Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[Mozzavfc]

1 hour ago, foreveryoung said:

A B2 armed to the teeth over the Kremlin in the dead of night stops Putin using a Nuke. He might be bonkers, but he knows what'll happen if he even attempts

There's no way Putin is still in Moscow. He'll be tucked away under the Urals 

[Awol]

12 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Isn’t the £65 Billion annual spend (almost 2% of our GDP) enough?

Surely it needs to be the other European nations that need to increase their defence spending to a similar 2% level like we already have?

£65 billion would be great, but it’s £45 billion. 

[avfc1982am]

12 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Isn’t the £65 Billion annual spend (almost 2% of our GDP) enough?

Surely it needs to be the other European nations that need to increase their defence spending to a similar 2% level like we already have?

Not when maintaining our own nuclear deterrent takes up a good percentage of it. There is so much equipment we lack for a modern war due to defence cuts.  

[avfc1982am]

8 minutes ago, Mozzavfc said:

There's no way Putin is still in Moscow. He'll be tucked away under the Urals 

He was in St Petersburg yesterday addressing his little Z crew. 

He isn't running or hiding from the west that's for certain. His ego could never allow that. 

[avfc1982am]

Actually I'm mistaken, maintaining trident is about 5% of the annual defence budget. I thought it was much higher than that tbh. 

We need more nukes lol!!!

[chrisp65]

12 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

Actually I'm mistaken, maintaining trident is about 5% of the annual defence budget. I thought it was much higher than that tbh. 

We need more nukes lol!!!

Johnson wants one parked just outside every major town.

[tinker]

18 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Johnson wants one parked just outside every major town.

Yea and he wants the Chinese to build em 

[Awol]

5 minutes ago, tinker said:

Yea and he wants the Chinese to build em 

No he doesn’t. Small Modular Reactors built in Derby. 

[Adman]

How small is Putin's dick tho

[Adman]

Asking for a friend

[chrisp65]

7 minutes ago, tinker said:

Yea and he wants the Chinese to build em 

They’re needed for our future security.

We need a dirty bomb just outside every major conurbation.

[sharkyvilla]

6 hours ago, ender4 said:

Yep, I’m one of those people.  

For at least the last 10 years I’ve been pretty much on the fence and probably slightly more towards scrapping/not renewing Trident.

Ive also always thought that spending £65 Billion annually on defence was way too much and would have been happy with any political party halving that spend.

Since the Ukraine war started, my thinking has changed. Whilst I’d still like to theoretically spend less on defence, for the first time in my life, I can see why it’s a necessary evil.

This war has changed the outlook of a lot of my circle of friends in their comfortable (middle-class?) bubble.

Among all that original Gammon debate on Question Time about Trident with Jeremy Corbyn it struck me that nobody really brought up that Putin might actually be a nutcase.  It was all hypothetical when in reality there always was a danger in close proximity to us. 

Right now I'm still expecting the worst that he will nuke somewhere and anyone trying to apply any kind of rationality to what he does and thinks is mistaken.  He is a psychopathic despot and looking by how fat his head has become and him shaking looks like he is getting treatment for a serious illness.  He's either going to go out in a blaze of 'glory' or it will be a long drawn out process which will probably end up causing the average Russian incredible hardship rather than Putin, who won't give a shit.

Edited April 29, 2022 by sharkyvilla

[bickster]

Putin isn't a nutcase. He's a product of his environment, the culture he's lived in. He's been brought up in, lived and thrived in a corrupt and paranoid culture. It's too easy to class him as a nutter, his actions seem like that to us in the West but he's been brought up and wired completely differently thoughout his life and has an ingrained mistrust of NATO / "The West." A Huge percentage of Russians are the same because that is what the state has drummed into them whether the state was Soviet or Post Soviet His actions need to be viewed through that lens. When the likes of the Stop the War Coalition were talking about NATO threatening Russia by expanding (even when they weren't) that is what Putin saw. He was wrong, they were wrong but as some of them were obvious Putin shills (Galloway & Milne for sure) and the others were lead by the nose, what they were saying might as well have been said by Russia. If you want to think what Putin was thinking, just read some of the crap STWC came out with before the Invasion.

When @magnkarlsays Putin will have a massive border to defend (even though he doesn't HAVE to) he's right because that is the conventional wisdom in Russia and has been for a very long time, they will have to allocate troops for that because that's what the Russian playbook tells them they have to do. This is a country that has never been "Free", never had a democratically elected leader, not in 500 years, they don't understand democracy, in fact many including Putin will think it is a weakness. Elections are something that the winner was always going to win and any opposition is a token gesture. Politics in Russia is just a propaganda exercise, always has been, Russians expect it and many older Russians, I expect, are somewhat scared of democracy and what it entails. The existential threat Ukraine posed for Russia was partly democracy, Russia/Putin is/was scared of having such a large country on it's border, with many many families with relations on both sides that was democratic. That really is a huge threat to Putin, he really can't have that democracy disease spreading any further. Ukraine is too close to home and the populations of the countries are too intermingled. It's a huge threat to Putin

