AIBU? Russia threaten UK

[mumlearningtorun]

Am I being overdramatic about the new breaking news I’ve just seen about Russia threatening UK after use of drones. I’m super scared and have anxiety, can someone somewhat reassure me? Has these headlines happened before??

Putin's advisor isn't going to be telling the truth on radio 4. He'll be stirring and scaremongering.

A simple guide: Putin is a bastard. Anyone working with him is a bastard. They are not trustworthy.

They’ve been cyber-attacking us for years….

Oh I totally agree he's untrustworthy!
Equally, I think they would be capable of doing some quite nasty things to the UK without invoking article 5. Cyber attacks especially.

Additionally, there's also no reason to presume a Russian government advisor is capable of accurately assessing what NATO would do anyway. It's moot, because obviously he can only parrot what the regime wants to, whatever his own opinion. But even that aside, he's mouthing off about an organisation he has nothing to do with and doesn't actually want to see succeed. It's just not worth anything as serious analysis.

So, while Trump is not to be relied on, does anyone believe that if Russia attacked the UK NATO members like Germany, Finland, Sweden, France, Poland and Spain would sit around examining their fingernails?

Not least because they would all be in the firing line too.

Thankfully, there are examples from the past century which prove that taking a passive, isolationalist, "not my problem Jack" approach to aggressive war mongering despots is entirely the correct thing to do, and if you simply ignore them they get bored and go away.

Yes I obviously really hope you're right!
I wish R4 would stop giving airtime to these "Putin advisors" making threats against us tbh - it's not the first time, and it does give me the willies.

Totally agree. He seems to see it as their right, that they deserve help.

Ukraine do deserve help - they are a sovereign European state that has been subjected to a vicious and unprovoked attacked by their neighbour.

Our support is also practical and self interested - there are a lot of independent European countries that border Russia - if we roll over on Ukraine who would be next - Poland? Finland? Norway?

No, because even Putin is not stupid enough to directly attack a Nuclear capable major member of NATO.

When that comes, it will be an incursion into Latvia or Estonia, occupying a village or something, and then a "right NATO, what are you going to do about this?" stand-off. And NATO will do nothing because they aren't going to risk a conflagration over some tinpot village in a tinpot NATO member.

This is why it's vitally important to batter Russia right now, and make it almost impossible for Putin to even contemplate doing something as minor as a cross-border incursion into Estonia. Stop it before it happens, because if you wait until after it has happened then it's already too late to do anything meaningful about it. Article 5 looks great on paper, but nobody is about to get into a hot war with Russia over a few square km in Estonia or Latvia.

My generation spent the entirety of the 1980s being told we were going to die in a nuclear war or of HIV/AIDS.

Look at it this way - you have no control over what happens so turn off the news and live your life.

Russia has been a threat for a number of years and it’s mainly managed its nothing new just they wanting to create headlines to detract from their failures

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not

Do you remember many referenda asking for public authorisation to enter world conflicts then? If not, why would you expect one for this particular situation?

Of course the UK doesn’t normally fall over itself to take in refugees (esp not to the extent that they did with the Ukrainians) but then most conflicts involve people who look different to the majority of the UK population.

I didn't make it obvious enough?

The idea that Ukraine is none of our business, and that by staying uninvolved the UK would be "looking after our own", is not only mind-bogglingly moronic, it displays no understanding whatsoever of recent European history, the events of the first half of the 20th Century, how Putin and Russia functions, Russian mindset and outlook, and what leaving Ukraine to it's fate would ultimately mean, not just for Ukraine, but for the whole of the remainder of Europe.

I've long suspected MN is regularly visited by dedicated pro-Putin disinformation and propaganda trolls, and it's reading stupidity like this and others immediately popping up to stan the same idiotic viewpoints which has convinced me of it.

I'm not convinced that even a small fraction of the regular "Oh Noes!1! Russia is going to nuke us!!!" posters are genuine either.

I see little point in letting something over which I have no control dictate my life and wellbeing.

I appreciate that's easier for some people than others.

Charming.

Why should there have been a referendum on it anyway?

They’ve been doing this for years. Just because it’s only been reported in media you have seen lately doesn’t mean it’s anything new.

Theyve got this idiot propaganda bloke on their TV (I forget his name) who has been spouting all kinds of crap for years, even including the late Queen (when she was alive) in his threats.

This is a horrendously ignorant post and I find it hard to believe anyone feels this way.

Ukraine is a sovereign nation with internationally agreed borders that was brutally attacked without provocation.

Even if you have no empathy for those ordinary people who have been killed, injured, torn from their families to defend their country, or those who are tortured, sexually assaulted and otherwise mistreated in russian captivity, it is in our self interest to help Ukraine.

The concept of borders matters - if one country can be attacked like this, without international support, then it opens the door to attack literally any other country.

The only reason a NATO country hasn’t been attacked, dragging us into full scale war with a nuclear power ourselves, is that Ukraine is standing firm. Without them we’d all be in deep shit, to put it mildly, or even deeper shit than we currently are.

Have you ever looked at the playbook on how to deal with bullies. Frankly we should have done much more for Ukraine and we’d be in a much better place.

Any Nation that is invaded by another deserves our help.

If you see a big lad beating up a smaller lad you wouldn't just walk by would you?? None of your business?

The world has been at war since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, we just haven't acknowledged it out loud yet.

If they attack, we have a million NEETS to put in the field.

Whilst Ukraine are fighting the physical warfront, this is occupying a lot of Russian resources that would otherwise freely be available to attack our digital infrastructure - which they are still managing to do.

I, for one, am glad we don't have to consult the public if the public hold such uninformed opinions.

Anyone remember "Protect and Survive" booklet and TV/poster campaign etc?(1974-80) Now that truly was scary...
And the film "Threads". FGTW and "Two Tribes" ('84) and no end of (usually rather good) political pop music knocking around.

And Ultravox’s ‘Dancing with Tears in my Eyes’!

The dual threats of the four minute warning and ‘Don’t Die of Ignorance’ have contributed to GenX being somewhat nihilistic 🤣