Mic09 Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 22 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said: Crimea And they did it in a relatively peaceful way. Putin is getting old. Maybe a long term game of political meddling wasn't as appealing as taking Ukraine by force. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 2 minutes ago, Mic09 said: We think we are somehow better than people of early 20th century or earlier ages. We are the same. We just have faster planes and computers. and bigger bombs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 1 hour ago, bobzy said: It's probably been said in here before but **** Putin. Why would anyone want to inflict this much pain on people? Beyond me. Just pure evil. Well we were on the other side of the equation during the Iraq war. I know Bush and Blair are no longer popular but they weren’t universally unpopular at the time we were bombing Baghdad it a similar way to this. I imagine the world must look a lot different to someone on the Russian side of the equation to how it looks to us. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 32 minutes ago, sidcow said: If Ukraine put up a really hard fight and Russia loses a lot of equipment and a lot of men, are they going to be in a position to invade a other country whilst also patrolling their own borders and policing the vast country of Ukraine with probable guerilla warfare breaking out all over the place. I know their army is massive but is it capable of being that stretched? Maybe it's time for China to extend their territory on Russia's eastern border whilst they are pre-occupied? And it might be the best time for Chechnya to declare 'independence'. What are the Mongols up to nowadays? Any Genghis Khan wannabe wants to take some extra territory north? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 Has Putin underestimated the will of the Ukrainian people? Perhaps in the regions he declared as independent there may have been a swell of support for Russia and Russian rule but has he underestimated how far that extends across the country? I see now he’s asking the Ukrainian military to overthrow their own government, assuming that they don’t do that and more and more video evidence of his ‘peacekeeping’ mission (which today involves a tank crushing a car with an old man at the wheel, which he miraculously appears to have survived) surfaces, surely it’s only going to reinforce the resistance further. Or, we’re only seeing one side of the equation and actually, the majority of Ukraine welcomes his incursion. It’s going to be morbidly intriguing to see how this pans out from here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 2 hours ago, Mic09 said: He knew weeks in advance what the sanctions could be, and he must have clearly analysed the pros and cons. He didn't wake up yesterday thinking 'shit, what about the economy'. Yeah, they've got 700 BILLION in foreign reserves (dollar equivalent) and have half of Europe dependant on them to heat their homes. Russia can take extreme sanctions for years without any serious issues for them. And meanwhile Europe keeps paying them for more gas anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 3 hours ago, hippo said: Does it though ? If he attacks or threatens one of the smaller NATO countries - how confident are you that NATO would swiftly commit to a ground war,??? Depends on the USA. Does that NATO country have oil or other goodies that interest the USA? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted February 25, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted February 25, 2022 (edited) 3 hours ago, hippo said: A story that will surely break - or shift up the agenda in the coming days - in a word 'Germany' Germany has built a pipeline that connects to Russia - Nordstream 2. If this goes ahead Germany will have a reliable source of clean and inexpensive energy - Russia will see a significant boost to its gas revenues. This will over time provide Russia with a key allie in Europe - and overtime could undermine Nato Hate to say it, but Trump was very much against NS2 and got Congress to pass sanctions on it (too late to stop it.) Then Biden released the sanctions only to reinstate them again. What a time to be alive, agreeing with the Trump clown show. Can we go back to about 2013 and have another go at all of this? Edited February 25, 2022 by TheAuthority 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoelVilla Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 42 minutes ago, BOF said: Don't even dare 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stuart_75 Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 51 minutes ago, turvontour said: I cant get my head around, in 2022 Kiev, Ukraine; machine guns being handed out to the public to protect the city. The situation is terrifying and baffling in equal measure. Well no, more terrifying. If this was in Africa then no one would be batting an eyelid. Its pretty much business as usual in some of those territories. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparrow1988 Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, Mic09 said: I don't think he is. I think his speech with the remarks of history, lenin, the Russia Empire, that's all to appease the Russian public. Propaganda. Putin is cold and calculating. I think the comparisons to Hitler and Nazis in 39 are very far off the mark, and we should be careful with those. If Putin is Hitler, the entire west should attack now. If we believe that, we need to act now. Personally, I think this is a much more calculated conflict (in my opinion). The Russian public will see right through that bullshit IMO. They're on the streets protesting. But yeah, you're probably right. I just thought the whole time that he wouldn't do it. However, he went ahead with it and my first reaction was he'd lost it. With regards to the Hitler comparisons, I agree. They are way off IMO. The only one that makes sense I think is the age comparison. Hitler was said to have lamented on many occasions that he was getting old and the war needed to start soon in order for him to claim the glory. I think that this is similar to Putin now. As you said in your other post, playing the long game just wasn't as appealing. Edited February 25, 2022 by sparrow1988 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 23 minutes ago, ender4 said: Maybe it's time for China to extend their territory on Russia's eastern border I think they might be busy looking elsewhere , though I'm sure the repeated excursions of shenyang j-16 into Taiwan airspace in the past month are just nothing more than a navigation fault !