Ukraine Invasion: Part 23

[MagicFox]

Welcome all, thanks for the company

Overview of current convo by Lawrence Freedman

Overview of current convo by Lawrence Freedman

I wish there was some good news. Any good news. I just want to hear, ‘peace talks resume - all sides hopeful for agreement’ or ‘Temporary ceasefire is agreed’ or anything, really. So hopeless, terribly frightened and tearful about it all. Time to step away from the internet, I think. I have been reading these threads from the beginning and finding them very helpful but it’s all so relentlessly bleak.

That’s very reassuring.

There is part of me that wonders if western media are upping the anti to keep our, limited, interest. At the end of the day pictures of dead children have a disgustingly short shelf life these days before ‘we’ go looking for more.

I do wonder as well, with re to those saying we’re closer to nuclear war now than the CMC, how much of that perspective is due to the benefits of hindsight and now fully understanding what the situation was during the CMC whereas at the time the full facts weren’t known.

Lawrence Freedman is an appeaser by the looks of it. I
will say it until I'm blue in the face. We cannot keep kicking the can down the road appeasing a bully
Look at how shit it is NOW with Germany shitting their pants as they got into Putins ball sack. All comfy and warm until it went wrong

Putin has been planning this for years. He only understands one thing. Just like any other bully..STRENGTH

Yes but that goes both ways Tiddy, so there has to be some wriggle room to allow for something other than strength to present as a resolution? Because if the conclusion is nuclear, that's not a resolution

Jeez, just listened to Ukrainecast and I do think it came across as more emotional and alarmist than balanced. I don't think it was sensible reporting and agree about the lack of counter narrative

It’s genuinely left me feeling so flat.

well, some children are going to live

20 civilians evacuated from Azovstal – Palamar www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato

it's something! First evacuations at all.

Magic
There is no wriggle room with Russia/Putin. None

We need to stop looking at what's happening through our lens and see it how it is.

This is Peter Caddick-Adams response to that interview, and he's posted some pretty alarmist stuff before too! We have to hope people in charge know what the hell they're doing.

The game is "how far can I push it?". Always has been. Except - like the boy with the hand caught in the till - he's just realized there are consequences.

NATO has pledged itself to Ukraine's cause until they've won. That's why Biden keep asking for money. That's why we talk about a '10 year war'. That's why Slovakia is send planes over to its neighbour and Poland is driving in tanks. We know if we back down now, he will keep biting. It's cheaper and (in view of nuclear armegeddon) safer to anticipate a long, hot war and say upfront we are prepared for that. Go on. Keep pushing. You are writing your own suicide note because we are not going to back down. We are not going to forget. By doing so, we might just shorten it as Putin will finally decide to cut his losses instead of persisting in the hope we will blink first.

Putin has made it into an existential issue for the West. We talk a lot about how he can't afford to back down. But neither can we afford to let him take Ukraine. Especially after the Afghanistan debacle.

Sky News
2h ago16:56
25 civilians evacuated from Mariupol steelworks - Russia
We're hearing claims this afternoon that 19 adults and six children have been evacuated from the Azovstal plant in southern Ukraine.
The update is reported by Russian state news outlets, and has yet to be confirmed by Ukraine.
^No further details were provided.
The remainder of Mariupol's defence forces are holed up at the plant, alongside an estimated 1,000 civilians.^

news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-russia-putin-news-live-nuclear-latest-updates-12541713 

a pro-Ukraine site is saying that too scrolling, though they say 20

Alarmist. I just don't get why everyone is trying to bullshit themselves about this situation. Putin has been playing a long game and got half of the eu depending on him for gas.

Now when it come to the crunch the big players in the EU are shitting their pants because they've been STUPID

I'll give Putin that. He played Germany like a fiddle

Good point, and similar applies to Able Archer '83 (which very few people knew about at the time).

TBH I don't think we gain much if anything by trying to rank the various crisis.

It's WW3.

There's a load of bullshit talk and "defensive" weapons yada yada yada. We are in WW3

I just don't get how the likelihood of a nuclear war started by Russia is being so hysterically and dramatically talked up on a day when there are prisoner swaps happening and precious people being allowed to evacuate from the steel plant. How does that sound like Russia are being absolutely hellbent on escalating things to a nuclear level? Who are all these attention seeking doom mongers constantly writing/podcasting about the very worst case scenario as though it has all been decided? For fucks sake

I don’t think I agree. Cold War 2 perhaps.

Journos and so-called pundits who overstate the nuclear risks are attention seekers. They know a section of the public will prick their ears up and go into a tailspin. Gives them a thrill, I guess, to create panic.

Putin has been sounding nuclear rhetoric since day 1. I geddit. Nothing new.

@baroqueandblue people who haven't had direct experience of barefaced continual liars I suspect. People who think there's a shred of substance in Lavrov and Putin's words.

Good news about the 20+ evacuees from the Mariupol steel plant. I didn't think it would happen but that is a small miracle in itself. I hope they actually got out into Ukrainian safety as opposed to kidnapped to a Russian filtration camp.

Lg

No that what Putin wants us to think. He's not to be underestimated, despite his antiquated military.

I'll say it again, just like I said from day one...we have to take him out. We've been here before and if we still haven't learnt from that then we are fools. I get we have to take all routes first but we have, genocide is the end game. We know it's happened

CNN reporting it as evacuation has begun and the hope is that all civilians will be evacuated. Dear god I hope so. Also confirms that they are on route to Ukrainian controlled territory