To admit I have no idea wtf is going on with Russia and the

[Dustlandcinderella]

I follow the news and can see that There is a lot about Russia and the Ukraine. But I can’t quite figure out what is happening , what the background is, and what the truth is (bearing in mind in any war there is propaganda on each side).

Am I the only person who doesn’t actually understand what’s going on

@DickeryDock

If I ever need to know what is going on and have missed the build up to something. I check out Newsround as they write a simple explanation 🤣

What a genius idea!

I have learned that it is now considered offensive to say “the” Ukraine, as it disrespects the autonomy of the Ukrainian nation and people. So just Ukraine. Kinda obvious when you think about it, but until you do think about it a lot of us automatically say “the” because it’s what we’re used to hearing. Every days a school day!

OP just google “why does Russia want war with Ukraine” and there are hundreds of news articles from the past few days, from all different sources across the political spectrum, U.K., USA etc - read a few to get a few takes on it.

Putin is a cunt, basically.

Perfectly summarised daimbarsatemydogsbone

What have you tried already?

Put simply this is all about Putin's ego and trying to secure his legacy.

He wants to go down in history as re-uniting the U.S.S.R by force/coercion/bribery- doesn't matter which.

He's been building towards this for over a decade.

Ukraine is the largest former "territory" (obviously now nation) that seceded from the Soviet Republic and winning that back sets the tone for forcing the other FSU (former Soviet Union) states back into line (there are 15 FSU's inc Russia).

Some FSU's are already in thrall to Putin (such as Belarus) but the majority are keen to retain their independence - such as it is because many are still very reliant on Russian trade and/or pseudo controlled by the influence of Russian oligarchs.

So this isn't really a surprise.

In fact it's entirely predictable. Putin's been testing the waters with the West for the last 12 months especially with navel "exercises" to assess the determination of NATO and the USA.

General consensus is that he thinks now is the right time to make his move because as a result of the pandemic, the appetite of the electorate in western democracies to engage in war in the east is incredibly low and that ties the hands of their leadership.

Let's face it, after the financial and social upheaval of COVID the idea of spending billions (that we don't have) on fighting Putin and adding further deaths to the already high tally of the last two years isn't an appealing prospect.

German?? You need to fact check

IloveStrawberrylaces

Are you suggesting that Hitler wasn't German because you think he was Austrian? Perhaps you ought to fact check - he was born in Austria but renounced his Austrian nationality for German citizenship.

www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/feb25/hitler-becomes-german/

Can we stop calling Ukraine The Ukraine

I believe the West will retaliate with economic sanctions, how effective they will be remains to be seen.

Could we see power shortages again?

I have to say the thought of a new Cold War or worse absolutely terrifies me.

@dipdye

Yes, but compared to Russia it's small... Just seems so one sided

Very different to 'tiny' country.

@declutteringmymind

I get the impression that it's more than Ukraine. It seems to have a huge strategic importance. If Russia takes over the Ukraine then it will have a large(r) front on the border of the EU.

Yes I thought that when I looked at a map.

Well he spent years destabilising Ukraine by sending pro-Russian Trojan horses there. It’s his thing. He also does it in the West. U.K. is awash with dirty Russian money. The oligarchs have lots of influence over our easily corruptible government. They are even buying our media outlets. They use bots to influence online discourse to cause division. Their biggest win so far was Brexit (with support of paid stooges in senior positions) to destabilise the E.U as we are easier to pick off and control when divided.

If he’d spend 10% of his energy on building his country up, building industries, creating jobs and wealth for his people, he’d have a fantastic legacy but I guess it’s easier to just bang fists and break things.

Putin wants Ukraine because it's strategic, but he will justify it because there is a significant minority of Ukrainians who are ethnically/linguistically Russian, and feel persecuted by the current Ukrainian government.
Those regions will support him too, making it a bit harder for NATO.

podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdGhld2VlZHM/episode/NDcyNGM4YzAtMmI4ZC0xMWVjLTlkMDQtOWY2NWFjNGE1N2Y2?ep=14

Is that you, Liz?

If he is rational, it is a tricky one to understand what he wants.

