To think the adoration of Zelensky in the UK feels very wrong?

[WarWhatIsItGoodFor]

Exactly that. Why are UK politicians lapping it all up and hanging on to his every word? The laughter from MPs when he said he enjoyed English tea but now wants English planes… in what sense is that funny? He is wanting war planes to cause more bloodshed, death and destruction. I hope this doesn’t lead to Russian retaliation.

I agree.
There are less on facebook because facebook increasingly fact checks and removes outright lies. MN does not. Anyone can make up whatever shit they want to and post it on here. And they do.

There are very strong connections between Ukraine and the US, as Reuters reported in 2014:

"Ukraine has been offered billions of dollars in aid by international lenders if it implements a program of economic reform and Poroshenko said the administration would benefit from international specialist input.....

“.......These decisions mean searching for candidates for the new government not only in Ukraine but also abroad,” he said.
One of the three is Natalie Jaresko, a U.S. citizen and chief executive of private equity group Horizon Capital. She has worked in Ukraine for more than 20 years after holding various economic positions in the U.S. State Department."

Also, there is the issue of Hunter Biden's business activities in Ukraine.

You don't have to be a fan of Putin (and I'm certainly not) to think that this is a rather odd situation.

Extracts from CNN Report,Washington

"A Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden’s business activities has gained steam in recent months ........

Ukraine business dealings
Biden’s involvement in Ukraine has been a major source of his legal and political issues. He served on the board of Burisma, paid as much as $50,000 a month, from 2014 to 2019, according to a Republican-led Senate report on Biden’s business activities released in 2020. That partly overlaps with a period during which his father was vice president and tapped by then-President Barack Obama to handle Ukraine issues. The overlap raised concerns about a conflict of interest among some Obama administration officials at the time..........."

No doubt everyone will pile in to call me a "bot", "useful idiot", etc, etc. These details are not from outlandish conspiracy sites but from Reuters and CNN. Instead of insulting posters who question what is going on, why not read some of the reports? Being against sending more and more arms to Ukraine, sending fighter jets and possible military manpower does not make me a supporter of Putin. Negotiations need to take place. Or will it be another example, like in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq, where the US, UK and others go in, all guns blazing, only to withdraw after many thousands have died and, in the case of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, leaving a broken and ungovernable country.

@ellyeth I'm not going to call you a bot. I agree with you.

I was talking to my 15 yo daughter today about this and all other wars and I said to her "aren't we lucky that every single war and conflict we've ever been involved with, we're on the side of the "goodies", obviously, the people we were fighting against might have something to say about that. Especially Iraq. But according our newspapers and history books we're always on the side of right. How amazing".

I'm not into all this Putin bad, Zelensky saint shit. There's no saints at all in this. Least of all Zelensky.

Strong connections between the US and Ukraine? Blimey, that sounds scary. If I recall correctly, there are strong connections between the US and the UK.

If you're going to quote news sources, it's more credible if you provide the links so that people can read them in context.

There are very strong connections between Ukraine and the US, as Reuters reported in 2014

Breaking News...

Obviously if someone says they're a bot they can't possibly be!

That being said, we don't want to get cause and effect mixed up here. What @ellyeth actually reads like is someone who's been exposed to bots. Fresh from a deep dive somewhere with a predatory algorithm, with a touch of Dunning Kruger.

I don't actually doubt for a second that there'll be bills to be paid when the Ukrainians are ultimately victorious, and it's perfectly legitimate to criticise that. However, when your alternative solution involves leaving the Ukrainians to deal with attempted genocide on their own, you're doing nothing other than making a tit of yourself bleating on about thousands of deaths. This is not remotely like the Iraq war, speaking as someone who almost certainly spent more time to prevent it than the people who are using it as a mechanism to condemn the Ukrainians to genocide now.

This incursion into Ukraine is Russia testing the Western Allies to see if they will put up a fight.
If we ( Allies and NATO) roll over and let the Russians successfully conquer Ukraine then it's a green light for them to take other former States like Moldova too.
EU member states, Poland, and Romania would also then be in the firing line too.
Western and U.K support for Ukraine is essential. Zelensky is more inspirational than many of our politicians and leaders, you wouldn't see many of then put on brave front if Russia was on U.K soil.
We have to continue supporting Ukraine, the internal political and economic situation can be addressed afterwards.

