Mandy Lifeboats

There's a few problems with that opinion. A world war requires 2 massive armed allegiances. China will not form an armed allegiance with Russia over Ukraine. A military alliance with Russia would effectively weaken China's military. Iran isn't a credible threat to Europe with conventional arms. This is a country that still uses 1970s F14 Tomcats as a front line fighter. It would be a threat with nukes. But Israel will deal with that matter long before it becomes a problem for European. Are South Africa, India, Brazil, China going to war with the most powerful military alliance over Russia being kicked out of Ukraine? No. Nope. Negative. With the exception of maybe Belarus, Iran and North Korea - Russia has no military allies. Its military is a spent force. Now is the best time to defeat it. Before it rebuilds. That would STOP WW3 not facilitate it.

Agreed. But Romania and Bulgaria are both NATO countries and they are a large amount of the western shore of the Black Sea. I'd have a corridor for merchant shipping running up their coastlines. But I would expand that defended corridor to include Ukraine's existing ports.

I'm definitely no military expert. I suspect the Ukrainians would be better placed to specify what actions would help. But the following are examples of various levels of escalation that come to my mind. Low -No civilian planes to/from Russia should have access to NATO airspace regardless of their nationality. Medium Minus - NATO should protect all merchant ships travelling to/from Ukrainian ports. Medium Plus - Only the UK and France have donated cruise missiles. Ukraine should have the ability to bombard Russia with the same sort of weapons Russia are using to bombard Ukraine. High - NATO maintain air supremacy up to the existing front lines.

Personally, I think its time for NATO to escalate the conflict. Russia likes wars of attrition. They have a huge amount of land that is out of the range of Ukraine. They will eventually grind Ukraine down.

You are confusing my repointing problem with the patio I built shortly after the wife's mother disappeared.

The cement has fallen out from under my front door frame. There are also a few bits of the damp course where cement has fallen out. I'm absolutely awful at doing anything like this. Does anyone know of a cement product that is very easy to apply? Does anyone have any tips or tricks that might help?

Russia defence spending will soon account for 33% of its total spending. That compares with NATO countries who tend to spend 2.5%. But NATO countries are much wealthier. For instance, Russia and Texas are roughly equal in economic terms. A stalemate suits NATO. Russia cannot maintain "war" spending. The Russian economy will never recover whilst it occupies Crimea. Crimea will come back to Ukraine but not as quickly as hoped.

The ruble is crashing against even the obscure currencies I haven't heard of. It's lost 33% of its value in one year against the Zambian Kwacha

There's something down there!

When you come to attach the decking flooring try to have a few smaller pieces that you can easily remove to maintain under the decking. It's much easier to remove a 1 metre piece than a 6 metre piece if all you want to do is spray weedkiller underneath or remove leaves.

The ruble continues to crash. 10 years ago there were 50 rubles to £1 1 year ago there were 70 rubles to £1 Yesterday it hit 125 to £1 It's a similar story against almost every world currency not just the major ones. That's despite Russia spending a ridiculous amount of their gold and foreign currencies trying to support it. I suspect many Russia people are getting ready to flee abroad before the next mobilisation of cannon fodder.

It allows Russia to portray their war as being against NATO. It would be deeply embarrassing to fail to beat Ukraine after 18 months. Its heroic to hold back the NATO invasion for 18 months.

Yes. It will make building the decking much easier. Weeds have a nasty habit of breaking through concrete. To guard against this, build the decking so that you can easily remove a few pieces and apply weedkiller to the area under the decking.

I finished power washing the patio today. Mrs Lifeboats is delighted. She will be less impressed in the autumn when she puts away the garden furniture and finds the various "cock n balls" where I haven't cleaned the patio.

That seems the common opinion. However, Wagner confirmed the deaths of 20,000 of their troops in Bakhmut alone. The loses of Wagner and the Russian Army/ Navy/ Airforce in the rest of Ukraine could easily amount to 250,000.

Russian TV acknowledged 284,000 Russian deaths. That's likely to be much lower than the actual figure. To put it into perspective- that's 3 British Armies.

