Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[magnkarl]

5 minutes ago, tinker said:

Don't get drawn into the retric of war. Amongst any group of people theres murderers and rapists , they don't do it because they are ordered to they do it,  they want to do it and in a war situation they can get away with it. 

The first people into any war should be the people who say it's necessary, or at least their children. Sending faceless Russian 18 year olds into the Ukraine is a disgrace for humanity. 

Yet many of these 18 year olds have committed horrendous war crimes in the name of the idiot that sent them there. The Russian psyche is violent, ugly and a cesspool of brutality.

Not that anyone should be surprised when one reads what Soviet armies were up to in Eastern Europe at the end of ww2.

[Tegis]

8 minutes ago, sidcow said:

 

Dammit, I even scanned twice for a reply

[Genie]

Clearly the Russian soldiers are of the view “there are no rules”. In fact probably worse than that, they’re probably encouraged to cause as much devastation as possible.

[bickster]

27 minutes ago, tinker said:

and rapists , they don't do it because they are ordered to they do it

Except in Ukraine this isn't true. They were ordered to do it. Intercepted phone calls prove this and the systematic way it was done from house to house in places like Bucha also prove it. It's happened on a mass scale. These aren't a few bad eggs in an otherwise normal military, it has been systematic and widespread.

[chrisp65]

If we can see poorly trained poorly motivated people will commit war crimes, either under instruction or not, would it be moral to draw the war out a day longer than necessary?

[Genie]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

If we can see poorly trained poorly motivated people will commit war crimes, either under instruction or not, would it be moral to draw the war out a day longer than necessary?

I’m sure THIS war could be ended relatively quickly several ways but that wouldn’t ensure we didn’t have another war in 6 months time, with Russia better prepared.

The yanks said a month of so ago, when the war is over Russia needs to be broken.

[chrisp65]

5 minutes ago, Genie said:

I’m sure THIS war could be ended relatively quickly several ways but that wouldn’t ensure we didn’t have another war in 6 months time, with Russia better prepared.

The yanks said a month of so ago, when the war is over Russia needs to be broken.

No they don’t need to be broken.

We ‘broke’ Iraq, how’s that working out for us?

They need to be taught a lesson that they cannot beat the combined will of Europe and North America.

I’m not sure 12 months of rape and theft and misery will do that.

[Arj Guy]

53 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Yet many of these 18 year olds have committed horrendous war crimes in the name of the idiot that sent them there. The Russian psyche is violent, ugly and a cesspool of brutality.

Not that anyone should be surprised when one reads what Soviet armies were up to in Eastern Europe at the end of ww2.

Your hatred of Russians is quite disturbing. I'm sure you'll be in this thread calling for a nuclear war when Ukraine is inevitably defeated

[tinker]

59 minutes ago, bickster said:

Except in Ukraine this isn't true. They were ordered to do it. Intercepted phone calls prove this and the systematic way it was done from house to house in places like Bucha also prove it. It's happened on a mass scale. These aren't a few bad eggs in an otherwise normal military, it has been systematic and widespread.

I don't believe it,  who in their right mind would do this type of thing under order, I can say for sure I wouldn't , i would rather die. These "intercepted phone calls" prove nothing........ I have to believe humanity is better than throwing away their morals, believe,  to comply with an order. Russians are not the problem, their leaders are . The Ukraine should and will use every weapon they have, even if it's bending the truth. 

Edited June 17, 2022 by tinker
Drunk

[magnkarl]

7 hours ago, Arj Guy said:

Your hatred of Russians is quite disturbing. I'm sure you'll be in this thread calling for a nuclear war when Ukraine is inevitably defeated

There you go again. How’s Russia’s total victory working out? They’ve not moved an inch in weeks. What’s your motivation for repeating that hogwash?

You are however free to disprove my point. The Russian army has raped, pillaged and killed on an industrial scale in Ukraine. I don’t hate Russia but I sure hate Russians who commit these crimes. That is a far cry away from constantly claiming Russia is winning.

As I say, once you’re on the butt end of a genocide, your thoughts on these matters change. Try to put yourself in i.e a Ukrainian woman in Melitopol’s shoes who’s had her whole family killed, raped and dumped in a mass grave rather than constantly proclaiming Russian victory.

Edited June 18, 2022 by magnkarl

[magnkarl]

6 hours ago, tinker said:

I don't believe it,  who in their right mind would do this type of thing under order, I can say for sure I wouldn't , i would rather die. These "intercepted phone calls" prove nothing........ I have to believe humanity is better than throwing away their morals, believe,  to comply with an order. Russians are not the problem, their leaders are . The Ukraine should and will use every weapon they have, even if it's bending the truth. 

So who’s committing the rapes, murders and executions? The generals? There were plenty of Wehrmacht divisions that refused to comply with Hitler’s genocides. In Ukraine it appears that it’s become a free for all where there’s no morality with pretty much anyone, top to bottom, in the Russian army.

It takes both a culture of doing whatever you’re told to do and having people on top giving the order for these wide scale atrocities to happen.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

In the short term Ukraine will lose the war.  NATO simply will not arm them to a level that allows them to take back all the territory that has been captured.  

But remember this date - 26 December 1991.  

That was the day that the USSR was killed by the West after 40 years of economic/proxy war.  East Germany, Poland, Czech Republic and many other countries finally got their freedom after 50 years of occupation.  They all joined NATO.  

