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?

Soooo the government has made cuts to all services. If this is new to you I don’t think that people can put too much weight in your thoughts on foreign policy

Oh, you're back.

Can you quote 'the ones'?

Also - did you actually read the article?

The article is citing those calling for more spending on defense in light of the Ukraine situation. It flies directly in the face of what you posited initially OP.

The UK is involved in Ukraine because Putin is a greedy, power hungry bully whose regime will pose a clear threat to the UK
if his advances go unchecked. We went through this scenario in the 1930s, and dismissing it as ‘not our problem’ went very badly indeed. The only thing that would be more expensive than supporting Ukraine now would be fighting a full-scale war nearer to home in a few years’ time.

I think the OP is using this report to highlight her belief that we can't afford to help Ukraine, just didn't articulate or she has had a change of heart.

Absolutely. If we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it.

This war makes no sense on many different levels. How is supplying weapons by NATO countries to Ukraine supposed to be helpful? We are backing an underdog which can never be expected to win! & even if Russia is held off then it will be at the cost of a generation of Ukraine men, the devastation of cities and infrastructure with no aid package for rebuilding. War is a terrible thing and should be condemned rather than condoned. As a UK taxpayer I condemn the government's pro war position especially with pushing us closer to a third World War. £2..5B over ten years? How the hell can we afford this? Its obscene! Not to mention the cost on Russian troops

Russia is accused of being expansionist but it is only behaving in such a way because of the expansionist actions of NATO in breaking the ABraham accord

I saw what I thought was a colourised WW1 Russian war cemetery.
It wasn't WW1 but NOW.

Russia lost a phenomenal number of men in WW1 & WW2, they have a vast population, and Putin can probably force more young men to fight.

Prisoners were used to fight with the promise that they would be ''freed'' if they survived 6 months fighting.
These men were nowt but cannon fodder.

War is an hideous thing, and lessons are NEVER learned.

Oh look the pro Putin bots have arrived. He chose to invade, the rest is ex post facto pretence.

Who put 50p in the slot to start this idiot up?

Particularly given that the invasion started in 2014 and the Abraham Accords (an Arab-Israeli pact that has the sum total of nothing to do with Russia or Ukraine) dates from 2020.

Tell it to the bloody clown putin. He started the war and continues it. He can easily end it by withdrawing the troops and paying reparations. Simple as that.

So do i

What?

We can't afford not to. Unless of course you're happy to let every despot know it's fine to take other people's territory by force. Iran and China are watching.

The USA will probably withdraw support should Trump win.

We don't have the munitions or the money, nor can we up manufacture of weapons in time..... the 200 anti aircraft missiles we recently promised is a days supply from ONE heavy Russian missile/drone strike.

The rest of Europe put together cannot supply the weapons required, even if there is the will.

I really fear for Ukraine should Trump win, even if he doesn't the Republicans seem hell bent on limiting support, at best Ukraine will have to lose some territory but even then. Russia will come back for a 2nd bite.

Sanctions, thanks to India (supposedly an ally) and China have had very little impact.

THIS. Little Englanders don't think that could ever happen though, or don't care.

Exactly this. If Putin is permitted to annexe Ukraine, which country will be next? Moldova is already nervous. Romania? Bulgaria? Or straight to Poland?

We risk global instability if we do not defend Ukraine.

And I'm just going to point out that the only posts ever made by 'Steve2024' are the two posts made reanimating a thread that hadn't been active for best part of a year.

Given '2024' being part of the name, would it be fair to speculate the account was created solely to reanimate this thread?

We can't afford not to support them. If resistance collapses through a lack of support and the Russians sweep through the rest of Ukraine the flow of displaced people into Europe will increase massively.

Think about the cost implications of that. Russia will then start another conflict in another bordering country and we will be drawn into that and so on.

Quite apart from financial considerations it is always right to stand up to dictators and bullies.

I'm not sure that "speculate" is the right word. It's bleedin' obvious that it's a shill/bot. Still, it's always worth countering them for the benefit of any lurkers.

From a practical perspective, if I lend my neighbour a baseball bat to defend himself, the person who gets concussed may well end up be cross with me. Russia expected a swift victory, the EU, UK and US thought they could enable a swift Russian defeat. Everyone was wrong.
The US has delivered over 1 million 155mm shells to Ukraine - five or six years worth of production. Germany started by shipping 5,000 helmets and has been shamed into offering more. Meanwhile Russia is getting real-time experience of fighting against NATO equipment and tactics - they have learned that few other countries have an appetite for 'meat grinder' warfare.
Unknown perpetrators deliberately ruptured the two gas pipelines Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 - it is estimated that more than 115,000 tons natural gas (CH4) were released over the course of six days and contributed greenhouse gas emissions comparable to approximately 15 million tons of CO2—or one third of the Danish total CO2 annual emissions) thus contributing to global warming
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-47290-7

For those outside of Sweden, expect to meet a lot more young Swedes. I'm not sure the youth of today are as happy to be maimed or die for their country as brave young men were around the world in 1914, 1939 and 1941.

Boris has gotten rich on his Churchill moment, the rest of us are poorer, many of us a lot poorer. Lots of products are in short supply worldwide because their precursor chemicals were made in Russian fertilizer factories. Rich countries can pay more for wheat, sub-Saharan Africa can't. Russia won't overrun Ukraine - which is the size of France - they couldn't possibly hold it. They can pick off smaller countries and probably will.

The moral indignation stirred up by politicians and MSM meant that negotiations before almost a generation of Ukrainians and tens of thousands of Russian convicts had been killed were vetoed by 'the West'. As can be seen on MN, that indignation hasn't gone away, how do the politicians and MSM persuade populations who are invested that a negotiated settlement is now a good idea? Is Ukraine now locked into a permanent conflict for another ten or twenty years?

I don't know which course of action we can't afford.

But if I don't lend my friend of neighbour a baseball bat when they're attacked there's a good chance that the expansionist aggressor will decide that I'm a soft target and that now they've taken my neighbours house it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a go at mine

@overworkedovertaxed

Meanwhile Russia is getting real-time experience of fighting against NATO equipment and tactics

Against current NATO equipment, for example on the air war side that means 4th and 5th generation fighters and the ordnance that goes with them? No they are not.

Ukraine is mostly fighting with either the ex-Soviet/Russian equipment it inherited, more recently some slightly dated western equipment and ordnance (that might be part of the problem) and a hodge podge of tactics, some again derived from Soviet era days but they've adapted quickly to introducing their own tactics....some NATO derived, some home grown.