The invasion has begun

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Russia has begun it's invasion of Ukraine. Who knows where this will end.

apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-russia-moscow-kyiv-626a8c5ec22217bacb24ece60fac4fe1

@Libraryghost

I think Biden is too old at 78. I can't imagine doing my own job at that age never mind running a country. Putin has taken his opportunity. The west is weak and he knows it.

I wanted Trump to go but it’s a shame we got Biden tbh

It’s always going to be mostly about US and where they’re at for Putin

Omg ,I can't believe you're going to defend biden withdrawal from Afghanistan!

Posters like you make posters defend trump when it's the last thing they went to to honestly!!

"Trump seemed to have a way of engaging and handling Putin"

I rather thought it was the other way around.
Trump wanted out of NATO and on that basis he was a lot less likely to get involved at all. He also been very busy calling Putin a genius etc. I expect he's hoping Putin and his friendly bots will support his 2024 campaign.

@Suzi888

“A PP asked how many troops we have compared to Russia. We have approximately 25,000 infantry..... Russia have about 400,000”

Well. That’s the end of that then.

Don’t forget NATO

If any country gets attacked it’s all respond

For people saying Biden is weak etc... Just remember that without the USA and Bidens very firm commitment on NATO, there would be nothing very much stopping Putin from going into all the ex soviet countries.
Europe alone would very much struggle to halt Russia.

The Americans could v easily just tell Europe to organise their own defence.

@Tigersonvaseline Who is this Alexander you refer too?

True re Biden v Trump and NATO

We’d be in a much worse position without US

*I wanted Trump to go but it’s a shame we got Biden tbh

It’s always going to be mostly about US and where they’re at for Putin*

Yes I think Putin can smell weakness or vulnerability and exploits it - and so soon after Covid.

Europe is vast and powerful.
Of course USA backing is crucial but it's strange how you play down the power of the EU!!

@Alexandra2001

No. He's weakened the West, especially after the Afghanistan withdrawal

Yes Trump did, he started the timetable of withdrawal, which the UK embraced too.

I'm no fan of trump but I don't believe he he was in power this would have happened. Not because he's a great leader but because he's such a loose cannon, Putin would not have the confidence

Really? Trump was backed by the russians to get to the WH and then there is that sex tape Putin has on him....

Therefore, this probably wouldn't have happened. I don't give a shiny shit why, it's ALL bollocks

I think we should reclaim the empty mansions in London owned by Russian Ogliarchs and rehome Ukrainian families in them. Having said that I am genuinely worried about Russian retaliation. They fight dirty, cyber attacks, poisonings etc. we have been warned for years about Putin but pissed around messing around in the Middle East on false pretences. The Salisbury poisonings, Alexander Litvinenko and Crimea were all massive red flags. Putin is a megalomaniac.

Some military expert on the news said Ukraine troops needs to withdraw to Kiev and concentrate on protecting the capital. That they will be outmanoeuvred and outnumbered otherwise.

What will Russia do with the Ukraine president if they capture him? I doubt they’ll let him go!

Don’t forget NATO

If any country gets attacked it’s all respond

which Biden re affirmed, unlike Trump ...hence my ThankGod for Biden, we'd be fucked if Trump had got back in.

@Tigersonvaseline

Europe is vast and powerful. Of course USA backing is crucial but it's strange how you play down the power of the EU!!

I can see you are a serious contributor.

@Alexandra2001

Don’t forget NATO

If any country gets attacked it’s all respond

which Biden re affirmed, unlike Trump ...hence my ThankGod for Biden, we'd be fucked if Trump had got back in.

I really don't get your confidence in Biden?

It's him in power that's given Putin the green light. Didn't sleepy Joe say just days ago under no circumstances would the US engage militarily? Absolute bafoon think putin was in love with the great big American bullshit as he is

For those who missed it above, Trump has been on his hind legs this week praising Putin.

Trump praised Putin's justification to invade Ukraine as 'genius' and 'savvy'
www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-ukraine-invasion-justification-genius-savvy-2022-2?r=US&IR=T

In 2016 Trump said he believed Putin's word above US intelligence, purely for his own personal convenience.

Trump sides with Russia against FBI at Helsinki summit
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44852812

Putin twisted Trump round his little finger.

*thinking Putin was

I'm really hoping some tougher generals or others start to speak out from the White House now.

World leaders believe Putin will go further than Ukraine and are putting/have put military personal on standby as they believe there will be escalation by Putin

Biden has actively said he will follow through with their article 5 commitments if Putin attacks members of nato.

He might be sleepy Joe, but he was VERY clear he will attack if Nato is attacked, unlike BJ

@TiddyTidTwo err as did every other NATO countries leaders inc Boris Johnson.
Not sure why JB's comments come as a surprise to you.

To all those who think the mighty power of the USA can squash Russia - seriously no, we wouldn't have won WW1 or WW2 without Russia. The Russians are airbrushed from Hollywood portrayals of WW2 but there were mass suicides in all over Germany as the red army approached. Putin like others before him such as Stalin did not give a flying fuck about their own people. Stalin let millions of Russians starve to achieve his own ends. The economic sanctions will hit the poorest Russian people the hardest and Putin will not care a jot. Their lives is a sacrifice he is prepared to make to rebuild the Russian empire.

I do not support Biden , never have and never will, however he did give me clarity and was more informative than bumbling BJ!

Agree library but it's them who need to get Putin out.

@Inkanta

Well yes I think the US ought to bomb a few tanks at least. Seriously.

Those would be the opening shots of WW3. Hopefully it will remain contained as what it is, a Russia - Ukraine war.

Regarding the size of the British army, in total, including cooks and bottle washers, it's around a third of the size of what the Russians had on the border the night before - and they were not cooks and bottle washers. Boots on the ground very definitely are important and especially in this kind of war. When you have, as we used to say back in the day, 'a hairy arsed Ivan coming over the hill with a bayonet in one hand and half a baby in the other ' you need to be on the ground with many bayonets to stop that. Because a fleet of drones isn't going to. Not is any other tech short of tactical nuclear strikes. And you need to establish air supremacy too, in which we would also be staggeringly outnumbered.

To deny numbers and rely on tech is to lose the battle and to do so again is to ignore the lessons og the past. The French learnt that at the battle at dien bien phu and their mistake was blindly repeated at khe sanh, which could well have had the same result had that been the plan of Giap (and if he'd had more boots in the ground).

British troops are superb but so are russian troops. The recent experiences of each are, however, of totally different types of warfare. The casualties of Iraq and Afghanistan would be utterly negligible compared to those we would see if they are committed to battle there.

Two of their biggest donors are Russian

Both of the Tory donors now have British citizenship and both arrived in this country when Tony Blair was PM. At least one was born in Ukraine - he wrote this article for the Guardian in 2015;

Britain should arm Ukraine, says Tory donor.
Former Ukrainian businessman argues that Cameron and Obama should send weapons and ammunition to support the government in Kiev.

As the conflict in Ukraine approaches the one-year mark, the time has come to admit that the current approach of the west is failing. No one can seriously doubt that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, intends to continue on this path for as long as possible...

Putin’s Russia stands openly opposed to traditional western values of liberal democracy and self-determination...

So when Putin retorts that “no one needs a conflict on the periphery of Europe”, he is not speaking for himself. We cannot, and must not, believe a single word he says...

Alexander Temerko is a Ukrainian-born British businessman and a major donor to the Conservative party.

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/11/britain-should-arm-ukraine