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Ukraine Invasion: Part 17

998 replies

MagicFox · 27/03/2022 07:23

A new place for us to convene, thread 17.

OP posts:
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33
DGRossetti · 02/04/2022 08:19

@BringBackCoffeeCreams

How could they be clueless about the dangers of camping out in the exclusion zone? Everybody on the entire planet has heard of Chernobyl surely?
looks at anti-vaxxers ...
RedToothBrush · 02/04/2022 08:33

Agreement has been reached to allow 7 humanitarian corridors today.

Thats the first in over a week.

Hoping for some good news today on that, as that seems more promising than previous plans.

PestorPeston · 02/04/2022 08:34

Luckily the Belarusians have heard of Chernobyl.
While Poland is seemingly getting ready to close the border pls Estonia and the others. Ukraine and Belarus are keeping the train line between Chernobyl and Slavutych open as it is how the workers get to work.

IAEA are still releasing little information about Chernobyl
www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-39-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine
Do we assume they have little info?

Radiation sensors around Chernobyl still not up and running www.saveecobot.com/en/radiation-maps The radiation readings at Bragin, show why Belarus take this seriously.

Ukraine Invasion: Part 17
PaperTyger · 02/04/2022 08:38

The bottom line is we should not be by using Kremlin gas fund bomb's being dropped on your home's.

Merkel? Where is Merkel to explain herself And her strategies these past year's??
He can say all he likes About opening home's etc but that is this bottom line.

notimagain · 02/04/2022 08:42

@PestorPeston

IAEA are still releasing little information about Chernobyl
www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-39-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine Do we assume they have little info?

Probably not as much as they'd like, plus I'd assume they are not really willing to speculate, at least in press releases.

DFOD · 02/04/2022 08:44

[quote tobee]So I posted the other night a link to an NYT article What if Putin Didn't Miscalculate? and I just stumbled across this article repudiating that idea generally, with specific mention of that article. By Zach Beauchamp, published in Vox, via Apple News:-

apple.news/AGa5bcszVSXm5g2Zf77yRLw[/quote]
Excellent article especially this para:

“Russia’s regime change operation is best understood through the long arc of Russian history, ranging from czarist imperialism to the fall of the Soviet Union. Putin’s obsession with Russian greatness and post-Soviet humiliation, in the context of a political system where few dare question the leader’s beliefs, has led him to launch a poorly planned and disastrous war. If we don’t understand how these factors led to one of the most brazen acts of military aggression in recent history, then we won’t be able to accurately assess what Putin might do next.”

I think it’s really important that we step back and step up and see it through his proven “simple” MO and not get consumed and distracted and exhausted with minutiae.

However the article doesn’t indicate his options and likely next steps - though I would hazard a guess that an obsessed mindset hasn’t let go and that regrouping military forces, doubling down or changing tact (missiles, WMD) will be on his mind - do humiliated, delusional, paranoid obsessives ever walk away quietly?

DGRossetti · 02/04/2022 08:52

I wonder - if by some ironic accident of it's own past - Britain is somehow slightly more protected against the fate of Russia due to a diverse and disparate population ? The word "humiliation" - which both Hitler and Putin seem to have been able to weld into a backing of some sorts just wouldn't resonate with the "British". Coming as we do from all four corners of a wide world with (much to UKIPs disgust) a complex relationship with the notion of identity and nationalism ?

Alexandra2001 · 02/04/2022 09:22

@PaperTyger

The bottom line is we should not be by using Kremlin gas fund bomb's being dropped on your home's.

Merkel? Where is Merkel to explain herself And her strategies these past year's??
He can say all he likes About opening home's etc but that is this bottom line.

Easier said than done, Nuclear is not without risk, look at how Russia has targeted nuclear power stations? storage of waste - still not safely resolved, with burying it for future generations to sort out.....

Or we buy gas from ME countries, with some v awful HR records.

Germany has already cut gas imports from 55% to 40%, it'll be 30% in 9 months time, Germany is also a far more industrialised country than the UK, it needs the energy only fossil fuels can bring, it also doesn't have NS gas and oil fields.

Do you also think we should stop buying Russian grain, rare metals to use in EV's

You are also crediting Merkel with the ability to see decades into the future, every country in Europe and beyond was trading with Russia, in the belief that countries that trade together tend not to go to war with one another.
We also allowed Putin to influence/fund our politics & referendums, gave citizenship to his agents.

Putin felt able to invade Ukraine because of the lack of action over first Georgia, then Crimea, even shooting down a passenger airliner, did nothing when he used radioactive and nerve agents to murder on our own soil... we all gave him the green light and are all responsible.

