Just fuck off with this fucking war shit.

[NaiceHamAndHugs]

Why as humans do we never ever learn? It’s always about testosterone and power and oil.

Fuck off with. Why was it possible for so many countries to pull together when COVID kicked off and now it’s back to slapping their balls on the table to see who has the biggest set.

It just all so unbelievably depressing.

@OneTiredMam

Ukraine have already told the west to stay out of it. The west are making it worse. Sleepy Joe and Bare faced lair Boris are definitely trying to start a war.

Ukraine haven't actually, although they are used to the threat of Russia and its not the first time things have been teetering on the edge or there has been Ukrainian loss of life, there are more troops than ever and it seems more likely than ever- many have been calling for countries to impose harsh sanctions. And this is tedious now, it's not just Biden and Boris ffs. Its the entirety of NATO and even bloody China appears to be backing Ukraine, in words anyway at least. I think those saying Boris is planning war to detract from party gate etc vastly inflate our sway and importance on the world stage. Perhaps do some reading beyond what the media here spoonfeeds you.

@FourChimneys

Anyone else wish more women were in charge of the world? There would be far less willy waving for a start.

Like Boudicca, Agrippina, and Margaret Thatcher, you mean?

Every war ends in a peace treaty - let's just skip the bloodshed of thousands of human beings and jump to the agreement.

Perhaps the ship should have been sunk but my belief is that Thatcher, then the UK's least popular PM (much like Bojo is now) wanted a war, she'd have sunk it wherever it was

Without restarting to a Fawlty Tower’esque “well you started it” I see nothing about the Argentina SF action against the (fortunately empty ) Moody Brook barracks the action at Government house?

Though I guess if people want to believe that Thatcher did start the conflict deliberately then they would have to accept that female leaders can be just belligerent as men once they get their hands on the levers of power…

Putin needs to go, he's a danger to humanity and a lose cannon. We don't want a war but he certainly does, because he (like all other world leaders) won't be fighting the war, we will. We're the ones that suffer, not them.

Good luck to Boris though, my generation don't have a civic bone in our bodies, we won't be playing into the "war effort".

Has a whiff of 1914 about it to me, almost like nations are gagging for it. I hope it's actually reverse diplomacy, trying to keep putin from acting by calling him out, whether it works is unlikely.

My dd is is in armed forces, she's had briefings and whilst she isn't, many people she knows are on standby or been recalled from U.K. based training and deployed - I should add this is precautionary, it's meant to be a show of strength to say don't you dare Russia!

Can someone who knows more, explain what is going on? I don’t have time to research.What is Putin doing if not planning on invading Ukraine?

@gogohm

Has a whiff of 1914 about it to me, almost like nations are gagging for it. I hope it's actually reverse diplomacy, trying to keep putin from acting by calling him out, whether it works is unlikely.

My dd is is in armed forces, she's had briefings and whilst she isn't, many people she knows are on standby or been recalled from U.K. based training and deployed - I should add this is precautionary, it's meant to be a show of strength to say don't you dare Russia!

To put into perspective though, Russia has more troops positioned on the border than we have military personnel in total across all branches. Russia also has decent tech and their cyber capabilities are arguably better than ours so it's not just boots on the ground but also they aren't lagging wildly behind in areas we would typically have an advantage with. Along with the rest of NATO it's a show of power, which is exactly why we should be supporting a country like Ukraine who doesn't have that backing.

It's being talked up by Biden and Johnson in a futile attempt to gain popularity. They want to be seen as knights on horseback saving the Ukrainian people from the evil Russians.

It doesn't matter what the expense is, they can borrow money to pay for it no matter what the interest rate. In fact, the higher the better for those lending the money.
I would love to know the facts around the pandemic borrowing as well but I digress.

War (and pandemics) have always been a way for the rich to get richer, the cost being human lives.

I used to believe that too , as in the song by Ivor Cutler? But I've had my eyes opened since Iraq. Plenty of women warheads - and torturers indeed.

@gogohm

Has a whiff of 1914 about it to me, almost like nations are gagging for it. I hope it's actually reverse diplomacy, trying to keep putin from acting by calling him out, whether it works is unlikely.

My dd is is in armed forces, she's had briefings and whilst she isn't, many people she knows are on standby or been recalled from U.K. based training and deployed - I should add this is precautionary, it's meant to be a show of strength to say don't you dare Russia!

Its got whiffs of 1914 and 1938 about it.

I feel very very uneasy about it.

Theres been talk that we've been at war with Russia for a while now - the conflict in Syria has put us directly up against Russia at times via proxy. Its been managed diplomatically. We have also had a disinformation war going on, and there has been significant attempts to influence high profile politicians throughout the West in an underhanded way - either through compromising them or buying them.

I don't like what is happening with China either. They are developing weapons and theres talk of them invading taiwan within 2 years. And Russia and China are very much becoming closer.

Putin also has a sizeable amount of disharmony at home. Patronism and a good old fashioned war is a good way to crush concerns about covid and liberal thought. He is technically only supposed to serve so many terms under law. So there needs to be a way to keep him long term.

Stuff like making russias internet completely separate to the rest of the world, is about stopping western influence and keeping control but its also useful in a war scenario. Russia has also worked hard on food self sufficiency over a number of years - in part because sanctions and border controls have forced it, but also because its strategically sensible.

Its been said for a number of years, even prior to the annexing of crimea that P1utin wanted 'to return Russia to the glory of what it was'.

None of this happened over night. Theres been a movement to this point over years - dictators can have 20 year plans in ways that democracies dont.