MissConductUS

You say that it is likely I have been influenced by bots, in effect implying I am a "useful idiot". We are all exposed to information, much of which it is difficult to verify unless we look at dozens of historical and contemporary sources - and even then we cannot be entirely sure about their veracity. But whenever a country takes up a position in regard to a conflict, people within that country will definitely be exposed to reporting that is in line with that country's position. That, of course, includes Russia.

As I mentioned before, when we invaded Iraq there was next to no criticism of the invasion or questioning, on TV, radio or in the newspapers, of the grounds upon which the invasion was being justified, and news broadcasts were always preceded by urgent music - a technique to ramp up tension and a sense of danger. Yes, Iraq was a different situation but, again, when countries have taken up a position with regard to a conflict, and particularly if they are actively involved in providing military equipment and assistance, that position will inevitably be reinforced by the media of that country.

This is what happens in all countries, and anyone who raises questions is accused of either having sympathies for the enemy or being in league with the enemy.

Surely it is better to try and end this war through negotiation, rather than provide more and more weaponry that may lead to a very dangerous escalation?

I think you actually meant me there. And I wouldn't use the term useful idiot because it's so poorly done it doesn't qualify as useful.

The underlying flaw in your argument is that its based on the incorrect assumption that supplying the people who are being attacked with weapons is an obstacle to peace. When you have, as with Russia, an irrational actor who have already shown that they have no intention of behaving and will interpret concessions as a sign of weakness and encouragement, that's not how it works. We know this because what's happening now is a direct consequence of previous appeasement. It is failure to provide weapons that will escalate things further. Again, we already know this.

As for the rest, it has already been pointed out that the Ukrainians themselves are telling us very clearly what they want. It's not your naive, bullshit 'negotiations'. It's not 2003 now, we can hear directly from the people affected speaking for themselves on their own platforms, not those of traditional media.

The fact is that the papers and TV have nothing like the influence they did during Iraq. Although even then, speaking as a person who almost certainly devoted more time to anti Iraq invasion activism than you did, I recall some anti invasion coverage in the mainstream media. The Mirror and Guardian carried it. Additionally, and again this has already been pointed out, nobody would've called anyone a bot in 03 because we hadn't then been subjected to sustained and deliberate campaigns of Internet disinformation from the Russian state.

You have me confused with another poster. I never mentioned bots. Reread my post.

@ellyeth

Or will it be another example, like in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq, where the US, UK and others go in, all guns blazing, only to withdraw after many thousands have died and, in the case of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, leaving a broken and ungovernable country.

I haven't got that much time, but about the thousands of deaths, some comparative figures. The sum total is that Russian wars have cost 1,715,000 - 3,755,000 civilian deaths. US wars have cost 1,250,000 - 1,315,050. Ukrainian figures do NOT include the death tolls in Mariupol and the occupied territories which are in the many tens of thousands, possibly 125,000 +

Note: It's actually very very difficult to get accurate figures on both sides.

Bear in mind that since 1955, the start of the Vietnam war, Russia rolled tanks into Hungary, Czechoslovakia and occupied them, and in 1953 it violently repressed the East German uprising against occupation.

In terms of sheer likely numbers figures of civilian deaths, Russia is simply numerically considerably more dangerous.

About corruption: www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2022 0 is terribly corrupt, 100 is least (Denmark came out top actually!)

Russia is rated 28 on the scale and dropping, Ukraine 33 and rising. However, these last 2 months there have been extraordinary sweeping changes in Ukrainian govt getting rid of corrupt people, from people who've stolen upwards of 1m to people who have awarded contracts for food at 2,5 times the value and someone else who kept an SUV for himself which was given for the war effort.

The US is marked at 69, the UK at 73, which is pretty amazing given some of the scandals recently! (they might not have been included in last year's figures)

Regarding corruption in the US - I think that the Hunter Biden thing has been pounced on and blown out of all proportion compared to other scandals for political purposes. Just as the email scandal with Hilary Clinton was blown up - it turns out that the Republicans were just as bad www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/but-their-emails-republicans-react-to-their-own-email-scandal-201774/

Boring stuff!

For number geeks:

Note: it's very very difficult to get accurate figures, eg there are no recorded civilian death figures for the CAR conflict but around 900,000 refugees, which is indicative that there must have been significant civilian deaths.

Some of the figures are very hazy, eg Russia in Afghanistan, US in Afghanistan, US in Vietnam.