PaperTyger · 02/04/2022 09:28

Please don't be disenengous.she didn't have to see decades into the future Just needed to look at his actions around the area and think, should I be giving this Man respectability, cosying up to him or doing Nord stream two. Merkel's was in power for so long as. Leader She had that benefit of time as well.

The belief that countries that trade together do not go to war together!!

Really??

prettybird · 02/04/2022 09:30

To be fair, those are precisely the principles that were behind setting up the European Community/EU Confused

WeAreTheHeroes · 02/04/2022 09:32

Very easy to blame people with the benefit of hindsight. I think what we can safely say now is that those people who flagged how murky it was to do business with Russia and many wealthy Russians were absolutely correct. But we are where we are and need to deal with the current situation and find appropriate strategies for the future.

WeAreTheHeroes · 02/04/2022 09:35

@PaperTyger - Merkel was the reunited Germany's first leader from the post second world war East. She had some common ground with and believed both Germany and Russia were progressing.

WeAreTheHeroes · 02/04/2022 09:35

I meant to type "probably believed".

PaperTyger · 02/04/2022 09:35

It Seems Germany was the biggest country doing deals with Russia.

I don't understand at all the vigorous defense of Merkel on here on this point.
She wasn't bad all around but her cosying up to Putin? the appalling military strategy She deployed? The gas?

This isn't the Netherlands or Belgium this is a large powerful country!

PaperTyger · 02/04/2022 09:37

We are the heroes, yes I'm aware of that.

She's from east Germany.

She's massively miscalculated hasn't sheConfused

WeAreTheHeroes · 02/04/2022 09:48

Germany is also the most industrialised European country I think - they have the biggest demand for oil and gas.

Alexandra2001 · 02/04/2022 09:50

@PaperTyger

Please don't be disenengous.she didn't have to see decades into the future Just needed to look at his actions around the area and think, should I be giving this Man respectability, cosying up to him or doing Nord stream two. Merkel's was in power for so long as. Leader She had that benefit of time as well.

The belief that countries that trade together do not go to war together!!

Really??

War isn't great for trade is it or do you think it is?

The 'West, not just Merkel, gave Putin the belief he was untouchable, that NATO was impotent and would be divided on sanctions/response.

You just seem to be putting all this on Germany/Merkel ?

The truth is, there are lessons for all western countries here, not least that we are stronger together, the UK should be at the heart of european policy and that means back in the EU.

jgw1 · 02/04/2022 09:57

It the Russians have pulled out/been forced out of the locations in this article then it would seem pretty significant for Kyiv to me.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/1/ukraine-says-russian-forces-pushed-back-around-kyiv

Particularly Ivankiv which looks to be on a significant junction quite some distance north of Kyiv.

Alexandra2001 · 02/04/2022 10:03

@PaperTyger

Do you know the history of German and why they do not export weapons nor have a large standing army? 2 WW's and Germany is rather sensitive about military interventions. ... as are the UK press, when an EU army was first talked about... we saw headlines like "EU's 4th Reich, the EUSSR etc etc.

Russian gas or not, Merkel or no Merkel, Putin would still have invaded Ukraine.

DuncinToffee · 02/04/2022 10:19

Irpin video

Inside #Irpin - the commuter town near #Kyiv - where Russian forces have been driven out. Now given the honorary title " Hero City of Ukraine". But liberation has come at a cost
twitter.com/orlaguerin/status/1510142695020322817?s=21

PaperTyger · 02/04/2022 10:43

Your post confused me Alexandra.
One mkne the your expounding that countries that trade don't go to war, the next declaring that's why Merkel's did business with Putin over her incredibly long tenure, who has.. Just commited this invasion, this atrocity?
Confused

Which is it?
Do you think Merkel background, doubly painful, carrying the shame and embarrassment from Hitler and being in eastern Europe made her to passive? Too simplistic?

To naïve?

WeAreTheHeroes · 02/04/2022 10:55

I think Russia has demonstrated it can't be trusted. Whether ideologically the Russian leadership just can't get on board with doing business with the West on capitalist market terms or there's just deep distrust which means they are just never going to be honest it's a strange way to live and behave.

WeAreTheHeroes · 02/04/2022 10:57

Far too many justs, but you get my drift. Crossed my mind that it's very much how criminals behave - trust no one, certain actions demonstrate loyalty, etc.

borntobequiet · 02/04/2022 11:00

Very odd to identify Merkle as the main villain in this situation.

DuncinToffee · 02/04/2022 11:05

Ukrainian journalist Max Levin was found dead. Police found his body on the 1st of April near Huta village in the Kyiv region, where he disappeared on the 13th of March. He had a wife, four minor sons, and elderly parents

Another tragedy of the war.