The Invasion is ongoing...Part 6

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Things are ramping up. No end in site as yet.

Link to thread 5 here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4494173-The-Invasion-is-ongoing-Part-5?pg=1

@Postdatedpandemic

I think we need to remember Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors at four separate plants plus of course Chernobyl. They need constant maintenance. The Ukrainians understand this better than any other nation.

That is a very good point. Who is maintaining these? Or are they being deliberately targeted?

What an unholy mess.

CaveMum

It's worth pointing out again that although Putin has claimed that he is putting his nuclear arsenal on higher alert, to date there has been no detectable change in what is happening in Russia and believe me there are an awful lot of satellites, etc monitoring what is going on.

I agree however it dispels Lavrov claims that nuclear threats aren’t in Russians “heads”.

@Alexandra2001

The point is that Ukranian refugees can't be accepted wholesale with no form of checks because Russian spies or extremists may pose as refugees in order to enter the UK. We know that Russian soldiers infiltrated Ukranian cities posing as civilians then committed acts of sabotage.

Lebedev is a case for a corruption investigation. You're making a totally false equivalency.

@CaveMum

It's worth pointing out again that although Putin has claimed that he is putting his nuclear arsenal on higher alert, to date there has been no detectable change in what is happening in Russia and believe me there are an awful lot of satellites, etc monitoring what is going on.

Yes. I also think it's very reassuring that the US hasn't increased its nuclear alert level in response and cancelled scheduled nuclear tests to reduce the possibility that Russia might fear a first strike.

[quote alltheapples]@Postdatedpandemic I don't know. Just repeating what the news are saying about Moldova.

@oakleaffy I find it really distasteful that people on the internet are saying that a democratic country should agree to give part of their country to the foreign country that is currently invading them by military force.
How would you feel in a similar situation in France was invading and killing us and strangers on the net were musing that we should hand over Kent to the French?[/quote]
But what is the alternative? Russia is going to take Ukraine anyway. It already has Crimea.

Maybe it’s better to do something distasteful to save the country from being destroyed and many thousands being killed.

Maybe it’s better to do something distasteful to save the country from being destroyed and many thousands being killed.

It really comes down to the people of Ukraine and what they are willing to do

@alltheapples

Ukraine is a democratic country that is being invaded by a foreign power and fiercely resisted by the Ukrainians. Russia is the clear aggressor.

This would be like Ireland invading the UK with tanks and soldiers because some people in N Ireland want to be part of Ireland. We would not excuse that and say we have to take a nuanced position. We would outright condemn it as an act of clear aggression.

There is a strain of thought in Western liberalism to be understanding of both sides that in most cases is good. But when there is a clear cut case of aggression like this it is an unhelpful impulse.

Quite! I lf this was happening to the UK - would people be agreeing to hand london and the home counties over to Russia to ‘keep the peace’? No. Ukraine has a right to its own sovereignty! You never capitulate to bullies or abusers, it just emboldens them and they push boundaries further. Putin (and his regime until signs show otherwise) is a gaslighting bully.

Personally if it saved millions of people from dying I wouldn’t care if we gave half of the U.K. to France. I prefer human lives over patriotism and war any day

But your're thinking in terms of France, a democratic Western nation. Personally I'd be pretty pissed off if you supported a sell off to an undemocratic, despotic, dictator state, which gave me no right over the choices I make in my life.

@MythicalBiologicalFennel

I am still hoping against hope that Putin will be stopped by the Russians

Me too. And Russian soldiers.

Yes. Self selected power-hungry narcissists tend to fight to the top; most sane people don't want that level of responsibility; even those that manage to get there because they have good intentions are likely to be overwhelmed by it when they get there.

Devolving power, flattning structures, etc, helps, I suppose. But it's always a fight against 'might is right'. Tiring.

This is quite a nice idea to help ordinary ppl in Ukraine I don’t know if the banking system is operational?

@BigWoollyJumpers

Personally if it saved millions of people from dying I wouldn’t care if we gave half of the U.K. to France. I prefer human lives over patriotism and war any day

But your're thinking in terms of France, a democratic Western nation. Personally I'd be pretty pissed off if you supported a sell off to an undemocratic, despotic, dictator state, which gave me no right over the choices I make in my life.

Exactly, swap France for Nazi Germany and see if people still feel the same way.

What's being said about Moldova?

@JS87 that is not a true analogy in any way, being part of France would have nothing whatsoever in common with being part of Putin's Russia. I too am no fan of "patriotism" and nationalism, and always believed in one world government, much as it is an impossible goal, but allowing countries to be subjugated by a fascist dictator is what happened in 1938/9 and can never be condoned.

