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

The actual nitty gritty of trump didn't matter

But as one gorilla squaring up to another, Putin wouldn't have taken the Risk.

Re us the world understand Ukraine..does it matter?
Isn't what Ukraine wants the most important things?

A democratic county or under mad Putin's autocracy??

@JuergenSchwarzwald

If we just let him do it then China will see that as the west being weak and will do the same to Taiwan

China knows that we can't stop them if they decide to invade Taiwan. There are probably other reasons they don't do it, despite all the sabre-rattling.

I agree. This may bolster china’s confidence but there’s no way China wouldn’t just take Taiwan if it was just a question of confidence.

I personally have no appetite for sending British troops to Ukraine. And I highly doubt Biden will be sending US troops in. One of the major factors in the US pulling out of Afghanistan was cost - if they’d have carried on with that level of military spending, they risk China taking their No.1 spot in the list of richest nations. No US president wants that happening on their watch.

So the chances of the West getting involved militarily are very slim… only if it spills over to a Nato county, I imagine.

All this talk about nuclear weapons is alarming.

I am glad we have them - but I can't see at what point we would use them.

We wouldn't use them now. Obviously.
We wouldn't use them if they attacked Poland.
Would we use them if they occupied Europe?

No - because using them would guarantee our destruction.

I hope we have good ground forces if it ever came to that. Although Russia does use 'localised' nuclear weapons to attack ground forces.

I hope we do have effective sanctions. Something that does give the Russian power makers pause for thought and effects them personally. No travel visa to the EU. Sent back home. Seizing of assets in the UK such as houses. They like Russia. They can stay in Russia.

You want to live in the West and travel freely. Then respect the rules of Western democracies.

Surely if russia want to do it, theyll just do it. Lets stop pretending we have any power here

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

Until last week was convinced he wouldn't do and I still cannot see why he needed to.

This is terrifying.

He doesn't need to. I'm convinced he wants nothing less than the restoration of the USSR boundaries and that he will stop at nothing to achieve that.

He's using the "protection" of Russian speaking minorities in the Ukraine as a guise to achieve that.

I just pray that he doesn't get the same idea about the Baltic states or NATO would have to get involved.

Cake or wine

China doesn't respect Western values, neither does Saudi Arabia etc and we allow them all to move freely around,buy up our water, building

I'm just deeply, deeply, sad that it has finally come to this.

I was doing my stay away from news and social media thing until lunch today, but was woken by a message from a relative in Dnipro.

We wouldn't use nukes but Putin would I reckon

We all need to nip this in the bud now. We all need to get together and sort Russia out, sneaky fuckers

Re money I'm sure he got himself and his cronies sorted out pre this.

@Alexandra2001

The UK is a blip for Russia the EU has far more clout

..and the EU would have even more clout if we were still in it 7 who have we got to thank for that gem of stupidity?

Putin, like his countrymen's greatest chess players has been playing the long game, manipulating the West for many years.

I agree with you again. The best thing that happen to Putin was Brexit - it divided the EU making it weaker. The UK these days is not a country for him to care about, his efforts are in trying to break the biggest trading block in the world - the EU.

Mind you, none of the above would have stop the invassion of Ukraine. The EU is powerless against the the American influence, billlions invested in politicians and supply of arms they been engaging in Eastern Europe for decades.

Sanctions aren't going to work are they? Russia has been stuck piling wealth for years. The Russian prosper have been propagandised up so they won't oppose what their leader is doing.
I feel scared and sad for the people of Ukraine but also for us all really because where does it end?
Lots of echoes of earlier wars from which is seems none of us have learned anything.

DD was trying to work out via Google last night wether we wood survive if a nuclear bomb hit central London. (The conclusion was probably not). What a bleak day.

I never thought I’d give Trump credit but I genuinely don’t think this would have happened if he’d still been President. The West is led by weak men - Boris, Biden etc and countries have been battered by COVID. Putin has taken his opportunity to invade Ukraine at precisely the right time.
China will no doubt see it as an opportunity to further weaken the US and will likely side with Russia, at least diplomatically.

We are definitely in very dangerous times.

