Should we be prepping for a possible war?

[BauMaus]

In light of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the possibility of a much wider European or world war, is this an event you are prepping for or will actively prep for at a certain point?
I am sure there will be lots of comments around toilet roll and pasta and hopefully many will still have enough supplies to see them through the next decade!!

Nah. I'm very much a "what will be will be" type. I was utterly bemused at all the Covid prep, I did nothing and there was never anything I couldn't get hold of at the supermarket. If there was I'd just do without.

haha...no

what would we be 'prepping' for exactly?

The Russians are really clever at worming their way into things that will give them leverage. The Russian economy is smaller than Italy's. They're not about to invade the whole of Europe, they do not have the resource.

What they probably do have is compromat on leaders and senior figures in the west that can be used to bribe them (remember Trump and the pee-pee tapes?), they've been funnelling funding into political parties for years (both Labour and Tories have had big donations from Russian oligarchs), they could probably launch cyber warfare pretty easily and cause havoc by disrupting systems for cloud computing etc. They also supply a lot of gas, we've already seen what happens when that's disrupted.

They also do things to generally disrupt and demoralise people in enemy nations, which is why they funded Brexit heavily!

Nothing to prep for as far as I can see! The biggest (only?) impact for people in the UK will be on energy supply and prices and that's completely out of my control.

Whatever happens, it's hardly likely to end in a boots-on-the-ground invasion of anywhere other than Ukraine. I am very sorry for the Ukrainians but there's not a lot we can do apart from

1. insulate your home and reduce usage before gas prices go up AGAIN
2. fill up the car before petrol prices go up AGAIN
3. keep a small stash of bottled water and tinned and dried food, if you have the space, in case of supply-chain issues
4. hide a wadge of cash somewhere in case of cyber-attacks knocking out other payment methods
5. make a donation to the Red Cross or other appropriate charity.

Baumaus if you're concerned and would feel more comfortable knowing that you've done something to prep, it might be worth heading over the the Preppers board.

No of course not op

In addition to insulation maybe some solar chargers/lights or even panels if you can afford it. With gas prices so high I imagine solar thermal would pay for itself quite quickly regardless. And if you have any particular products made of wheat that you must have then maybe stock up on them as I think Ukraine is a major exporter of wheat.

I have 2 solar panels. They provide enough hot water for the day. Just

Obviously a sunnier day provides an abundance but this weather is just enough

Only need has for heating then. Which is fine, we can live without that

If the last 2 years have taught us anything it’s that you can’t predict or truly prepare for anything.

@Daenerys77

Whatever happens, it's hardly likely to end in a boots-on-the-ground invasion of anywhere other than Ukraine. I am very sorry for the Ukrainians but there's not a lot we can do apart from

1. insulate your home and reduce usage before gas prices go up AGAIN
2. fill up the car before petrol prices go up AGAIN
3. keep a small stash of bottled water and tinned and dried food, if you have the space, in case of supply-chain issues
4. hide a wadge of cash somewhere in case of cyber-attacks knocking out other payment methods
5. make a donation to the Red Cross or other appropriate charity.

This!

I'm buying 500 toilet rolls.

Didn't take long for a post mentioning stockpiling did it? And off we all go again...

It was a joke I think!

We don't import many loo rolls and pasta from Russia....

Biggest threat is from either a cyber attack and nuclear. Secondary is gas. Good luck prepping for either of those.

No but its this type of post that encourages people. There's no good fear mongering.

@Daenerys77

Whatever happens, it's hardly likely to end in a boots-on-the-ground invasion of anywhere other than Ukraine. I am very sorry for the Ukrainians but there's not a lot we can do apart from

1. insulate your home and reduce usage before gas prices go up AGAIN
2. fill up the car before petrol prices go up AGAIN
3. keep a small stash of bottled water and tinned and dried food, if you have the space, in case of supply-chain issues
4. hide a wadge of cash somewhere in case of cyber-attacks knocking out other payment methods
5. make a donation to the Red Cross or other appropriate charity.

This is sound advice 👍

If everyone does number 4 on that list, will it basically be Northern Rock x 1000?

I presume it’s enough to fill the car and get few weeks shopping. Most people be lucky find £300 cash not withdrawn £50,000

I'm assuming when they drop nuclear bombs on us we will all be dead anyway. Or best case scenario living in some kind of nuclear wasteland fighting for scraps so no I'm not prepping.

Living in a nuclear wasteland is not best case scenario though

I'd rather just go

I'm fairly laid back re organisation obvs I do important stuff like apply for school places on time, sign consent forms for school, pay bills on time etc but it's quite normal for my DC to ask me at 6.15 when I get home from work, "what's for dinner mum?" And I have no idea. Thankfully for us, that's because I'm not into meal planning rather than we've got no food.
It amazed me to see there was a preppers topic - I don't know if I know anyone in real life who stockpiles or preps. Occassionally my dad used to buy a billion toilet rolls because they might be on offer but that was more of a cost exercise than thinking he might run out.
The news regarding Russia and the Ukraine is worrying but I can't actually think what I would need to do practically to "prep" for anything worse happening...?
What tangible advantage did the preppers have prepping for covid and brexit? Apart from possibly needing to go shopping less often?

Stockpiling isn't necessary, but some preparation for emergencies is always sensible. I have a couple of extra hot water bottles in case we need to ration the heating (which is sensible with costs going up anyway) and I've got a camping stove with a couple of small gas bottles. This is my usual emergency kit - I don't have friends or family nearby that we can use for showers or hot water if the boiler goes or the power supply is interrupted.

Russia as a country is a warmonger but they are not suicidal.Its not as if if you take on UK we stand alone.

No you really don't need to.
However- it is best to have enough of the very basics to last you a week in case of emergency (illness, very bad weather, supply chain issues). My mum used to do this in the 80s, it's not new. It's also not stockpiling (unless you buy something like 1000L of bottled water of course)