You can talk about Oil and Gas in Ukraine as much as you want, it might play a small part in Putin's thinking but Russia already has plenty of it's own and the petrochemical market will be shrinking globally at some point in the future. The Middle East knows it all too well, hence their massive move to diversify their money

I'm aware I'm rambling a bit here but I think when you look at Putin and what he does, it's too simple to say he's a nutter and a madman. A lot of what he's done is because he sees a massive crisis for Russia if he doesn't "Stop Ukraine" which is why he's made a massive error of judgement and gone all in. He can't back down because the threat is too great from his POV

The reason he's failing massively of course is also a product of that very same environment, corruption, fear of intellect and surrounding himself as Russian leaders and all despots always do, with Yes men, people who think are too dangerous

[KentVillan]

Anyone else worried about how desensitised we’re all becoming to video footage of lives being lost? I find stuff like this weirdly positive, because I know these guys are committing unspeakable crimes, but at the same time I worry about how morally corrupting war is for all parties:

Probably already posted but struggling to keep up with everything in the thread. Just an example of the kind of thing we see every day now on Twitter, and people celebrate it… and tbh I’m happy these **** have been taken out. But it makes me feel uneasy.

[KentVillan]

5 hours ago, bickster said:

Putin isn't a nutcase. He's a product of his environment, the culture he's lived in. He's been brought up in, lived and thrived in a corrupt and paranoid culture. It's too easy to class him as a nutter, his actions seem like that to us in the West but he's been brought up and wired completely differently thoughout his life and has an ingrained mistrust of NATO / "The West." A Huge percentage of Russians are the same because that is what the state has drummed into them whether the state was Soviet or Post Soviet His actions need to be viewed through that lens. When the likes of the Stop the War Coalition were talking about NATO threatening Russia by expanding (even when they weren't) that is what Putin saw. He was wrong, they were wrong but as some of them were obvious Putin shills (Galloway & Milne for sure) and the others were lead by the nose, what they were saying might as well have been said by Russia. If you want to think what Putin was thinking, just read some of the crap STWC came out with before the Invasion.

When @magnkarlsays Putin will have a massive border to defend (even though he doesn't HAVE to) he's right because that is the conventional wisdom in Russia and has been for a very long time, they will have to allocate troops for that because that's what the Russian playbook tells them they have to do. This is a country that has never been "Free", never had a democratically elected leader, not in 500 years, they don't understand democracy, in fact many including Putin will think it is a weakness. Elections are something that the winner was always going to win and any opposition is a token gesture. Politics in Russia is just a propaganda exercise, always has been, Russians expect it and many older Russians, I expect, are somewhat scared of democracy and what it entails. The existential threat Ukraine posed for Russia was partly democracy, Russia/Putin is/was scared of having such a large country on it's border, with many many families with relations on both sides that was democratic. That really is a huge threat to Putin, he really can't have that democracy disease spreading any further. Ukraine is too close to home and the populations of the countries are too intermingled. It's a huge threat to Putin

You can talk about Oil and Gas in Ukraine as much as you want, it might play a small part in Putin's thinking but Russia already has plenty of it's own and the petrochemical market will be shrinking globally at some point in the future. The Middle East knows it all too well, hence their massive move to diversify their money

I'm aware I'm rambling a bit here but I think when you look at Putin and what he does, it's too simple to say he's a nutter and a madman. A lot of what he's done is because he sees a massive crisis for Russia if he doesn't "Stop Ukraine" which is why he's made a massive error of judgement and gone all in. He can't back down because the threat is too great from his POV

The reason he's failing massively of course is also a product of that very same environment, corruption, fear of intellect and surrounding himself as Russian leaders and all despots always do, with Yes men, people who think are too dangerous

I mostly agree with all of this, but the only thing I would say to counter that is that Putin has violently and pointlessly murdered many of his own people for fairly minor transgressions. He behaves like an out and out psychopath, but he channels that psychopathy through a fairly rational assessment of Russia’s position in the world, and his own place in that system.

He clearly dug Russia out of a huge economic hole, and made people fear and respect it more as a superpower. He’s hardly the first leader in world history to value that. But he also enjoys brinkmanship a little too much, and enjoys toying with people, meddling and misdirecting a little too much. It’s psychopath behaviour.

He’s not unhinged or anywhere near as delusional as people say. The apparent “delusions” are more likely the result of a terrible information flow due to decades of corruption and kleptocracy. Regardless of the reasons, he’s a deeply, deeply unpleasant person, and the world would likely be a better place if he suddenly dropped dead.

[TheAuthority]

7 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Anyone else worried about how desensitised we’re all becoming to video footage of lives being lost? I find stuff like this weirdly positive, because I know these guys are committing unspeakable crimes, but at the same time I worry about how morally corrupting war is for all parties:

Probably already posted but struggling to keep up with everything in the thread. Just an example of the kind of thing we see every day now on Twitter, and people celebrate it… and tbh I’m happy these **** have been taken out. But it makes me feel uneasy.

I don't watch any of it. Anything that involves loss of life is something I don't want in my brain.

