sidcow Posted February 22, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted February 22, 2022 8 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said: Surely any major scale war with Russia isn’t going to be fought with tanks and boots on the ground, it’ll be intercontinental ballistic missiles and bombs dropped from 30,000 feet up in the air ultimately, which is also why I don’t get what’s going on, what is the endgame here, nuclear war? No one wants that, not even madman Putin surely?! Which is why he is emboldened to do it. If Russia was a non Nuclear nation like Iraq invading Kuwait they would go in and kick him out. As he's got a nuclear arsenal they won't so he knows he'll get way with it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post peterw Posted February 22, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted February 22, 2022 8 hours ago, Risso said: Phew. I'll be long dead by 2145 anyway. UK time? 1 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amsterdam_Neil_D Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 35 minutes ago, sidcow said: Which is why he is emboldened to do it. Agreed, We now rely on a set on sanctions. If they are all money and specific people that is not going to achieve anything. Putin will laugh. It needs to be something big that creates a bargaining chip. We have nothing at the moment. Maybe turn off their internet and treat the country as a scammer Centre and shut it all down, remove .ru from DNS or whatever it is. Unless it hurts Putin just laughs at the West. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 2 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said: Agreed, We now rely on a set on sanctions. If they are all money and specific people that is not going to achieve anything. Putin will laugh. It needs to be something big that creates a bargaining chip. We have nothing at the moment. Maybe turn off their internet and treat the country as a scammer Centre and shut it all down, remove .ru from DNS or whatever it is. Unless it hurts Putin just laughs at the West. Stop buying their oil or gas is the obvious one, with obvious problems too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoelVilla Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 Will there even be sanctions. Do the 'West' all agree that this is an invasion? It is. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amsterdam_Neil_D Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 1 minute ago, NoelVilla said: Do the 'West' all agree They will agree to let him get away with it in the end. Pretty much 100% guaranteed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterw Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 (edited) I haven't trawled through the last 57 pages so apologies if this has already covered but... We seem to be falling into the western narrative of Putin being a madman or a dictator. That he is wrong and that we are right. Russia has a relatively recent history of being distrusted by western Europe/US and has been invaded twice. Twice they pushed back and twice 'victories' in the west after Napoleon and Hitler have been assigned to the western powers with Russia largely ignored. Russia attempted to create buffer zones that fell at the end of the Cold War and NATO did give assurances that they would not push further eastwards than its 1990 'borders'. NATO in its defence, has always stated that membership is open to anybody but one by one Russia's sphrere of influence is declining and it sees hostile neighbours on its western flank once more. it could largely ignore the Baltic states due to their size and that Belarus and Ukraine still offer protection. That Ukraine is looking westwards is a clear red flag. Putin has said that what is being proposed is similar to the Russian putting troops and weapons in central America and pointing them at the US. Also you only have to look back to 1962 and the Cuban missile crisis and the reaction from the US once they saw the threat from who they consider to be a hostile power, putting weapons and manpower on their doorstep. The world was under no illusion that the US would be prepared to use weaponry that in history only they had ever used. I'm in no way a Putin apologist and think he is trying to recover the Soviet style influence for Russia. However, Russia is always seen as a threat due to its size and the red flag was not, and still isn't being taking seriously. Now the west are paying attention and its NATO and the EU that have to seriously negotitate to calm Russia's fears. This isn't about Ukraine but about the west's attitude towards Russia since 1917, 1945, 1990, and now. We've created this. Edited February 22, 2022 by peterw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Awol Posted February 22, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted February 22, 2022 @peterw There’s definitely something in your analysis imo, but not because of any military threat posed to Russia. Eastern European states joined NATO and the EU for protection, to make their liberation from Russian communist dictatorship, irreversible. The people of Ukraine and Belarus are similarly attracted to a system that increases prosperity, the rule of law and security. Why wouldn’t they be? The Russian state, a triumvirate of organised crime, the intelligence services, and the oligarchs (including Putin), correctly see that model as a threat to their rule. How long until Russians decide they deserve that kind of life too? To preserve their rule those people need a buffer between Russia and civilized Europe - and they need enemies. So they’ve invaded Georgia, Ukraine (twice) and supported the overturning of democracy in Belarus, all for regime survival at home. Yes Putin does want to restore his conception of a Russian imperial power (imo), but those around him just want to survive and preserve their ill-gotten gains. Trying to blame the west for their paradigm of gangsterized rule is a bridge too far - imho. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 1 hour ago, sidcow said: Which is why he is emboldened to do it. If Russia was a non Nuclear nation like Iraq invading Kuwait they would go in and kick him out. As he's got a nuclear arsenal they won't so he knows he'll get way with it. Yeah but so do we, and the US, and France etc etc. The problem is that we’re all soft as shit and spending all our time infighting over politics and social issues and trying to appease every minority under the sun. And I wonder who has been planting those seeds of discontent over the past couple of decades? The internet has opened up a whole new way for Russia to wage a silent war in my conspiratorial opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 12 hours ago, desensitized43 said: How much land are we willing to let him take before we have to take action? Well it depends what you mean by 'action'. If you mean more sanctions, then the answer was zero land, just the order was enough to cause governments to issue more. If you mean a hot war with Russia, the answer is every last centimetre of Ukraine. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 10 hours ago, Xann said: Frankly the apes are thick as pigshit, let's wipe ourselves out and let the dolphins have a go. So long and thanks for all the fish. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 Why don’t we just freeze all Russian nationals’ financial assets in the UK as a starting point with a threat of taking / liquidating them permanently if Putin does not pull back? Surely then the likes of Usmanov and Abramovich etc might start to ask Putin uncomfortable questions at least. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walmley_Villa Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 Anyone seen Neville Macron after the agreement he got from Putin a couple of weeks ago? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 4 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said: Why don’t we just freeze all Russian nationals’ financial assets in the UK as a starting point with a threat of taking / liquidating them permanently if Putin does not pull back? Surely then the likes of Usmanov and Abramovich etc might start to ask Putin uncomfortable questions at least. Because it's not a crime to be Russian? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 22, 2022 Moderator Share Posted February 22, 2022 1 hour ago, peterw said: and NATO did give assurances that they would not push further eastwards than its 1990 'borders'. I keep seeing this line being pushed by STWC types, do you have any evidence of this as I've not managed to see any yet? I'm not criticising your overall point but I am genuinely interested to see actual evidence of this particular claim 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 14 hours ago, Awol said: Useful map showing the electoral distribution in 2010, the last proper nationwide election before the 2014 revolution. That’s not an unthinkable end state if Putin is goes for something less than taking the whole country over. You can certainly imagine something like this being the end state, ie roughly carving the country in two down the course of the Dniepr river. I guess the only downside to this is that rump western Ukraine, while much smaller, would be an almost entirely anti-Russian state over which the Kremlin could exert much less influence. The downsides with going further to the west though are equally big, notably that the terrain gets harder, the pushback will be massively greater, and at the end of it Russia gets (if it actually did decide to annex the whole country) more NATO states on its border, exactly what it says it doesn't want. For this reason, I think your map is a plausible worst-case scenario, hopefully they get bogged down or decide to pack it in long before that but who knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 (edited) 7 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: Because it's not a crime to be Russian? But these oligarchs are known to be ‘in bed’ with the Russian government so is it not fair game? Edited February 22, 2022 by bannedfromHandV 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 Putin isn't stupid he must have a plan to counter these "sanctions" otherwise i dont think he would be stupid enough to just start a bloody war Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 Just now, Demitri_C said: Putin isn't stupid he must have a plan to counter these "sanctions" otherwise i dont think he would be stupid enough to just start a bloody war It helps support what he’s telling the Russian people that the West hates them and wants them to suffer (and therefore action is needed). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted February 22, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted February 22, 2022 11 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: Because it's not a crime to be Russian? Have you never seen Hepburn-Murphy play? A crime was committed every time he touched the ball 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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