Im extremely worried. My sense is one of panic and running around like headless chickens by the west who simply don't know what to do.

Thats probably exactly what Putin is sensing.

I had been viewing this as sabre-rattling by Putin.

Really? And you don’t think that there has been any goading of Russia,

The amount of sheer propaganda printed in MSM like the BBC headlines “the biggest war since 1945…

How to encite a population against Russia and click bait makes money also distracting a voting population from things happening much closer to home

I remember reading in here somebody saying ‘old white men make wars which kill women, young men and children’ so true.

And l also remember somebody saying if men had to look after a couple of toddlers single handedly there’d be no wars.

Sick of this posturing and strutting.

@FourChimneys

Anyone else wish more women were in charge of the world? There would be far less willy waving for a start.

No, not really, some of the most competitive and psychologically destructive people I have encountered were actually women.

I just can't imagine women going to war, if we were in power. Machiavellian tactics, yes. Sacrificing countless lives of soldiers and civilians..... No

@ivykaty44

I had been viewing this as sabre-rattling by Putin.

Really? And you don’t think that there has been any goading of Russia,

The amount of sheer propaganda printed in MSM like the BBC headlines “the biggest war since 1945…

How to encite a population against Russia and click bait makes money also distracting a voting population from things happening much closer to home

I agree with this.

I also feel very sorry for all the children at my dc's school who are from Ukraine, Russia and nearby areas. I hope they won't feel the fallout because of growing hostility and suspicion.

Sure Russia is toxic but the West, the EU, especially Germany and the US aren't exactly peace keeping, sharing, sweet, selfless players, are they?

I think going on about women in this situation is quite naive.

We are dealing with a dictator who needs/wants war. Instead of focusing his and his cronies billions in stolen cash on helping his people, he uses it to agitate and destabilise more successful countries.

Putin is the aggressor and is almost impossible to reason with. Westerners who support him believing him to be some right wing string man hero are deluded and dangerous fools. Powerful people who’ve possibly been corrupted by Russia need to be looked at closely such as Dominic Cummings who spent 4 unexplained years in Moscow building an airline which didn’t come to fruition.

As much as I dislike Boris. None of this current situation is the fault of the West. Allowing Ukraine to fall is madness and the Russians won’t stop there. Europe needs to find alternative energy sources to reduce reliance on Russia.

I think the West has a good, coherent plan of action. So it seems at least.
There have been diplomatic talks (attempts at talks) with Putin by nearly all the heads og state in Europe and US. Putin has rejected any de-escalation, and has escalated to nearly 200 000 troops on the border to Ukraine + in Belarus (which is North of the Ukraine and brodering Poland).
This is in top of the engineered refugee situation on the border of Poland/Belarus in the autumn.

Biden, Johnson et al are doing the necessary job of calling out Russia’s plans in order to avoid a «repeat» of 1938 where Germany claimed Poland attacked and then merrily annexed huge swathes of east Europe before anyone got around to react

@JackieWeaverHandforthCouncil

Absolutely agree to both posts.

Sure Russia is toxic but the West, the EU, especially Germany and the US aren't exactly peace keeping, sharing, sweet, selfless players, are they?

Watching interviews with Putin, it’s clear he portrays NATO as the aggressive force in this and his stance is I’m not going to just roll over in the matter of you putting forces in Ukraine

I doubt if France started pointing weapons at U.K. we’d be to happy and also put in place forces on our boarder

www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-oversee-nuclear-drills-ukraine-crisis-mounts-2022-02-19/ Strangely no mention of biggest war since 1945

What’s more worrying in all this is what NATO decide to do as they could well be them that escalate this and start WW3

Countries pulled together? The rich got richer, the poor were shafted and many of the vulnerable fell through the cracks.

What worst and best case scenarios are we looking at here? And out of these what's the more likely development?

Just fuck off with this fucking war shit
Op, I 100% agree with you.

@dangerrabbit

Military industrial complex.

Britain is largest exporter of weapons in the world and needs them to be used so they can sell more.

Not even in the top 5 and neither Ukraine or Russia use significant amounts of U.K. weaponry.

On the subject, people seem to think this is a plot somehow aimed at the west but it’s actually done to curry favour with the his own population. Russia seems to love a strong leader. There history shows that when the Czar’s eased up a bit on their brutal tactics it opened the door communism and led to the rise of Stalin who actually killed more people in concentration camps than Hitler.

Russians see the Ukraine as part of Russia and will welcome it back into the fold and see it as some sort of sign that Russia is coming back to its position as a superpower. The reality is they’re a second sate power with a one trick pony economy.

As for what we do. Putin chose this time for a very simple reason. We can’t do much. Sanctions is about it. If we had known this was coming even a couple of years ago we could have done something. As it is with Western economies recovering from covid and Germany dependant on Russian gas. We can target and seize Russian assets in the name of sanctions and embargo the Nordstrom 2 pipeline but that’s it.

Once again, I think at a deeper level the west is to blame. When the Cold War ended we could have rushed in to help the Russian economy. We could have banned western companies from doing business with the gangsters who seized large chunks of the Russian state for its own ends. We didn’t and in fact the U.K. embraced the oligarchs and the money they brought. We sold them large chunks of our own assets. Our political parties took donations and the Tory party in particular seems to be bought and paid for. They have interfered in our elections and they appear to have largely bankrolled the Brexit campaign.

It’s a sad state of affairs and Ukraine will pay the price.

None of this current situation is the fault of the West.

Really? www.thecable.ng/issues-in-the-russia-nato-face-off-on-ukraine

Guarantees were given so why are NATO backtracking on this?