We have taken peace in Europe for granted. Our military has been cut to the bone (similar in many European nations eg Germany). We don’t have the military might to take Putin on. We need to start rectifying that immediately. Not so we go to war, but in the hope it will avert war because Putin would have to start thinking about the fact he might not win.

Are there still people who think we shouldn’t be spending on Trident? Who want Putin to have nukes, but not us?

It’s counter intuitive but a stronger military makes war less likely. We have been complacent. There’s hopefully a bit of tile before he attacks a NATO nation, the West needs to use it wisely.

*time not tile

@swirlsy

We wouldn't use nukes but Putin would I reckon

I don’t think so either. Nuclear strikes are effective if you’re the first to use them and the target doesn’t have any to retaliate with. To be first takes acting covertly which would be very difficult for western countries to do simply because of the nature of our societies. A leader would have to be very confident of public/peer support and their justifications to use them covertly.

I do worry that putin would act to be first on flimsy intelligence. If he got a whiff of plans to deploy nuclear weapons I don’t think he would have any qualms about taking anyone he could down with him. I don’t think he wants to do that because it still means he loses, but he’s dangerous whether he wins or loses.

Grim.
Very depressing.
Goodness knows where it will end.

Mind you, none of the above would have stop the invassion of Ukraine.

Of course it wouldn’t.

I have more sympathy with previous post on Biden feeling weaker than Trump and withdrawing from Afghanistan as an indication of where they stand on world stage - although Trump started this process so it was both parties

Germany up to today was perusing diplomatic relationship with Kremlin and has only offered weapons (and admitted it should have been sooner)

I can’t see much diverting where we are today

Ukraine will fight back as much as they can whether promises of NATO were there or not

I cannot condone violence to the people of Ukraine but the diplomacy here has been handled appallingly. Everyone knew that sanctions wouldn't work. Johnson's relationship with Russian oligarch families. We are in the hands of total incompetence.

Russia has just signed a 117bn energy deal with china, in early Feb of this year. This crisis started when China leased land in Ukraine 2013 there is thought to be a link there. China and Russia are not going to be at all discouraged by sanctions.

Both China and Russia have said they want diplomacy and negotiation and I think that the West proposing to negotiate over NATO in Ukraine is our only chance. You have Russians vs Ukrainians in these territories, it is and has been for a while akin to a civil war, and the focus should be on that not seeing this as just saving Ukraine.

I don't think Putin will stop unless the West stops the sanctions and asks for genuine discussion. It is a risk of course, in fairness the Ukrainian government has made moves recently in relation to its internal dispute. But I think that sanctions and threats is more of a risk.

I meant Russian people and Ukrainian people in the territories.

Awful.

I think Putin is legacy-building. He's pushing 70 and doesn't really have any great conquests or achievements in line with the tradition of Russian leaders he places himself within. I have a suspicion he's not in the best of health either with all the performative manly-man hunting pics, etc.

Interesting Twitter thread from Konstantin Kisin:

twitter.com/KonstantinKisin/status/1496133062295437313

Not sure I entirely agree with him about the imminent collapse of the West, but I think he's right that we're a bit myopic/optimistic and thinking the strongman mindset has died out everywhere, where in a lot of the world it's still the norm and 'but democracy! human rights!' is essentially meaningless.

@ToMockAKillingBird

I never thought I’d give Trump credit but I genuinely don’t think this would have happened if he’d still been President. The West is led by weak men - Boris, Biden etc and countries have been battered by COVID. Putin has taken his opportunity to invade Ukraine at precisely the right time. China will no doubt see it as an opportunity to further weaken the US and will likely side with Russia, at least diplomatically.

We are definitely in very dangerous times.

Agreed. ~West is definitely run by weak men.

@drayday
“My Ukrainian friend called her family early this morning and they can see explosions from their windows. They are terrified.

It's nothing, i know. But I will be donating money to a Ukrainian based Animal Rescue.”

That has actually taken the prize for the most pointless (bordering on offensive) piece of virtue signalling I’ve seen on MN 🤯

Remember history. Remember Poland. Another megalomaniac dictator. Does the world really need another one like Hitler who engulfed the whole world in his greed and madness.