Ukraine

[Suff]

We haven't seen this level of invasion in a while. Lot of lessons to be learned.

They should have ignored Russia's concerns and onboarded Ukraine into NATO. About the only possible way of stopping Russia coming in.

I see Finland is eyeing NATO membership now. Even left wingers shifting their stance. Pity it took this to wake them up.

[Workingman]

They should have ignored Russia's concerns and onboarded Ukraine into NATO. About the only possible way of stopping Russia coming in.

Err, no. That would have put a 3,600 km NATO border right up against Russia, the one thing Putin nor NATO ever wanted, but the Western hawks did; they just didn't care.

We should have talked and tried to understand each other's points of view, but it's too late for that now. You hawks have seen to that....

I am not supporting Putin but I do understand where he is coming from.

[Suff]

I also understand where he is coming from. But I also understand the type. He respects only strength, talk? Same as Stalin.

Putting a border he cannot cross, without costs he is not willing to bear, right next to him, is a strong play and one he would understand.

Talk he understands too. It is because of talk that he invaded.

[Workingman]

Nukes. He has nukes, let's not forget those. He is mad, in both the irritated and psychological senses. They are why we are siting up and taking notice - not Ukraine.

30 - love. serving for the match - only £148,000 a pop with Boris-the-uncombed.

He has the West by the S & Cs and both sides know it. Only the Russian people can stop him. Hitting the oligarchs and keeping them out of the West's playgrounds might work.

[cromwell]

I wonder how much Putin was encouraged by what he might see as the idiocy or decadence of the West?
The people in charge of some western countries, like Trudeau, obsess about gender identity, trans rights, using some weird pronoun and staying on the right side of the woke offence industry.
To someone like Putin this must look stupid and pitiful.

It is a wake up call to some in the west. There are leaders out there who don't care about BLM, or trans rights, or net zero, or who attended a cheese and wine party in Downing Street.

The secretary general of the UN is quoted as asking Putin, "Please Mr President, give peace a chance".
That's what the west has been reduced to, quoting from a cliched old pop song.

I think "The Great Reset" needs to be a reset of the mind.

[medsec222]

Exactly Cromwell. We are all becoming too obsessed with trivialities when there are far more important issues to address. We will have to see how much the various European nations will stick together and present a united front. There appears to be some evidence coming out that individual nations will put their own domestic issues first.

[TheOstrich]

The fact that the Italians, the Germans and (I think) the Belgiums do not want to use SWIFT as a sanction tells you all you need to know about Western unity.

There is a big part of me that says that the UK should give Putin exactly what he wants by pulling out of NATO and refusing to defend these fractured and self-serving European countries. Tell the EU countries that if they won't pull together with us against Russia, then they will have to get on with it by themselves. Might just concentrate a few minds, but I won't hold my breath.

[Suff]

The EU countries have been so long without conflict that entire generations have never had to understand the reality of it. When faced with the reality they think they can talk and debate and threaten and stuff will simply change to what they want.

Reality is that the barbarian with the big club beats all "reason" and "intelligence". Unless you use the reason and intelligence to arm yourself and make it both futile and extremely painful for the barbarian with the club to try it on, then there is only one end result. The light of reason and intelligence will be lying bleeding on the floor and the barbarian with the big club will have their foot on the neck of light and reason.

As soon as Russia moved over the border they should have been shut out. Swift shouldn't have even been a discussion, just do it. But nobody is planning for this any more and Russia has already been sanctioned for action in Ukraine. You can bet your ass they have gone a long way to mitigate whatever sanctions are put in place. Being the sole supplier of energy being one of those mitigating activities.

For far too long the EU countries have believed that their Economic might will constrain any aggressors. So much so that they only paid lip service to NATO and even when called up with NATO for the Balkans, Germany offered supply and command and control. No fighting forces, not their remit in NATO.

In some ways this is a wake-up call. Whether or not the nations will actually wake up or not is a matter for debate. Hopefully this will put to bed, for a Long time, any discussion on getting rid of Trident and not replacing it. When the aggressor has a weapon you'd better have an answer to it. Ours is that we have enough capability to turn Russia into a nuclear wasteland. Alone, no US required. With NATO, our capability is world spanning.

The only other EU country which is close is France and because the test ban stopped them getting to second stage and third stage fusion weapons, the yield of their entire arsenal is not high enough to make a decisive deterrent. They need NATO a hell of a lot more than we do.

As this evolves we will see self interest win out against the common good. Russia is likely to get away with this because nobody who can get there in time really wants to pay the price to stop them. Weak NATO leadership has not helped. This action will either strengthen NATO or destroy it. It cannot simply remain the same in the face of this kind of threat. Especially when it has already been proven that if you allow a small incursion then others will follow.

What we should be looking at are drivers. Russia is a heavy Fossil Fuel energy provider. All these Net Zero proclamations are a real threat to the Russian economy. Possibly much more than sanctions. When this kind of thing happens there is always much more going on than the public statements.

[Workingman]

France, as with all the (known) nuclear states, uses the Teller-Ulam system - fission, fusion, fission - for its thermonuclear warheads. It has a stockpile of about 50 megatons deliverable by 300 missile or air drop systems.

However, being French and it being in the EU mean that they are about as scary as Roman Candles, aren't they? FFS!

Let's be honest, nukes are not going to be used, and it is very unlikely that NATO and Russian Federation troops will be going head-to-head. With a bit of luck it will be no more than a Cold War type stand-off till Putin is toppled or keels over.

[Suff]

Let's be honest, nukes are not going to be used, and it is very unlikely that NATO and Russian Federation troops will be going head-to-head. With a bit of luck it will be no more than a Cold War type stand-off till Putin is toppled or keels over.

I agree, nuclear is not likely, even theatre weapons.

I would be sad to see a cold war type "acquisition" followed by a stand off as they prepared to "acquire" some more. I'd hope that we had a bit more backbone. But I doubt it.

The time when we happily shipped our forces off to be killed is long gone. Not even Desert Storm levels of support for that remain. In the end the people will be all for "action" till the point where it puts our troops in the line of fire. Then Ukraine is on it's own.

Sad but very true.