Boris Johnson to address nation as he describes Russian invasion as 'catastrophe for our continent

[Ponyclubkick]

Anyone finding the tone of this really quite terrifying...

I’m not one to get myself in a tizz over sensationalised news but this is starting to feel very different!

They said leaving the EU would allow us to take a stand in situations like these, actually we're barely a flea on an elephant's back.

Whats the EU got to do with this?

@Keepyourheadscrewedon

At the same time, we try to bring Russia gradually back into the fold

There is zero chance of that!!

What is happening now is so serious, so dangerous. Russia will never be trusted again. They will be a poverty stricken pariah wasteland after this trust me.

Russia has not been trusted for decades. But that doesn't stop people like the Conservatives taking their money in exchange for favours.

You're delusional if you think this will ruin Russia.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

So would you shoot the ones that you couldn’t fit in prison? Aledsipad?

Because my family were conscripted in WW2. One never recovered from killing someone and later committed suicide. That was my father

My uncles suffered severe repercussions from fighting at Monte Cassino. My mum spent her young years working nights in a munitions factory.

They could all think for themselves. But they were forced into it.

Yay for conscription

That's literally the point - being forced into it. I don't understand why you think today's young generation would have any more power to resist. Shoot them? No they probably wouldn't openly. But this is a government who 'sanctions' people who are too sick to attend the job centre. I don't think for one second they'd look kindly on refusal of conscription all of a sudden.

You don't have some monopoly on conscripted family either. My grandad was. Like I said previously, the vast majority of us had conscripted ancestors. You're the one who laughed at the idea of people not refusing now because 'they can think for themselves!'

@Keepyourheadscrewedon,

I don’t trust you at all, sorry!

Honestly, why do you think what Putin is doing is so much worse than what we did in Iraq? I don’t think that Ukraine was ever a threat to Russia, but I can see why a paranoid leader might believe it was. Iraq threatening the U.S? Laughable.

And what about what Russia did in Hungary and Czechoslovakia many years ago?

Countries can always be rehabilitated. You need to remember that it is the leadership who have erred, not the people. Russians are just like us and it is your kind of thinking, ‘othering’ people, that is dangerous.

Creating pariah states is very dangerous, especially powerful ones.

Our best hope is to create a climate in Russia where positive political change is possible.

But first we must deal calmly and professionally with what is happening right now, which Biden is doing pretty well with (and Boris ain’t!!!).

Russia is finished.

There is one thing carving up Crimea. Quite another to start a war in the middle of Europe! This will never be forgotten or forgiven. Best case is that they can continue to trade with other autocracies and basket states. Never again will the world look at Russia again with anything other than contempt and disgust.

Putin has seriously overplayed his hand.

TheReluctant I could not care any less what you think - knowing what your posts say and you are a Russian sympathiser.

[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@Keepyourheadscrewedon,

I don’t trust you at all, sorry!

Honestly, why do you think what Putin is doing is so much worse than what we did in Iraq? I don’t think that Ukraine was ever a threat to Russia, but I can see why a paranoid leader might believe it was. Iraq threatening the U.S? Laughable.

And what about what Russia did in Hungary and Czechoslovakia many years ago?

Countries can always be rehabilitated. You need to remember that it is the leadership who have erred, not the people. Russians are just like us and it is your kind of thinking, ‘othering’ people, that is dangerous.

Creating pariah states is very dangerous, especially powerful ones.

Our best hope is to create a climate in Russia where positive political change is possible.

But first we must deal calmly and professionally with what is happening right now, which Biden is doing pretty well with (and Boris ain’t!!!).[/quote]
What is Biden doing that you think is good?

The thing is if he’s left to it with sanctions (aka like parking tickets for the rich) he could quite possibly set his sites on the likes of Poland next.

The man is insane. He’s 70 with nothing to lose. I genuinely think this is all about wanting to leave a legacy of rebuilding the USSR bigger and better, he’s willing to take risks.

