Is the price worth it- supporting Ukraine ?

[lovethehighlands]

People all over are complaining how we are being eaten out of house and home with this ridiculously huge energy bills on the way in Jan 2023 £4,500 cap rising to £6,000 ! that's £500 a month! forget about the mortgage, petrol and grocery !

we can't have it both ways we either stand with Ukraine and put up with it and and end up in debt or on the street or button up and accept whatever cap the government says we must have.

Or we could do what other countries do at least buy stuff from the Russians and still support Ukraine at the same time. Their must be a limit to do all this support?

Surely we must be utterly mad bending over backwards like this for them. How many trillions did we waste trying to help Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq with nothing to show for it?

I normally don't get into politics but aren't we literally destroying ourselves for a far away country that has nothing to do with us. How exactly is a Russia a threat to us when they can't even move past a few border towns in Ukraine?

BP and Shell is making billions in profits. Surely their is another agenda out their to rinse us of all our savings (no i am not a KGB bot, i drink Teachers and not vodka)

(rant over!)

"They will regret the day they were put on this earth with the capabilities Britain possesses and what we would do to them."

I don't even know where to start with this.

"I'm not a political expert".What a shocker.

Do us a favour, and when you take a break from your dick measuring contest, look up mutually assured destruction. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Not to downplay the significance of Finland joining, but NATO did already directly border Russia as Norway's a founding member, and Estonia and Latvia joined in 2004. Also Lithuania (2004) and Poland (1999) border Russia via Kaliningrad.

(Mentioning this not to nitpick, but just because Moscow seems inclined to push NATO expansion as an elevated or urgent driver of Russian aggression/imperialism when it's really been a long-standing complaint - and more of a consequence than a cause, in Finland's case!)

Yes of course @Ohhhhladz . I have friends in Finland and they have been talking about what a huge (and obvious) decision this has been for Finland but forgot about the Baltics and Norway.

What I am clumsily trying to say is that it is not some random indulgence to support Ukraine. Putin's ambition poses an existential threat to Europe and the world.

My eyebrows are up in my hair at OP comments tbh

Let’s see Russian nuclear weapons v Britains. Not a battle an sane person would want to enter.

I really don’t understand why trolls do this? What is missing in their lives that makes arguing with randoms on the internet about things they don’t believe in makes them feel good or does it some how make them feel empowered?

OP just on the point about Russia not advancing, Russia has said that it is in Ukraine to help ethnic Russians in Donbasand Russia is using military tactics (cauldron tactics also used in other countries) which are slow but which save lives both side. They could have used Blitzkrieg like Hitler, clearly, obviously, but their stated aim is to capture and to save as many lives as possible. So they have encircled towns, town by town, until they get to the national guard in that area where they offer surrender or die.

The west then sent in HIMARS and it is alleged that the HIMARS have been hitting residential areas and killing civilians in Donbas now for for weeks and this is why I wouldn't support more weapons or military aid. You now have Ukrainians trying to get into Russian controlled areas - this was reported by CNN in case anyone thinks that it is propaganda.

If this were about Russian imperialism, Russia would have annexed Donbas back in 2014 - ie before the billions of military aid had been sent in by the US and the west, and before the heavily armed national guard made up of heavily armed but untrained soldiers - allegedly predominantly right sector - existed. So I don't think it is about imperialism.

Ukraine and the west are now also announcing that they are going to get back Crimea whatever way is necessary - without finding out what the people in Crimea want.

No one I know in real life supports sending in more weapons and sanctions and we are all British, educated, well informed so I do find the posts here criticising the OP a bit odd.

For those who are suggesting this is about Europe taking the moral high ground, why did Europe support the violent forced and very much not democratic government takeover in Kyiv which started all this, in 2014? Genuine question.

Genuine question back …. What violent take over of Kiev in 2014?

There were protests against the former governments reversing of Ukraine’s direction back towards favouring Russia in late 2013 & early 2014, with protestors being attacked by the police/security forces and then getting shot by the police/security services.

The government was ultimately replaced democratically not violently

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

In relation to takeover in Kyiv (not of Kyiv) I was referring to the fact that as a result of violence of protesters, the president fled and didn't return and many of his government commit suicide/were murdered? The BBC ran some reports about the violence by protesters and between protesters at the time. There were then, a short time afterwards, elections which were held to be democratic by Europe, according to wiki.

We cannot stick our heads in the sand and ignore what is going on.
The world is a very dangerous place at the moment and tbh people who talk about chucking nukes left, right, and centre, aren't people who should be listened to.

@Tomikka I meant overthrow not takeover, sorry if that caused confusion.

@FindingMeno I agree that talk about chucking nukes around shouldn't be listened to. But taking that thought to its logical conclusion, it is foreseeable that supporting sending more and more weapons rather than unravelling a complex political and social situation in other ways will result in nuclear weapons being used. Let us all hope that doesn't happen though. In my post I was referring to the OP's earlier posts not the nukes comment which I thought was just a throwaway remark about what would happen if it happened.

But what about balance ? Surely wanting to pre-emptively launch nuclear weapons against a foe is just as valid view as wanting to wear flowers in our hair and try and dazzle Putin into submission ?

Back to your question.
Most of the world held a neutral view on the 2013 protests.
Russia however said that they were not Ukrainian protests but foreign provocation

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reactions_to_the_Euromaidan

The violence was condemned, with the general consensus that it was a matter between the Ukrainian people and their government, but the world view was that the government should not shoot protestors

Protests were over the government dragging its heels on economic links with the EU, and accusations that the government would not increase trade with the west but was pushing back to stronger Russian alignment. At each stage this was proven to be correct, align with increasing violence against protests and criminalisation of peaceful protest
Violence was committed by protestors, but escalating in response to government violence and killings

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Euromaidan

Yanukovych fled for Russian exile, and the next day the Ukrainian parliament voted that his government had ended (21st & 22nd February 2014)

Under the guise of taking their badges off, Russian troops invaded Crimea on 27 February 2014
It is the Russian narrative that Russian speaking Ukrainians are the separatists
(Note that Zelensky is a Russian speaker who released most of his films in Russian, introduced legislation protecting the Russian language as a minority language in Ukraine and requiring it to be spoken & taught in minority schools, Zelensky is also Jewish ….. But Putins rewritten narrative is that he now admits the little green men were Russian troops but they were liberating the Russian speakers from oppression of their language and that he is denazitfying Ukraine by sending the neo nazi led mercenary Wagner Group)
Laws did get put into place restricting the Russian language - but after Russias invasion and whilst Russian propaganda and insurgency were underway