To think we cannot afford to support Ukraine anymore

[Saysomething1234]

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?

I use the phone app

So I can't vote at all, and I'm sure there are many like me

And good point about the posting history. A vatnik dog whistle clearly blown judging by some of the response

At various stages in history Russia has been open to, and indeed expressed an intrest in, joining NATO. Yet each time NATO has dismissed the notion.

Various reasons have been given for this including, and I shit you not, a fear that allowing Russia to join NATO would be perceived as a threat by China, that they wouldn't take kindly to having a NATO military presence along their border, and that it provoke them into military action.

So NATO are completely aware and fully understand their presence and expansion can be seen as hostile and will deny membership when it suits them to do so.

Careful now, Ted.

You won’t get me to say too much.

But every day more people are waking up.

1/10

There is so much stupid in this post it is hard to know if it is serious.

Russia has never seriously wanted to join NATO, your being ridiculous now.

I suppose you believe the FSB were on a historical fact finding mission exploring the cathedrals of England too?

This thread has become an increasingly fascinating record of russian bot talking points and posting styles. Prefixing a lot of political, ahistorical nonsense with "I'll get called names for this but..." = huge red flag.

This thread is full either of Russian bots or absolute idiots, I actually fear more it’s the latter as bots I can deal with. I can’t face the thought of people so stupid and apologetic of genocide as those son this thread.

On the flip side also lots of excellent posts countering the shit.

Right from the start too

I wonder why the OP felt the need to NC.

And varying degrees of awareness too. It's interesting that the bots in the thread knew enough not to bring Afghanistan up, but the OP walked right into it.

Personally I've given up hope of any space on the internet going unmolested by Putin shills. I just feel they ought to try harder. If you can't be clever, at least try and be amusing.

Why would NATO

There still people in normal life who will refer to the EU as the EUSSR... that Trump won the election... that Bojo should be PM.

I don't know whether Russia cares what is written on MNs but i do believe there are many people who have such distrust in politics.. that they see conspiracy around every corner.

It's laughable seeing the old "Russian bots" comment rolled out for any opinion that doesn't follow the corporate-approved 'Ukraine are a bastion of democracy!' narrative. Russia are unquestionably in the wrong as the invader, but Ukraine are no angels either. Unless you think it's a good thing to arm their Nazi battalions? I'm sure that will end well.

1. Countries can and should make their own decisions who they ally with. A neighbour threatening with consequences just gives more reasons to ally with someone else than the said neighbour. It really is about breaking away from oppression and colonialism.
2. Points about the US and UK being baddies in the past forget one key difference: those Western decision-makers are not in power anymore. The current Western leaders are only responsible for their current, new decisions, latest one being Biden pulling out from Afghanistan. Putin’s still in power after 23 years, and he appointed the same guy who completely destroyed Aleppo to now destroy Ukraine.
3. Russia kills, jails and silences political opposition, who just mysteriously fall from windows to their deaths, or have a little plutonium in their tea. The last three significant opposition leaders are all out of the game. Please name the opposition leaders killed in the NATO countries (NB Turkey is jailing though).
4. Russia apologists use NATO expansion as an excuse for their “need” to attack Ukraine. Funny that a couple of NATO members repeatedly said that Ukraine is not ready to be a member, which effectively blocked Ukraine from joining. And yet Russia still attacked Ukraine. In the meantime, Finland, which will nearly double the Russia-Nato border, and which has the second largest army in Europe in terms of reservist numbers (second after Ukraine), them joining the NATO is “insignificant” according to Russia.
5. Russians apparently have ventured on the wrong side of the border for little sightseeing trips to Mariupol’s theatre because they just really had to save Russian speaking minorities from Ukrainian Nazis. Funny that, since Zelenskyy is a Russian speaking Jew.
6. If not Nato expansion or Nazis, what then is the real reason for this “military operation”? We need to look at Putin’s speeches dating back the last decade, and what he’s said about Ukraine. He has repeatedly mentioned his vision for restoring the glory of the old Tzar empire, and said giving up the Soviet Union (=colonies) was a mistake, and according to him Ukrainians are not even their own ethnic group (they are). THAT colonialising ambition is the reason behind all this, and had he succeeded, there would have been a long list of other countries to venture to, and you’d have much more cold winters with energy crises to come than just one conflict.

Mate, you've blown your beans already. Your best bet is to namechange and hope whoever's paying you for this hasn't noticed how useless you are.

Its laughable to think Ukraine never existed until 1991 too, which was your belief.

The Nazi stuff has been disproved.

When you can show me the Ukrainian tanks and troops in Russian towns and cities, then we can talk equivalence.

They all do their own research. The rest of us are sheep.

Correlation between russian apologists, anti vaxxers, free Julian assange, bitcoin is clear for most normal people

@Hont1986 must be really awkward when you realise that Russia’s primary military force at present, the Wagner Group, is so named because their first commander was/is an avowed neonazi and Wagner was Hitler’s favourite composer.

Opps, posted to soon

Why, say in the 1950s would the Western Allies be willing to let the Soviet Union join NATO after they had recently blockaded Berlin, had vetoed United Nations membership for Finland, Iceland, Italy, Jordan and Portugal, had shot down two Swedish aircraft over the Baltic all the while their Gulags were killing thousands of people every year and they were crushing dissent and oppressing most of Eastern Europe? Why, in the 1960-70s would Western Allies be willing to let the Soviet Union join NATO when it was fighting (rightly or wrongly) an ideological and geopolitical war across the globe via proxies and interventions? Again, there is the victimhood mentality.

Perhaps you should have told all the Ukrainians celebrating 30 years of independence last year that they were laughable.

The 'Nazi stuff' has not been disproved, it is very very real. It takes about ten seconds to look up the Azov Battalion on Google, you know. 🙄

Zelensky being Jewish really is one of history's strokes of luck. It makes people so much more likely to interrogate claims that Ukraine is full of Nazis, as opposed to having some far right people like basically every nation on earth, and then to find out that Russia actually has a much larger Nazi problem.

Uk also have Neo Nazi geoups. Wvery freaking country does.
Maybe Russia should come and save us here too😔

And if America starts sending hundreds of millions of pounds in weapons systems to these UK-based Nazi groups then I dare say Russia should come and save us.

Well but to get the money sent we would firat need to be invaded or part of us annexed...

You need to read the news.
If Ukraine goes under then the West will follow.Ukraine have put up a tremendously brave and incredibly stoic defence against Russia and we must continue to support them,not for our own safety,not the fact that a huge amount of food comes from Ukraine,but for humanitarian reasons.They didn't ask for this,their country has been torn apart,thousands dead,injured and homeless.Still Ukraine continues to fight.They have the admiration of billions.
Yabvu.
there are other areas that could be cut back ,absolutely,but leaving a war torn country without our help? No.