Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[foreveryoung]

20 minutes ago, Walmley_Villa said:

Anyone else think BA’s technical issues might be Cyber related?

Happened before, so I would say so.

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, tonyh29 said:

Much as I don’t want to be that person , Alas it’s from 2017 

Now I’ve lost all my trust in solomon54203931.

[foreveryoung]

1 minute ago, tonyh29 said:

Much as I don’t want to be that person , Alas it’s from 2017 

I did think it was after posting, as the Ukraines don't have them tanks. Still a cool pic though.

[CVByrne]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

I wonder (as a complete amateur) if the heart of the Russian military is fully in this war?

Yeah, I'm sure the Russian army sees this as an act of aggression from Russia and really just don't want to die in the fighting. They'll win but it'll be slower than they planned. I wonder too if after they capture Kyiv if they will then push East towards the boarders with the NATO and EU countries. 

[bannedfromHandV]

5 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Now I’ve lost all my trust in solomon54203931.

If you can’t trust solomon54203931, who can you trust?!

[tonyh29]

1 minute ago, bannedfromHandV said:

If you can’t trust solomon54203931, who can you trust?!

solomon54203932 

[CVByrne]

The longer the Ukranians hold out the more this causes problems for Putin at home. They need to keep fighting. 

[CVByrne]

We need to get weapons to the Ukranians, we need to escalate the sanctions on Russia. Cut them off from Swift. We can suffer the economic impact because a combination of Ukranians determined fighting and the economic damage to Russia will cause unrest in Russia. 

Ukraine can be the new Afghanistan. Insurgency fighting and drag Russia into a long unpopular war. While we focus on crippling their economy.

[Awol]

32 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

We need to get weapons to the Ukranians, we need to escalate the sanctions on Russia. Cut them off from Swift. We can suffer the economic impact because a combination of Ukranians determined fighting and the economic damage to Russia will cause unrest in Russia. 

Ukraine can be the new Afghanistan. Insurgency fighting and drag Russia into a long unpopular war. While we focus on crippling their economy.

I think that is pretty much the plan because we don’t have a better alternative, but if we succeed (inshallah) then it just moves us on to the next problem.

Putin’s political survival very likely rests on the outcome of this war. If he falls, it’s not like there’s some fluffy Liberal Democrat waiting in the wings to take over - they’re either already dead or would be at the first sign of trouble.

The West needs to be signalling very clearly that if Putin falls we won’t be coming after Russia for payback - a narrative that could easily take hold among his potential, very paranoid successors. Get this right, pull Russia out of China’s camp - into even a neutral position - and all of a sudden the future looks very different, but now that all potentially rests on the resistance of ordinary Ukrainians against a fascist maniac.

Lenin said “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”  This feels like one of these rare, extraordinary periods.

[Demitri_C]

1 hour ago, NoelVilla said:

Missed Germany changing their minds. Just overrule Hungary now and do it.

 

I would be very suprised if thats true about cyprus as they have very close ties to russia and putin

[bickster]

So Khazakstan apparently refuses to recognise the two “breakaway” regions of Ukraine and also refuses a request to send troops

Also this…

Quote

We know that there have been numerous anti-war demonstrations in Russia and a host of Russian celebrities and influencers have shown their opposition to the war on their social media accounts.

Now an adviser to the Kremlin - Andrey Kortunov, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) - has told the BBC his advice was that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not justifiable.

He said many of his colleagues in the foreign ministry were also “very surprised, shocked and even devastated” to see what was happening.

The decision to invade was made in the Kremlin, he believes.

"If it is an operation which will have limited casualties and it will be regarded as a success, the popularity of the leadership will not drop," he said.

 

Bbc

That people like that are openly going against he grain speaks volumes I think

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I would be very suprised if thats true about cyprus as they have very close ties to russia and putin

They are also in the EU. It’s not a coin toss. They are more reliant on the EU than Russia.

[Demitri_C]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

They are also in the EU. It’s not a coin toss. They are more reliant on the EU than Russia.

They do but alot of their economy runs on russian money

[a m ole]

I’m a bit too young to remember much about Yugoslavia and the war in Bosnia aside from hearing about it as a small child, so seeing war in europe is all still a bit unbelievable. I really wasn’t expecting to see photographs of apartments in Kyiv with giant holes blown out of them this morning.

A revolution in Russia would be most welcome.

 

[sidcow]

When I was in Cyprus a couple of years ago the locals were very resentful of all the Russian influence and thought them all extremely rude. I suspect a few in power are benefiting from it but the general populace not liking it at all. 

[CVByrne]

16 minutes ago, Awol said:

I think that is pretty much the plan because we don’t have a better alternative, but if we succeed (inshallah) then it just moves us on to the next problem.

Putin’s political survival very likely rests on the outcome of this war. If he falls, it’s not like there’s some fluffy Liberal Democrat waiting in the wings to take over - they’re either already dead or would be at the first sign of trouble.

The West needs to be signalling very clearly that if Putin falls we won’t be coming after Russia for payback - a narrative that could easily take hold among his potential, very paranoid successors. Get this right, pull Russia out of China’s camp - into even a neutral position - and all of a sudden the future looks very different, but now that all potentially rests on the resistance of ordinary Ukrainians against a fascist maniac.

Lenin said “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”  This feels like one of these rare, extraordinary periods.

China has taken a completely different path in that it wants trade and it wants to be the dominant economic power in Asia. China wants to be an economic superpower and improve the lives of it's people. Putin has no interest in his people.

So I can't see China invading a soverign state like Russia has done in Ukraine. Like would China invade Vietnam and Laos for example! Taiwan is different because that is a result of the Chinses civil war and it's a fully recognised country. 

Edited February 26, 2022 by CVByrne

[sidcow]

3 minutes ago, a m ole said:

A revolution in Russia would be most welcome.

The problem with revolutions is you never know who's going to seize power.  Unknown persons in charge of a country with massive stockpiles of nukes isn't a good thing. 

Better the existing regime deal with him and hopefully a more pragmatic/moderate leader takes power and they can gradually change from within. 

The bonkers thing is with all their massive natural resources, if they invested profits in the country and in the people it could be a vibrant wealthy country.  Instead a few people at the top have stolen it and become super rich elite. 

[magnkarl]

On the Kharkiv front Ukraine has checked Russia and inflicted big casualties. There’s really grim pictures of young Russian men dead under a thin blanket of new snow. The hope is that these pictures spread to Russia.

Is this Putin’s battle of the bulge?

[Davkaus]

2 minutes ago, sidcow said:

 

The bonkers thing is with all their massive natural resources, if they invested profits in the country and in the people it could be a vibrant wealthy country.  Instead a few people at the top have stolen it and become super rich elite. 

Sounds familiar. As ever the enemy is within, not the working man across borders.

[CVByrne]

1 hour ago, NoelVilla said:

Missed Germany changing their minds. Just overrule Hungary now and do it.

 

There are a ot of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine. So it's a different situation for Hungary. They have a massive reliance on Russian Oil too.