelenskyy will need to give up some land. That's the consequences of his failure. He is NOT victim, he is orchestrating mass murderer, just like Putin.

At some point we need to put human lives first instead of worrying about the glory of Ukraine keeping all of its rather unwilling territories.

IMO it's too serious a subject to use the 'Conspracy theorist' trope to mask your ignorance@NetballHoop but feel free to argue the arguments...

So no link.

Just something on a Facebook post and then someone reads it and reacts emotionally to post a thread.

Maybe people should just stop and wait until they decide to post "news" without any verifiable links to what was said?

Agreed about the Churchill moment, he'd waited for that his entire life. However, no amount of goodwill would've ever made him a good PM. Boris always puts Boris first.

Seems to be a trend over the last few months, not just here but everywhere. Almost looks like people are very disappointed in him.

@PandoraSox last I read he won't confirm or deny British troops involvement so that doesn't comfort me at all.

This is a double whammy today though.

Starmer and Zelensky

Two for one

BOGOF