Just popping on to say that for UK taxpayers desperate to help, one of the best to consider is the Disasters Emergency Committee (www.dec.org.uk/appeal/ukraine-humanitarian-appeal). They work with the top 15 charities in the UK for humanitarian aid and allocate depending on who is best placed to deliver help on the ground.

Donations are matched by the UK government up to £20 million and also you can claim gift aid so if you put in £50, the appeal gets £112.50 (£50 of your money, £50 matched by the govt and £12.50 gift aid).

I feel like in the last week I have donated to every fundraiser and charity I have seen left right and centre, but the matched funding makes this one a good one to consider.

Let me try that again with a clicky link! www.dec.org.uk/appeal/ukraine-humanitarian-appeal

Just spotted this - a Russian businessman has placed a million dollar bounty on Putin's head to have him arrested and brought in as a war criminal 'dead or alive' - also being reported on other news sites.

uk.yahoo.com/news/russian-businessman-places-1m-bounty-231620997.html

BBC live

Latest claims from both sides about casualties
Ukraine's army regularly puts out updates on the damage it says it's inflicting on Russian forces, which continue to press on key cities, particularly in the south.

We should stress that the BBC can't verify this information, but the latest update from the General Staff of the Armed Forces says that approximately 9,000 Russian personnel have been killed or wounded.

It also says Ukrainian forces have destroyed:

217 tanks
90 artillery systems
31 helicopters
30 planes or other aircraft
For its part, Russia yesterday for the first time gave a specific number for casualties it had suffered in Ukraine, saying 498 Russian soldiers had died and nearly 1,600 had been wounded.

It said it had killed 2,870 Ukrainian soldiers and "nationalists".

It's worth remembering that hundreds of civilians have already died in the conflict, with warnings of a humanitarian crisis that is only growing.

Personally I'd be pretty pissed off if you supported a sell off to an undemocratic, despotic, dictator state, which gave me no right over the choices I make in my life

I agree, it would be distasteful and it could well embolden Putin to do more - after all he didn't stop at Crimea and he has threatened Georgia and Moldova too.

However, it may be a way of getting him to shut up until he dies. There are no easy answers here and he is unpredictable.

It is quite astonishing that a country the size of Russia feels that it needs a buffer zone in Europe - it is very close to the US in the east - although obviously that is a very unpopulated area. I don't think they actually do, they just want the USSR back (we know that's the case for Putin anyway).

Also another anecdote - Russian friends of mine here in the UK have been unable to get any money out of their savings in Russia since Monday. They're ordinary people, not oligarchs! Is this because of the ban on moving roubles out of Russia at the moment?

They say all their family and friends know full well what's going on, but are terrified to protest

A million isn't enough. It would need to be a lot more than that I would think.

My DD has friends in Russia (St Petersburg) and they are perfectly well aware of what is going on. The man is in his 20s and fears he will be conscripted.

@Bluebellsunderthetrees

The rest of world could also be asking why didn't Ukraine do more to end it's civil war, why didn't it address the atrocities committed by its own Nazi army regiment, why did Ukraine refuse to negotiate with Russia to let the Crimean people have access to water when they faced their worst ever drought? And why didn't the EU who have been so active working with Ukraine on trade deals (whilst pissing off Russia ) not do something about ? Zelensky is not being asked to sacrifice his country for rest of the world FFS He is asking us to scarifice our peace for a problem that has been going on in his country since 2013 and where he has often refused to negotiate. I suspect because he didn't care about Ukrainians who either wanted Independence or to be Russian

I agree. There's a propaganda and information war on both sides. For example, the Ukranian journalist who went to Boris Johnson's press conference to demand NATO escalation even at the risk of this expanding to a nuclear holocaust. It's in their interest to incite western military involvement by depicting escalation as inevitable. Even if you profoundly regret the suffering that we're witnessing (as we all do), we shouldn't lose sight of that.

In China, I gather that Zelensky is being depicted as unqualified and hopelessly in above his head. I wonder how a truly genius statesman, a modern day Talleyrand, Bismarck, Cavour or Lee Kuan Yew could have balanced the competing interests in the region for the benefit of the people of Ukraine.

@BarrowInFurnessRailwayStation

A million isn't enough. It would need to be a lot more than that I would think.

What is needed is someone of the calibre of Claus Von Stauffenberg. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claus_von_Stauffenberg

Though I would add to my previous post that that I do know that Von Stauffenberg had very questionable ideals himself so he's in no way a perfect role model. I'm trying (badly) to get across the point that at least he was prepared to try and take Hitler out himself.