Ukraine-invasion-part-16

[PestorPeston]

Warsaw Russian is letting out a lot of smoke - there has been no decision on who among them will be the next pontiff.

Biden is going there Friday

Is Boris Johnson the designated survivor?

Who the heck let me be in charge?

@Ijsbear

@ DGRossetti what's a DUP?

@TargusEasting excellent :D

1 DUP = £10 billion

It's what Theresa May spent keeping the DUP onside 2017-2019 and has proved an interesting measure of money ever since.

If the UK has sent Ukraine £1 billion of aid since February, it's a tenth what was considered appropriate to ensure the DUP supported the Tories.

@Ijsbear

I wonder if other subjugated countries around Russia will try to take a chance to rebel.

Reckon now would be a good time for it. Good luck to them.

For all the chatter, the TL;DR is that winners don't need to change their parameters for victory. Spin that however you like.

Putin is on the ropes. If he wants to act like a rat then that's his choice.

I have long since dispelled with the notion that the invasion was first manifest when US satellites spotted a build up of armour on the border in late 2021.

This is THE long game.

US $2 billion and U.K. £1bn?

Pretty good given relative size

Biden sounds a bit more enthused

I don’t mind him but better when he’s off autocue mode

Departmental Unallocated Provision (DUP)

A part of a Government department’s budget which has been set aside as a contingency. DUP forms part of a Department’s Resource or Capital DEL, and is included within the Estimate. DUP may be vired to other budgets in the same department’s DEL, reallocated in a Supplementary Estimate; or surrendered for possible carry forward into a future year through Budget Exchange.

(DEL is the Department Expenditure Limit)

These are terms from the government's accounting procedures, and do not have a specific cash value. Each department has one

yikes, she paid 10bn?

:( poor corrupt UK.

Putin is on the ropes. If he wants to act like a rat then that's his choice.

it's that story he keeps retelling of what happened when he cornered a rat that's concerning!

I wonder what Putin’s reaction to Biden’s speech is going to be. More nuclear threatening perhaps?

@MarshaBradyo

Biden sounds a bit more enthused

I don’t mind him but better when he’s off autocue mode

I've just caught up on what he said. It's much the same as he's been saying all along about honouring Article 5.

That he needs to say it again quite so vigorously did make he wonder if there has been a need to rein in Poland from (another) initiative (like the planes)

Thank God it's not Trump up there.

Do you think Biden's address can possibly be heard or understood in Russia?

Putin does have the option of behaving like a statesman, making out you are some sort of low level rodent is not most people's idea of being a world leader.
Such a shame he sold his country out to the worst elements of capitalism.

White House are speedily rowing back on biden’s comments re putin staying in power… i imagine the rhetoric is going to get tense from Russia now

@freedles

White House are speedily rowing back on biden’s comments re putin staying in power… i imagine the rhetoric is going to get tense from Russia now

Source please?

Sky news is commenting on it

“ At the end of his speech in Warsaw earlier, US President Joe Biden said of Vladimir Putin: "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power."
The White House has since clarified that Mr Biden was not calling for regime change.
The Kremlin said such matters were "not for Biden to decide", adding: "The president of Russia is elected by Russians."

White House are speedily rowing back on biden’s comments re putin staying in power…

They need to. All this crap about God and darkness/light is incendiary. What possible good can it do to goad and rattle Putin at this stage? Not to mention it actually smacks of moral hypocrisy given the US's foreign policy track record. The days when other world leaders overlooked these kinds of pronouncements are over. He's out of touch. Given the potential for wider conflict, it feels like he overplayed his diplomatic hand today, and weakened us. But then I found his little pep talk to American NATO soldiers yesterday creepy and ominous.

Creepy and ominous @baroqueandblue? How so? Not goading genuinely interested

I dunno maybe Biden is getting pissed off now. I thought his speech was great. He was impassioned. So what if Putin doesn't like it...he's been talking like a twat all the way through, with nuclear threats and committing genocide and war crimes.

Putin doesn't understand weakness. I thought for the first time Biden showed strength and a bit of aggression. Good

@TiddyTidTwo

I dunno maybe Biden is getting pissed off now. I thought his speech was great. He was impassioned. So what if Putin doesn't like it...he's been talking like a twat all the way through, with nuclear threats and committing genocide and war crimes.

Putin doesn't understand weakness. I thought for the first time Biden showed strength and a bit of aggression. Good

Very well said @TiddyTidTwo. Thank you for your posts generally, they are heartfelt.

"The president of Russia is elected by Russians."

Really? You can't be elected by Russians if the elections aren't free and fair....

@MarshaBradyo

US $2 billion and U.K. £1bn?

Pretty good given relative size

But as I noted 1/10th what the DUP got as a bung to keep the Tories in power. This was about 5 minutes after Theresa May patiently explained to a nurse there was "no magic money tree" for NHS pay rises.

(it's called "remembering" ...)

I'm not sure it was the cleverest comment by POTUS from a diplomatic POV but given there's little doubt Putin was after a bit of regime change in Ukraine about a month ago and was probably willing to kill a Head of State to do it I'd personally be cutting President Biden some slack.

There are is a time to board the outrage bus...this isn't it...IMHO.

@Sorryfornamechanging I only saw a short clip on the news. He was doing a meet and greet and waffling on about how [to paraphrase] "every four or five generations or so, the world changes forever, and your generation needs to step up." Something like that. The usual 'elite priming the cannon fodder' nonsense, to my mind. But I'm finding the pointless loss of life among young Russian men (boys some of them, of course) as heartbreaking as other losses of life in this heartless invasion.

I keep veering between thinking things are going to be ok to utter terror. Today is more the latter.

it's that story he keeps retelling of what happened when he cornered a rat that's concerning

I wouldn't say "concerning". "Illuminating" maybe. As in it's an insight into someone who thinks they are clever to anthropomorphize whilst forgetting certain key facts (or as I suspect demonstrating they never knew them).

As an aside, did anyone read about the magpies that worked as a team to peck tracking devices off each other in order to avoid being followed ?

And, sometimes yellow is just yellow ...