Russia faces the same fate as the USSR.  The only question is how long it will take.

This war is Russia’s biggest ever mistake.    Their best outcome if for Putin to die and be replaced by someone who blames him for everything, negotiates an end to hostilities and takes a pro-West foreign policy.  But that won’t happen.  Russia is doomed to a slow economic death.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

9 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

If we can see poorly trained poorly motivated people will commit war crimes, either under instruction or not, would it be moral to draw the war out a day longer than necessary?

Considering only the war crimes committed by Russian soldiers it would be morally wrong to let any of them walk out of the war alive.  The victims deserve some justice,  they kill women and little kids for fun and the world knows within a few miles where all these words removed are.  We might as well keep going and remove them from the world one by one.  Let them live and they will do it again,  they have a taste for it now.  If they get back to Russia parading around Red Square as heroes,  this cannot happen under any circumstances.

I suspect the West has a plan to end this,  just not quite yet.  

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

23 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

But that won’t happen.  Russia is doomed to a slow economic death.  

The users of the gas and oil from Russia determine the speed of the death.  Set a date (EG 90 days),  and class Russia as a Terrorist state which it basically is. 

Remove the ability of countries to pay money to them for goods and services as this would be the same as giving money to the IRA / Taliban.

 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

8 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

The users of the gas and oil from Russia determine the speed of the death.  Set a date (EG 90 days),  and class Russia as a Terrorist state which it basically is. 

Remove the ability of countries to pay money to them for goods and services as this would be the same as giving money to the IRA / Taliban.

 

Yes but no. 

It's impossible to prevent trade between 2 countries without military intervention.

But what we can do is make the process harder and more inconvenient. That lowers the price of their exports, increases the price of their imports and makes people likely to trade elsewhere. 

Putting it simply, if a country needs to pay for its gas with gold, spare parts for Boeing airliners, semi-conductors, BMW cars and Japanese electronics they will do so if the price is low enough to justify the effort and the risk of being sanctioned themselves. 

 

[chrisp65]

40 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Considering only the war crimes committed by Russian soldiers it would be morally wrong to let any of them walk out of the war alive.  The victims deserve some justice,  they kill women and little kids for fun and the world knows within a few miles where all these words removed are.  We might as well keep going and remove them from the world one by one.  Let them live and they will do it again,  they have a taste for it now.  If they get back to Russia parading around Red Square as heroes,  this cannot happen under any circumstances.

I suspect the West has a plan to end this,  just not quite yet.  

So I also agree the crimes of Russian soldiers are morally wrong. That they are raping and murdering civilians. I also think the West is choosing to drag this war out and drip feed enough help to not allow a swift Russian victory, or to push them back.

Now, if I was Ukrainian and my son or father were murdered next month, or my wife or daughter raped and tortured next August, would I consider that a good moral position from the West?

I don’t think it is.

And before anybody gets the wrong end of the wrong stick, that’s absolutely not ‘a little bit appeasy’. It’s the opposite. The guy needs a punch in the mouth that puts him on the floor. It’s the only thing he’ll understand and the only thing that might show the Russian people that the Wizard behind the curtain is an old man with mental problems. We use what it takes to get him gone as fast as possible and then we rebuild shiny new free cities right on his border so his people can see the alternative to corrupt dictatorship. In an ideal world. We should at least be aiming for that.

Not dragging it out longer than truly necessary as a tactic at the expense of the civilian population.

[Genie]

6 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

So I also agree the crimes of Russian soldiers are morally wrong. That they are raping and murdering civilians. I also think the West is choosing to drag this war out and drip feed enough help to not allow a swift Russian victory, or to push them back.

Now, if I was Ukrainian and my son or father were murdered next month, or my wife or daughter raped and tortured next August, would I consider that a good moral position from the West?

I don’t think it is.

And before anybody gets the wrong end of the wrong stick, that’s absolutely not ‘a little bit appeasy’. It’s the opposite. The guy needs a punch in the mouth that puts him on the floor. It’s the only thing he’ll understand and the only thing that might show the Russian people that the Wizard behind the curtain is an old man with mental problems. We use what it takes to get him gone as fast as possible and then we rebuild shiny new free cities right on his border so his people can see the alternative to corrupt dictatorship. In an ideal world. We should at least be aiming for that.

Not dragging it out longer than truly necessary as a tactic at the expense of the civilian population.

Are you suggesting we prioritise pushing Russia back quickly, or targeting Putin directly?

 

[BleedClaretAndBlue]

hero’s

[HKP90]

1 hour ago, BleedClaretAndBlue said:

hero’s

That is good news, but it will be a challenge getting it out of Ukraine, come harvest.

[LondonLax]

Yeah the problem is the grain all typically gets shipped by boat through the Black Sea but that has now been mined and Ukraine’s ports are blockaded. 

They can ship small amounts by rail, the train gage is different in Ukraine and the EU countries so it all needs to be off loaded one carriage at a time etc. That’s all provided the rail lines are even still in tact. 

I believe silos are being built on the Ukraine Poland border to try and store some of it while they work out the logistics but there is going to be more global pain to come when the harvest doesn’t arrive in the usual quantities come in the autumn. The Middle East and Africa will feel it hardest as it is a life staple but it will affect us all at the supermarket etc.