Mrk
Player Valuation: £40m
And who, pray tell, has either the will or force to invade Russia?
Putin doesn't want Ukraine because it's a barrier against invasion (it isn't), he wants Ukraine because he's a megalomaniac fascist. No more, no less.
Current Affairs Ukraine
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Putin doesn't want Ukraine because it's a barrier against invasion (it isn't), he wants Ukraine because he's a megalomaniac fascist. No more, no less.
Diogenes the Cynic
Player Valuation: £40m
Ironically the only risk to Russia's borders in my opinion would come from China.
You can file fear of invasion along with "de-nazification" and Western conspiracy right in the bin.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Yep, within ten years China will want its lands back from Russia, and maybe a bit more…….
There’s a lot to go down in the next decade.
South China Sea far more likely to determine things
Tony101
Player Valuation: £15m
Can’t see it I think if anyone tries to take Russian land. They will launch there nukes the only good thing about it. If it’s China then NATO don’t have to respond. leave Russia and China to destroy each other with out NATO having to lift a finger. Would be stupid for both countries. Hopefully then the world won’t end like it probably would if Russia nuked a NATO country. I just pray for peace we have had enough death and destruction thanks to Putin already. We need the war in Ukraine to end and for China to leave Taiwan alone.
Old Blue 2
Player Valuation: £40m
Do you REALLY think that a nation to the west of Russia is going to/was going to invade Russia.
Sorry mate, but you are just a Putin apologist, 100%
What planet are you on...?
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
The problem with this is twofold - firstly, its that there are a lot of examples of a country to the west of Russia invading it; in the past 110 years its happened three times (four if you count the interventions during the civil war). At the moment it isn't likely that someone would do it, thanks to nukes and the alternative means available to "the West" (as mentioned below), but the security of the western border is a big part (the big part, really) of how any Russian government will approach its policy of defence. Combine this with the interventionist policy of the US since the end of the Cold War, and how mashed up other armies were by the US (most of whom used ex-Soviet equipment and were trained on the Soviet pattern) and it is enough for them to think it is unlikely but not something that could be dismissed out of hand.
Secondly, their focus isn't on a purely military invasion anyway. The focus is on what they call "colour revolutions", where according to them the legitimate (pro-Moscow) government is overthrown by a violent revolt which they believe is sponsored by "the West".
That is how they see they lost Ukraine, how they came very close to losing Belarus, how they understand what happened in Kazakhstan in early 2022 and deep down how they fear the Putin regime will end - in mass protests that the state security forces either cannot suppress or actively participate in.
Of course its far more complex than just the dark arts of the CIA and MI6; the fact they back governments who are usually massively corrupt and massively incompetent creates much of the ground for the "revolt" and its success (a lesson we found out in Afghanistan, and Iraq after our invasions), and the populations can see for themselves how much better the lives of people in Poland, the Baltics and the rest of the former Warsaw Pact have gotten since joining the EU.
From that POV seeing states around them switch sides after these events has ramped up the tension massively, hence where we are now.
I think it behooves all of us in the west, or in Europe at least, to understand this even if we do not agree with it. I don't think the expansion of the EU to the East should stop whilst those countries want to join and are willing to change in order to join, but it should take into account the urgent need to get Russia on-side in this process and there really does need to be a proper assessment of whether NATO is a suitable structure for going forward. For all its success as a defensive alliance, NATO has allowed the military forces of Europe (including ours) to both wither away and become an opportunity for graft; for example seeing the state those Leopard 2s are in Spain and Portugal is just crazy. This is not healthy.
Personally, I think an effective pan-European defence force (which would include us) with common equipment, doctrine, training and logistics (including production, especially of munitions) that can stand by itself without US support is going to be much more viable for Europe, the US and even Russia itself - the US can focus on its main area of concern, the Europeans will be a lot safer as defence will be taken seriously and even the Russians will be able to breath a bit now that the Yank is a lot further away.
Old Blue 2
Player Valuation: £40m
To go back 110 years, and try to equate Napoleon's campaign of 1812, the Kaiser's attack in World War 1 and Hitler's attack in World War 2, with the present situation of Russia attacking Ukraine to defend itself beggars belief. Are you serious...?
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
Well, for a start 1812 was not 110 years ago - I meant WW1, the Polish-Soviet War and WW2.
Secondly are you really suggesting that the events of the last hundred years are not going to have a bearing on a current government's thinking? I mean its only relatively recently that people who actually lived through one of those invasions, fought in it, lost friends and family to it have no longer been common. We, and especially the Russians, are surrounded by memorials to those wars - the effects, though distant, are still with us.
Or to put it another way, when Germany reunified in 1989 Thatcher opposed it precisely because of the fears (from WW1 and WW2) she had of a powerful Germany - history has shown she was wrong, but why she thought that is something everyone should be able to understand. Likewise we should understand why many of them think what they do about this; it isnt just because of propaganda or because Putin is a horror.
Russia launches a wave of really expensive cruise missiles, hits a couple of apartment blocks and kills a load of innocent civilians. Meanwhile Ukraine attacks a Russian oil refinery with a couple of cheap UAV’s, and effectively puts a huge dent in Russias ability to refine oil into diesel for their war machine.
Old Blue 2
Player Valuation: £40m
First paragraph: splitting hairs over a few months. Let's forget Napoleon in Moscow, eh?
Second paragraph: Are you really saying that thinking that pervaded the Second World War still applies to the thinking in Russia? Come off it! Or if it does, it shows how thick the Russkies are - the world has moved on...
Third paragrpah: Thatcher was an ultra right-wing nutcase whose only interests were herself and her ultra right-wing party. Thatcher may have not wanted the reunification of Germany in 1989, but in reality it was none of her business in the first place. So why you mention that cow completely escapes me...
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
Of course it does!
We lost far less (just under 1% vs just under 16%) of our population as the result of that war than they did, and (aside from the Channel Islands and some colonies) none of our territory was invaded. If we'd suffered losses on the scale the Soviet Union did, we would have seen nearly eight million British people dead, military and civilians. People here still bang on about the war regularly anyway; if we had lost eight million in it those few of us who would still be here would not have forgotten it either.
Zhukov and the Red Army only managed to save the population from genocide at the cost of millions of lives and hundreds of kilometres of Soviet territory - and only a few of those things (a military genius, a huge army and all that space) remain.
Why would they be "thick" to not forget that? Why would we think they were thick for not forgetting it?
Following Russias threats against this country and it's people, i again feel the need to demand that the Russian ambassador to Ireland be expelled from this country.
Toffee_Loaf
Player Valuation: £1m
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