To think we cannot afford to support Ukraine anymore

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This may be an unpopular opinion but it is annoying me to no end and NC

We have a littany of issues crying out for funding domestically - NHS broken. Economy going down the drain. Pound down 20% in one year. Public services collapsing, Education system requiring re-investment, high taxes driving talent out. We can keep blaming our politicians but someone needs to prioritise where money goes - and no one is willing to talk about this

Yet we are spending hundreds of billions in supporting Ukraine in a war which has nothing to do with us. Yes we are morally supporting them but is there no amount which will be too much? We are paying both directly (through weapons and aid) and indirectly (through huge energy subsidies - last totalling north of £200bn) - we need to stop this spending, reduce energy prices, stop this craziness

How is this war something we can afford on the basis on principles and why aren't we more aggressively pushing for a negotiated settlement?

We cannot afford this. It sucks for Ukrainians but this is not UK's bill to foot.

AIBU?

See previous comment.

and why aren’t you asking yourself why only the few have money, instead of wanting Ukraine to be hung out to dry? Is it ok when other people are on the bone of their arses?
oh yeah forrins can go fuck emselves

You don’t know the meaning of fungible. Also as has been explained already the subsidy scheme is old news. Liz truss is gone and things have changed. Also an energy subsidy scheme for uK residents is not support for Ukraine.

1010101010

Didnt the Liz truss + Kwasi Kwarteng experiment prove that UK cannot infinitely spend money and hence GBP went nearly to parity with USD and we had rates jump up? many are going to suffer

Yeah but you are right they can still choose not to spend it on NHS. At least they could choose to spend it or not spend and have a lower budget deficit/national debt

eventually i think it comes down to what a previous poster said - this is about grain (food supplies) and probably about real UK lives being put to risk due to war eventually (if the worst case materializes) - eventually being a guess for anyone whether and if it would happen

and there I believe is where geopolitical shrewdness and realpolitik would have come in - which is what i thought diplomacy or negotiations are about

Yep. That's something else that all the hawks on here are overlooking. Putin has been parading his nuclear arsenal in British waters again today. The media like to frame this as saber rattling. Let's hope so, huh?

@ChillyFloss yes I did mistakenly tag you, apologies. You don’t need to start swearing about it, as it further undermines your already irrelevant points 🙂

The situation in Ukraine is complex. I have been trying to fathom the positions of all parties.

There has been a civil war going on since 2014 when the elected President Yanukovych who wanted Ukraine to be non aligned, was deposed. The Donetz People's Republic was set up in the Russian speaking Donbass and been recognised by some 7 states. Ukraine has been fighting 'the terrorists' from their point of view, ever since, defending the integrity of the Ukrainian State.

Ukraine is split between Russian speakers ( largely in the East and South ( Crimea eg ) and those who speak Ukrainian largely in the North and West. Historically I think Kviv was founded by the Rus who gave their name to the country Russia.

From the Russian point of view they and the Russian speakers in Ukraine are concerned about a hang over from WW2 when some Ukrainians supported the invading German Nazis. Some Nazi Organisations eg Azov Battalions have been adopted into the current Ukrainian armed forces. (These organisations have eg organised pogroms against the Roma, broken up meetings organised on International Women's Day etc. )

The Ukrainian Government has banned all opposition political parties and has banned all Trade Unions and confiscated their assets.

The US do not appreciate that using the Azov Battalions etc will only help Putin to play on the memory of the trauma of WW2 to keep the Russian population supporting him.

Putin claims that the US broke the agreement with Gorbachev at the end of the Cold War 1989-90 that Nato would not expand further East. He feels that it was betrayal of International Law.

Somewhere there has to be a peace negotiated for the sake of the people of the Ukraine.

And on it goes. Your apology is accepted BTW.

Not really in the long run - a Europe that is economically dependent on Russia is much more in China's interests than one that is much less entwined.

And a Europe that had shown itself unwilling to take short-term economic pain is less relevant as a consideration than one that shows it prioritises security and the rules-based system.

China has shown its colours in terms of how it's currently supporting Russia. Warm words but it's clear that unless things change significantly, China is disinclined to get involved. China is much more invested in a stable international system (skewed in its favour) than Russia is.

Fighting this war economically, by supporting those actually fighting and by reducing both Russia's economic influence and ability to fund its own war, is a much more cost effective way to achieve our goals than by actually waiting for it to become a fighting war.

Anyway, that ship has sailed. Through its actions, Russia has accelerated the shift to net zero energy systems as governments are now looking at it as a national security as well as an environmental issue. The best thing we can do in terms of restoring economic stability is to learn from our errors over oil and gas and take steps to prevent control of the global food system from ending up concentrated in the hands of a few potentially malign actors.

None of your previous comments addressed this. Just some stuff about China and how you don’t think nato has the stomach for a war. Nothing that addressed that it’s not up to us if there is a negotiated settlement or not nor that we do not control the outcome unilaterally.

Oh don't worry about nuclear bomb over Britain,he won't do it as knows he'll get one flying to Moscow in few minutes as retaliation.
Ukraine is a different matter though, Ukraine has no nuclear weapon since 1994 so is very vulnerable to an attack

We cannot afford not to defend them. Who will be next - Estonia? Latvia? Lithuania? Moldova? China is watching very carefully, to see if they could get away with annexing Taiwan. You cannot appease a dictator, they just want more.

By the way, it was precisely this sort of attitude (in the form of "America First") that led him to believe that he could get away with it.

The idea that the west will determine china's behaviour is delusional. the Chinese will do what they want in the cheapest way possible when the west is at its weakest. We need to think about our goals and our resources equally shrewdly.

But that's the point isn't it? Is it short term economic pain? Or a long, drawn out, ultimately unwinnable war (something the West have form for. Afghanistan for example). And then, we have the nuclear threat posed by a desperate, humiliated Russia.

Also worth reminding ourselves why Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons, amongst some of the selective 'history' on the thread.

No one is overlooking the threat from Russia. It is clear.

We have nuclear weapons too. Let’s hope that Putin doesn’t intend to use nuclear weapons or it could mean the end for all of us. It’s not an argument we should just appease him though.

It’s nothing to do won’t ‘being nice’ or ‘morals’. More like trying to stop WW111

the world is global you may have noticed. We are an island but this is now irrelevant

China will definitely appreciate your budgeting, prioritising NHS over world security:) yes, that will work for everyone.. especially for those trying to create new world order:)

No. But we are part of NATO, and can use our seat at the table to press for talks, which Russia has hinted at being receptive too in recent days. What happened to "jaw jaw" being better than "war war"?

world order change is natural and repetitive.

pl read this

www.amazon.co.uk/Changing-World-Order-Nations-Succeed/dp/1982160276

will open your mind

summary here auresnotes.com/summary-the-changing-world-order-ray-dalio/

Is that you, Jeremy?

Afghanistan brought down the Soviet Union. While the occupation by uK and us troops ultimately didn’t end well it’s didn’t have anything like the effect it had on ussr. If Ukraine is like Afghanistan then that would be to our benefit overall- of course it’s much more complex than that.

Beginning to think Jeremy had a point. 😕

Lol! Yip - escalation of the innocuous invasion of Ukraine. Would all have been ok if only we hadn’t handed over some cash