He can take Ukraine easily, but as we discovered with Iraq, holding it is a different game. On top of that, sanctions will hurt him and confine him and his cronies to Russia, and they really love Londongrad.

He might just take the two regions and then negotiate a good deal, and we will be so grateful he did not take the rest of it, we will give him one.

On the other hand, there are scary parallels between the end of the cold war and the end of the First World War and the Versailles treaty.

Russia, under Gorbachev, wanted peace and for Russia to be embraced as an equal country with the rest of Europe. They even asked to join NATO and we’re told to ‘get in line’.

Western investment bankers, never shy to feast off a corpse, got in there with very lucrative privatisations, stripping Russia of its wealth. We simply treated Russia, a proud nation with thousands of years of culture and history, as a medium sized emerging economy.

It is, thus, no surprise that the Russians embraced a strong leader like Putin.

But, where we go from here is (scarily) anyone’s guess. The least bad outcome is another cold war, the worst outcome is that he truly is mad and we actually go to war, one that mankind will lose.

@Viviennemary

I realisd its a lot more complicated. But the bard bones is thst Putin wznts thd old Soviet Union bzck.m

He did think himself rather a bard as he soliloqued his way back though "history" last night.

@DickeryDock

If I ever need to know what is going on and have missed the build up to something. I check out Newsround as they write a simple explanation 🤣

Genius! I'll be doing that in future.

See, this is why mumsnet needs a 'like' button.

The other countries which used to be in the Soviet Union are Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The USSR was enormous. Putin was a KGB officer back then. Clearly hankers for the old days.

@TheReluctantPhoenix if Putin just grabs those separatist regions he will see it as another victory, and it will be hard for the west to stop him. A ground war in a populated region where the locals want you to lose is a crapshoot. If the west hasn't learnt that, there really is no hope.
Meantime, western allies cannot simultaneously take on Russia and China on multiple fronts. I can see Putin biding his time till the west can't ignore China/Taiwan and striking out further then.
Meanwhile, it's just a game to wear us down as we deal with pressing internal issues like inflation, made worse by skyrocketing energy prices caused in part by the conflict.
I actually think we're a bit snookered over the next decade, but it probably won't be obvious how bad for a few years.

Having seen that rambling, it's impossible not to see the similarities to 1938 and the annexation of the Sudentenland to "save" their own people inside.

The talk of "USSR" is particularly concerning given so many ex USSR countries are NATO and potentially we could find ourselves back in a "dominoes" situation where we are drawn into war by alliances.

Sweden and Finland are also concerning situations as they are not members (though NATO have an agreement with Sweden that we can choose to respond to their aid) so there lies the question: if one or both were annexed, what would we do, nothing, or something?

Increasingly we may also face the question: in the event a European war turned wider than professional forces could respond to alone, on what basis are we willing to send our own kids to war? It's a conversation we should have and decide upon before politicians have that conversation for us.

@LibrariesGiveUsPower

Putin wants Ukraine. It’s an ex soviet nation so he thinks it should be part of Russia. So he’s starting war but obviously it’s someone else’s fault.

@BigMamaFratelli if Mumsnet had a like button I'd have jumped on this ^^ Spot on @LibrariesGiveUsPower. Jeez I can vaguely remember this stuff from history GCSE Talk about scraping the barrell Putin! What's his first name again? Rara? It's weirdo megalomaniacs playing with people's lives as they have no clue about humanity. Imvho

@FurryAntiWaxer,

The Chinese are indeed very important here. If we won’t buy Russia’s energy, they need to sell it to China. So what they say and do really matters.

We live in a very unstable multi polar world right now.

Personally, I think being hard will get us nowhere. We need to listen to Putin and try and get Russia on our side by treating them as an equal partner in all our futures. He is one man and, as despicable as he is, he will go at some point.

So let him have his ‘victory’ and let us have his gas. I don’t think that he does want to take all of Europe. He didn’t really have an ideology. He just wants lifetime rule and respect (and plenty of dosh!)

@PicsInRed,

Conscripts are irrelevant in modern war. It won’t happen.

Sometimes, when I'm a bit lost on a big news topic I look at newsround. I know it's designed for children but they go back to basics and don't assume you already know the background.