I have not included wars where there are less than 5k civilian deaths, of which there are quite a few on both sides.

Afghanistan:

Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War
Civilian casualties (Afghan):
562,000–2,000,000 killed[49][50][51]
3+ million wounded[52]
5+ million externally displaced
2+ million internally displaced

The US
Civilians killed: 46,319[61]

Chechnya, first war and 2nd war (Russia) These are difficult to verify
Rough estimated total: 250,000 mostly-civilian deaths (from wiki)

Syria (Syria supported heavily by Russia) Fatalities 0.5 ±.1 (millions)
Pre-war population 22 ±.5; Internally displaced 6 ±.5, Refugees 5.5 ±.5, * *en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_civil_war

Tajikistani War (Russia) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajikistani_Civil_War 1992 - 1997
Casualties and losses 20,000[8]–150,000 killed[9]

Central African Republic (Russia) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_African_Republic_Civil_War

Civilian casualties:
Unknown number killed or wounded
200,000 internally displaced; 20,000 refugees (1 Aug 2013)[27]
700,000 internally displaced; +288,000 refugees (Feb 2014)[28]

Somali (Russian involvment) 25,000 civilians killed[25] (wiki)
Russia was also involved in the Eritraean war from 1970s- 1990's. but details are hazy so I'm not counting them. 90,000 civilians killed[35]

Ukraine (Russia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
Casualties in the Russo-Ukrainian War included six deaths during the 2014 annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, 14,200–14,400 civilians and military troops killed during the War in Donbas (2014–2022), and tens of thousands of deaths during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. [There are some complexities; Mariupolitan and occupied civilian deaths have not been counted and some of the figures stated include military deaths.

Syria (US) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American-led_intervention_in_the_Syrian_civil_war
3,847 civilians killed by Coalition airstrikes in Syria

ISIL & Iraq (US)
Estimated 6,000+ civilians killed by Coalition airstrikes in Iraq

Iraq (US)
Statistical estimates - there are 3 as accurate counting has been extremely difficult. Ive taken the Lancet survey as the methodology of the others are very iffy. Their numbers range from 151k (Iraq family health survey) to 1,1million (Opinion Business Research, heavily criticised)

Lancet survey* (March 2003 – July 2006): 654,965 civilians killed. * (95% CI: 392,979–942,636)[48][49]

Vietnam (US) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties
Actually very very difficult to get reliable numbers. Between the bombings and Agent Orange, the figure I'm working with is 550,000 civilian deaths BUT it may well have been far higher.

@ellyeth

Surely it is better to try and end this war through negotiation, rather than provide more and more weaponry that may lead to a very dangerous escalation?

Would you negotiate with a man who breaks his word over and over and tends to accept peace contracts so that he can regroup and re-invade?

Remember that 3 days before the invasion Russian diplomats were saying that there would be no invasion.

Agreed - he's already sold the Tory party to Putin and his kleptocrat mates.

As I mentioned before...

Yes, and it wasn't true the first time, and isn't true now.

I don't know what country you're in, and what media you were consuming at the time of the Iraq war, but I saw plenty of criticism and questioning of the invasion in the media, TV and print. Including televising of critical debates in Parliament.

I also don't know what you were watching that played you stirring music. Other than a normal theme tune at the beginning of the programme, the news I watch doesn't usually have incidental music.

I do remember that there were some papers cheerleading for the war. But your choice to read those papers rather than the ones next to them was yours. The coverage was there, you just didn't read it.

Put it this way, there would have been plenty of us arrested – media workers and citizens – if the UK had had the laws Russia now has, which make it a crime to criticise the war or even use the word for "war" rather than "special military operation."

@ellyeth Ukraine business dealings
Biden’s involvement in Ukraine has been a major source of his legal and political issues. He served on the board of Burisma, paid as much as $50,000 a month, from 2014 to 2019, according to a Republican-led Senate report on Biden’s business activities released in 2020. That partly overlaps with a period during which his father was vice president and tapped by then-President Barack Obama to handle Ukraine issues. The overlap raised concerns about a conflict of interest among some Obama administration officials at the time..........."

Right, so this justifies Russia invading their sovereign neighbour, using terrifying hardware to destroy human life, essential infrastructure and the environment and employing rape as a key weapon of war with the youngest victims being babies? Yes that seems wholly logical and reasonable, I never thought about it that way…what insight!! Also Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in 2014, so how can Hunter Biden getting a paid position in a Ukrainian company in the same year have any bearing in this war? Could it be because this whole debate is a red herring? I think so….