Even watching movie violence for me since my son was born is hard.

[magnkarl]

1 hour ago, KentVillan said:

Anyone else worried about how desensitised we’re all becoming to video footage of lives being lost? I find stuff like this weirdly positive, because I know these guys are committing unspeakable crimes, but at the same time I worry about how morally corrupting war is for all parties:

Probably already posted but struggling to keep up with everything in the thread. Just an example of the kind of thing we see every day now on Twitter, and people celebrate it… and tbh I’m happy these **** have been taken out. But it makes me feel uneasy.

I must admit, coming from a family where a whole side was wiped out by nazis, that I find it cathartic when nazis get taken out. People can bang on to me about how not all SS soldiers were raving lunatics but I don’t buy it.

Evil needs to be rooted out, the leaders and perpetrators need to be Nuremberged. These Russian soldiers who have now been raping and killing their way through a neighbouring country for 2 months are very aware what they’re doing. The ‘good’ soldiers are handing in their weapons or going missing.

Arm Ukraine to the teeth, rid Europe of nazis, and once Putin falls all his idiotic mates in Orban, AfD, Galloway, Fox News, STWC, Le Pen, Assad, Lukashenko and much of the raving populism that Putin has been funding in Europe will completely fizzle out. It’ll be good for us.

In short, I have more respect for the voles that are ruining my veg patch every night than I do this Z brigade. Long may Ukraine continue to take them out.

Edited April 30, 2022 by magnkarl

[Seat68]

1 hour ago, TheAuthority said:

I don't watch any of it. Anything that involves loss of life is something I don't want in my brain.

Even watching movie violence for me since my son was born is hard.

Same. I haven't watched a single video in this thread as there is a high likelihood of someone being killed in it. Regardless of the victim, I don't need to see it. 

[Panto_Villan]

7 hours ago, bickster said:

Putin isn't a nutcase. He's a product of his environment, the culture he's lived in. He's been brought up in, lived and thrived in a corrupt and paranoid culture. It's too easy to class him as a nutter, his actions seem like that to us in the West but he's been brought up and wired completely differently thoughout his life and has an ingrained mistrust of NATO / "The West." A Huge percentage of Russians are the same because that is what the state has drummed into them whether the state was Soviet or Post Soviet His actions need to be viewed through that lens. When the likes of the Stop the War Coalition were talking about NATO threatening Russia by expanding (even when they weren't) that is what Putin saw. He was wrong, they were wrong but as some of them were obvious Putin shills (Galloway & Milne for sure) and the others were lead by the nose, what they were saying might as well have been said by Russia. If you want to think what Putin was thinking, just read some of the crap STWC came out with before the Invasion.

When @magnkarlsays Putin will have a massive border to defend (even though he doesn't HAVE to) he's right because that is the conventional wisdom in Russia and has been for a very long time, they will have to allocate troops for that because that's what the Russian playbook tells them they have to do. This is a country that has never been "Free", never had a democratically elected leader, not in 500 years, they don't understand democracy, in fact many including Putin will think it is a weakness. Elections are something that the winner was always going to win and any opposition is a token gesture. Politics in Russia is just a propaganda exercise, always has been, Russians expect it and many older Russians, I expect, are somewhat scared of democracy and what it entails. The existential threat Ukraine posed for Russia was partly democracy, Russia/Putin is/was scared of having such a large country on it's border, with many many families with relations on both sides that was democratic. That really is a huge threat to Putin, he really can't have that democracy disease spreading any further. Ukraine is too close to home and the populations of the countries are too intermingled. It's a huge threat to Putin

You can talk about Oil and Gas in Ukraine as much as you want, it might play a small part in Putin's thinking but Russia already has plenty of it's own and the petrochemical market will be shrinking globally at some point in the future. The Middle East knows it all too well, hence their massive move to diversify their money

I'm aware I'm rambling a bit here but I think when you look at Putin and what he does, it's too simple to say he's a nutter and a madman. A lot of what he's done is because he sees a massive crisis for Russia if he doesn't "Stop Ukraine" which is why he's made a massive error of judgement and gone all in. He can't back down because the threat is too great from his POV

The reason he's failing massively of course is also a product of that very same environment, corruption, fear of intellect and surrounding himself as Russian leaders and all despots always do, with Yes men, people who think are too dangerous

I think anyone who holds that much power for that long starts to lose their grip on reality after a while, particularly as they get older.

I do think there’s an element of irrationality about Putin these days that didn’t seem to be there (from my limited observations at least) 10 years back.

[Awol]

1 hour ago, KentVillan said:

Anyone else worried about how desensitised we’re all becoming to video footage of lives being lost? I find stuff like this weirdly positive, because I know these guys are committing unspeakable crimes, but at the same time I worry about how morally corrupting war is for all parties:

Probably already posted but struggling to keep up with everything in the thread. Just an example of the kind of thing we see every day now on Twitter, and people celebrate it… and tbh I’m happy these **** have been taken out. But it makes me feel uneasy.

I want to know what make his phone is, mine can stop working if I drop it on a cushion!