It's a nice theory but........ Hitler wanted to invade all of Czechoslovakia. His generals convinced him accept Chamberlain's deal because they weren't capable. Czechoslovakia and France were allies and the generals feared that an attack on Czechoslovakia would see them fighting the French. When we see pictures of the Germany Army in WW2 its always fast moving tanks, dive bombers and infantry on motorbikes. Our perception is that they were a modern Army. But that's not true. In 1939 the Germany army was still heavily dependent upon the horse. Th Germany Army used 2.75 million horses in WW2. The UK used virtually none.

Latvia are really tightening the screw. They are deporting 6000 Russian Citizens living in Latvia.

Just another shark attack victim?

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuanian have begun completely disconnecting their gas and electrical infrastructure from Russia. They hope to complete the task by the end of 2025 by dismantling all electrical connections across the border. They will connect with the EU via Poland. Another small nail in Putin's coffin.

That's a good start to a Friday. What disappoints is that a further attack wasn't arranged whilst it was being towed slowly back to port. Ukraine needs better long range anti-ship missiles to make the most of their initial success.

Will Adam Cole turn heel on MJF or vice versa? I think MJF is an exceptional wrestling talent but I prefer him as a heel.

One for the NFL fans. SHA will need to change their club crest. The football needs to be defeated.

I cannot read a post about the Russian navy without thinking about the battle of Tsushima. I wrote this for the history thread. It sounds exaggerated. It's not. It's all 100% true and very funny. BATTLE OF TSUSHIMA 1905. It's 1904 and Russia is at war with Japan. Things aren't going well and Russia decides to send the Baltic Fleet to attack Japan. That's only 18,000 miles away. The fleet forms up near St Petersburg. It's a massive fleet of warships and auxiliary support ships. The crews aren't experienced navigating in a large fleet. The flagship runs aground. A destroyer rams a battleship forcing them both to return to port for repairs. The fleet is approaching Denmark when the lead ship reports being attacked by 8 Japanese Ships. Its actually a fishing boat delivering a message. The gunnery is so bad that the fishing boat doesn't realise its under attack and just sails to the flagship and delivers its message. The fleet is now at Dogger Bank. It spots a massive Japanese Fleet and attacks. Its actually the fishing fleet from Hull. The warships fire for 20 minutes before realising their mistake. As the smoke clears 1 fishing boat has been sunk and 2 fishermen killed. But the unarmed fishing fleet gets a score draw. The Russians shelled 2 of their own ships and killed 2 Russians. The British are furious and the Royal Navy is despatched to sink the Russia Fleet. The French Ambassador manages to stop the attack. The French tell the Russians to stay the hell away from any British Ports or face destruction. This causes a slight problem for the Russians because Gibraltar and the Suez Canal were on their route. They decide to go around Africa instead. They have arranged to be resupply with coal by a German Passenger Liner company. But they now need much more coal for the longer journey. They pile coal on deck. That's still not enough so they store coal in every available space below deck. Several crew members die of Black Lung. Cleanliness reduces to zero. Coal dust gets into guns and other vital machinery. Morale is low. The fleet stops off in Madagascar. The crew bring several exotic pets aboard. This includes a Crocodile who injures several crew members and a venomous snake which bites a senior officer. One ship has an infestation of Cameleons. A battleship is hit by shell fire from another battleship who are conducted a salute during a burial at sea. The Admiral orders gunnery practice. Its abandoned after the gunners successfully sink the ship towing the target. The fleet approaches Japan. They decide upon a sneak attack. All ships extinguish lights except the hospital ship. A Japanese Destroyer spots the hospital ship and investigates. The Russians identify it as a Russia ship and send frantic messages telling it to turn its lights off. The Japanese Destroyer spots the fleet, turns off its lights and exits. The Russia Fleet thinks they are still undetected. They are very wrong. The Japanese Fleet intercepts the Russians. Japan Loses > 117 dead, 3 torpedo boats sunk. Russian Loses> 5000 dead, 6000 taken prisoner, 7 battleships and 14 other ships sunk, 4 battleships and 1 Destroyer captured. In a final insult, a Russian Cruiser grounds itself. The crew flee ashore and destroy the ship to stop it falling into Japanese hands. They ran aground in Russia.

1 ship + 29 Lifeboats. Mission accomplished.