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 8 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said: Has Putin underestimated the will of the Ukrainian people? Perhaps in the regions he declared as independent there may have been a swell of support for Russia and Russian rule but has he underestimated how far that extends across the country? I see now he’s asking the Ukrainian military to overthrow their own government, assuming that they don’t do that and more and more video evidence of his ‘peacekeeping’ mission (which today involves a tank crushing a car with an old man at the wheel, which he miraculously appears to have survived) surfaces, surely it’s only going to reinforce the resistance further. Or, we’re only seeing one side of the equation and actually, the majority of Ukraine welcomes his incursion. It’s going to be morbidly intriguing to see how this pans out from here. This is a very interesting question. There are plenty of signs that this is going to be bitterly fought: There have been very few reports of Ukrainian units surrendering (I say 'very few', I haven't seen any, but just trying to allow for the possibility I've missed some); The above was true even in a case of impossible odds last night, when 13 defenders of an isolated and exposed island in the Black Sea refused to surrender when they must have know refusal to do so was a death sentence; The Ukrainian government has today announced conscription, and forbidden any adult male citizen under retirement age from leaving the country; People are being distributed with firearms and taught how to make molotov cocktails None of this screams 'imminent surrender and capitulation', more 'we will fight to the bitter end and beyond'. I mean, who knows, maybe we're only seeing propaganda and actually Ukrainian civil collapse into submission, but I wouldn't be betting on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 Surely Ukraine is not the responsibility of the UK. Both France and Germany were party to the Minsk agreement, so the responsibility is surely theirs. The Merkel government were active in promoting the impeachment of Yanukovych, who was generally liked by the Russian-speaking regions in the east, and I understand that German political institutions financed the demonstrations (2014). Merkel threatened sanctions but never followed through. A country with a population of 40 million and a nominal GDP of $15k per capita, must be a very attractive prospect for a manufacturing nation like Germany. While the UK and the USA are fighting the culture wars, I don't think they are keen to open another front, but hey, both Boris and Biden are in need of a boost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 32 minutes ago, stuart_75 said: If this was in Africa then no one would be batting an eyelid. Its pretty much business as usual in some of those territories. I mean, if we want to talk about uneven coverage given to conflicts, I can't resist pointing out that Saudi Arabia are currently something like 3 years in to their illegal blockades and bombardments of Yemen, and I haven't seen any western politicians proposing cutting them off from the SWIFT system yet. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 Just now, HanoiVillan said: The above was true even in a case of impossible odds last night, when 13 defenders of an isolated and exposed island in the Black Sea refused to surrender when they must have know refusal to do so was a death sentence; I read about these defenders on snake island , where they were hit with a naval barrage and an airstrike for good measure ...there is a video of them telling Russia to go fornicate with its self and I think they were named checked by Zelenskyy and cited for medals , But I've seen other reports that the 13 surrendered In amongst footage of explosions in Kiev that turned out to be from Beijing in 2015 , aircraft over Kiev that turned out to be an Airshow in Moscow 2020 and one scene of bombs raining down on Kiev , that turned out to be from a bloody video game .. herein lies the problem with knowing what is actually real and what isn't Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 5 minutes ago, tonyh29 said: I read about these defenders on snake island , where they were hit with a naval barrage and an airstrike for good measure ...there is a video of them telling Russia to go fornicate with its self and I think they were named checked by Zelenskyy and cited for medals , But I've seen other reports that the 13 surrendered In amongst footage of explosions in Kiev that turned out to be from Beijing in 2015 , aircraft over Kiev that turned out to be an Airshow in Moscow 2020 and one scene of bombs raining down on Kiev , that turned out to be from a bloody video game .. herein lies the problem with knowing what is actually real and what isn't Yeah, you're absolutely right, and ATEOTD we have to acknowledge that what we see in either regular or social media can be false or misleading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 6 minutes ago, tonyh29 said: I read about these defenders on snake island , where they were hit with a naval barrage and an airstrike for good measure ...there is a video of them telling Russia to go fornicate with its self and I think they were named checked by Zelenskyy and cited for medals , But I've seen other reports that the 13 surrendered In amongst footage of explosions in Kiev that turned out to be from Beijing in 2015 , aircraft over Kiev that turned out to be an Airshow in Moscow 2020 and one scene of bombs raining down on Kiev , that turned out to be from a bloody video game .. herein lies the problem with knowing what is actually real and what isn't It’s why there’s that annoying time lag before stuff hits the BBC. There’s less bogus video on the BBC News but the downside is all the social media users don’t want to wait to see if its real they just want the instant entertainment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippo Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 Russia kicked out of Eurovision Song Contest ! and some said that sanctions wouldn't work....didn't expect that did your Mr Putin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnkarl Posted February 25, 2022 Share Posted February 25, 2022 (edited) That speech by Putin earlier just shows a man who’s realised he’s overplayed his hand. His stronk army has been stopped in Kharkiv, lost many of his most trusted airborne units and gotten pummelled by UK/American shoulder launched stingers. The fact that they’re not already parading back in Moscow is a failure. The fact that people in Russia are protesting is a massive failure. He’s describing the Ukrainian democratically elected government as drug users and neo nazis. What on earth is his government then? Edited February 25, 2022 by magnkarl 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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