Anyone whose grandparents weren’t conscripted probably had family in key trades or with health problems. Without minimising any one’s sacrifice there’s not much sense taking pride in the conscription itself- as pps have noted they had little other option! I wonder if conscription would be more widespread if anything- my grandfathers were a steel engineer and a farmer, common trades in the 40’s but probably a bit rarer these days…

marsha Biden is doing SFA so that gets a cheer from pp. He is stumbling through his autocues and managing to stay upright. Boris however seems to be at least coherent.

They have really lost the plot if they think young people will go to war they have just had the last 2years of their lives fucked up with covid and want to get on with life there would be rioting and I as their patent would join in with it

This will have serious consequences on not only Ukraine, but whole Europe. No country can exist in isolation in modern world. Look at what happened in countries next to Afghanistan, it's a domino effect. And Putin won't stop on Ukraine, he wants to go back to pre -1991 borders.

@Chocolattay,

Putin has adult children and maybe grandchildren and nieces.

He has plenty to lose.

Is he sane, though? I think that is the question a lot of intelligence analysts will be applying themselves to right now. He looks, to me and many others, to be very different from how he was a while ago.

I’ve said it all along, this is all about one old man’s stubbornness and nostalgia for the USSR.

@TheReluctantPhoenix

Having children and a family won’t make a difference. He’ll no doubt have safety measures in place for them.

@Keepyourheadscrewedon

TheReluctant I could not care any less what you think - knowing what your posts say and you are a Russian sympathiser.

Anyone who doesn't take your histrionic stance is a Russian sympathiser.

Meanwhile you support Trump, Farage and Johnson.

@lovescats3

They have really lost the plot if they think young people will go to war they have just had the last 2years of their lives fucked up with covid and want to get on with life there would be rioting and I as their patent would join in with it

It's people here catastrophising rather than it being reality, the military don't want most of them either I expect!

@Keepyourheadscrewedon

I am actually a Russian sympathiser. I have several Russian friends and they are the nicest people.

Don't mistake that for a Putin, sympathiser, though, which I am absolutely not.

It is a tragedy for both nations. Your average Russian will be impoverished by this foolish venture.

Er I am a Labour supporter, and have been for at least three generations.

**and we have been

Yes, he's definitely hankering after the old USSR. Whether he's sane is another matter. Did you see the footage of the security council meeting he held the other day. He was making his spy chief (who I'm guessing is hard as nails) fumble his worlds and look very nervous indeed.

I could not vote for Corbyn - and thank god we didn't.

Kennedy took the world to the brink of nuclear war because of Soviet missiles in Cuba (in retaliation for US missiles in Turkey).
Putin views the threat of NATO weapons (including nuclear warheads) on Russia's borders in exactly the same way. Implementation of the Minsk agreements would have prevented this. Ukraine and the West have repeatedly reneged on this.
It is dispiriting that so many are following a simple narrative of Russia bad and Ukraine good.
I abhor war. I despise nationalism of all flavours. Arms dealers win. Ordinary families lose.
Yemen has been bombed by Saudi Arabia every night for weeks. SIlence.

@5thnonblonde

Anyone whose grandparents weren’t conscripted probably had family in key trades or with health problems. Without minimising any one’s sacrifice there’s not much sense taking pride in the conscription itself- as pps have noted they had little other option! I wonder if conscription would be more widespread if anything- my grandfathers were a steel engineer and a farmer, common trades in the 40’s but probably a bit rarer these days…

Or who didn’t wait to be conscripted because they volunteered like my father and father in law.

The posters here scoffing at Conscription are the same people who scoffed at the idea the UK would ever DARE put their people into lockdown or make them wear masks.
Just like Lockdown the writing is on the wall, shouting about the rights and wrong of it is pointless but continue to bury your heads in the sand it wont make a difference anyway and your own personal beliefs will not matter to those in power.