Being against sending more and more arms to Ukraine, sending fighter jets and possible military manpower does not make me a supporter of Putin.

Yeah, it does. By not providing Ukraine with everything they need to defeat a ruthless and pitiless enemy makes our government war criminals by proxy.

Or will it be another example, like in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq, where the US, UK and others go in, all guns blazing, only to withdraw after many thousands have died

No, if you knew your history you would know that those conflicts were all unique and not even comparable to what is going on here. As to accusing US/UK of going in all guns blazing! Do you know the difference between an offensive and a defensive war? It’s the Russians that did that, from the results so far this is fairly evident.

I get that a lot of you don’t like Ukraine’s President, but I’m afraid he’s the only one they and we have, so we need to support him to get on with urgent task of defeating Putin - who without hyperbole truly is this century’s Hitler. And you can’t deny that - weird self-promotional Vogue shoots aside - he hasn’t been an exemplary war leader. Jesus Christ, everyone seems to love deifying Winston Churchill for what he did in WWII, and he wasn’t exactly a social worker: he had very unprogressive views about Jews and Indians, royally fucked over the Greeks and so on. Do you really think that a leader has to an absolute saint before they deserve our backing? We’d never support anyone if that were our criteria.

And I’m not coming at you @ellyeth , it’s just your arguments are utterly flawed and you’re really not helping the people of Ukraine, ordinary Russians that are against the war and who just want to get on, and also Russian victims of State repression (like Ilya Yashin - he’s in prison now due speaking out but his Instagram is still active) against a common enemy. You’re actively making life harder for them. I get that you’re scared, yes war is scary, but the world will be a damn site scarier if Putin succeeds and we in turn will be much more vulnerable and at risk as a consequence.

Even I remember there being criticism of the Iraq war and I was a teenager barely paying attention.

Yep.

There's half a point in there in that there were certainly attempts to portray criticism of the invasion as unpatriotic etc, particularly in the early days. But the idea that there was next to no criticism simply won't wash.

Look at these Daily Mirror covers, for example.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/15-daily-mirror-front-pages-8364908

I presume we all know how Piers Morgan ended up losing his job as editor?

@Casilero

I'm not into all this Putin bad, Zelensky saint shit.

Well then you clearly know nothing about the modern Russian Federation, nor Putin’s body count (do the names Anna Politkovskaya, Paul Klebnikov, Sergei Yushenkov, Alexander Litvinenko, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova and Boris Nemtsov ring any bells?).

Because of Putin and his reactionary policies, any public expression of LGBT behaviour or lifestyle in Russia is now effectively outlawed (which is kind of a travesty given that I used to live in Moscow In 2010/2011, and the gay clubs were the only ones worth going to frankly). Further, domestic violence against woman has been decimalised ergo wife beating is now permitted in law because of him.

Now tell us about Zelensky’s record? We’re all ears…

@ellyeth 20 years ago this week there was a massive demonstration in London against the Iraq war with an estimated 1.5 million people taking part. Whatever (some) of the media were saying, very substantial numbers of people felt differently and made those feelings known.

This is not happening this time because it is a fundamentally different situation and most people can see that.

@CPL593H

Exactly this.

@BashirWithTheGoodBeard

Thank you for this comment. Beautifully put.

Ukraine needs the support, for reasons articulated clearly by others. The tories will try to get political capital out of the situation using the war as a distraction from their appalling corruption and lies at home.

Thanks @TigerQueen89

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-11/rishi-sunak-wants-stronger-ties-with-eu-to-limit-brexit-dangers?utm_source=google&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=google#xj4y7vzkg

PM Sunak wants to improve relations with the EU

It is, in particular, about closer cooperation between Great Britain and the European Union in the field of defense, migration, trade, energy and international standards

all you can do is roll your eyes ...

Farage, co-leader of the Brexit campaign, seems to be firmly pro-Russia, blaming Ukraine and the EU for the Russian invasion. How he explains that before 2014 Ukraine was a peaceful country and it's Russia who's aggressively invaded and killed tens of thousands of civilians, I don't know.

Farage, co-leader of the Brexit campaign, seems to be firmly pro-Russia

Well he would be wouldn't he! He owes Putin.