Current Affairs Ukraine

[blulouie]

Shameful

 

[LinekersLegs]

 

[Alan Whittle]

Shameful

But we’re “doing everything we can.”

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

Was it @Mutzo Nutzo who was saying about Donetsk and Lugansk as being key areas for the Ukraine economy through energy sources?

Nope not me

 

[tsubaki]

I'm not sure about that. Wars tend to move more slowly than Twitter feeds. It took the Americans two weeks to capture Baghdad and at the time the US military was criticised for its reckless haste. Russia seems to have the bulk of the Ukrainian military pinned down if not already surrounded in the East; it probably has control of the entire Black Sea coast within reach, and they are also steadily advancing up the Dnieper where they may even be planning to link up with Kiev, if they really wanted to make a go of it. At that point they can probably settle on whatever terms they like, most likely: recognition of Crimea (which in 2014 and certainly now almost unanimously prefers to remain Russian); de facto control of the Eastern statelets, and a government in Ukraine that while never likely to be friendly won't join NATO or the EU or act as though the West is interested in protecting it, either. Sure, they're facing logistical challenges - virtually all armies of this size do - and they are losing tanks and planes unexpectedly. But there is, by design, a good deal of slack - they probably have three times more tanks than the entire rest of Europe combined, for instance.

Since somebody will at this point probably accuse me of being an FSB agent or a Putin sympathizer I hasten to add that what Russia is doing to Ukrainian cities is - I would hope it goes without saying - utterly deplorable and immoral. It should never have been allowed to come to this, not least because neither Russia nor NATO/EU actually want Ukraine to be a member of the latter.

Baghdad was a lot further away for the Yanks than Kiev though, and I am not sure they do have that much of the Ukrainian army pinned down in the East (that probably ties in with the claim of theirs that the Ukrainians were about to attack the two republics).

 

[efcfanwirral]

Germany Says It Won't Stop Buying Russian Energy Despite Moscow’s War in Ukraine

Germany will continue to buy natural gas, oil and coal from Russia despite Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, the government in Berlin said Monday. Germany and Europe are too dependent on Russian energy imports for power, heating and industrial production to be able to cut trade links wit

www.wsj.com

Meanwhile, renewables prices:

I don't think Europeans or Americans realise just how grim this could get. What is far scarier is that their governments don't seem to, either. An economy with decisive power over the global price of food, fuel, and dozens of metals etc required for basic industrial production can command power in a way that economies based on spreadsheets, management consultants, real estate bubbles, insurance, HR directives and instagram influencers cannot, regardless of how much smaller its paper GDP may be. And that's without Russia, which has rapidly closed in on most of its objectives in Ukraine, feeling the need to show off its cyber capabilities.

Edit: What historians will find particularly mad is that all of this has happened despite both Russia and the West fundamentally agreeing that Ukraine will never be an EU or NATO member.

The governments know exactly how much we'll suffer due to these sanctions, they just don't want to say. Once people put the greater good/"The Right Thing" at the forefront of their minds, they'll accept the pain. I'd expect the extent of the sacrifices we're going to be making in the coming weeks/months/hopefully not years to be drip-fed. Otherwise some people's sympathies for Ukraine might dial back a little bit...

But then what can they do? Encourage panic buying to accelerate it would be counter productive so it seems to be a situation of hoping and praying. There's no real way to prepare the public without panicking them

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

In that link the below poses an interesting situation, if true,

 

[tsubaki]

In that link the below poses an interesting situation, if true,

we should all be very concerned how much the papers are repeating things they saw on Twitter.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

There would be many who cannot afford to cook food, heat their homes etc that would consider both scenarios to be similar for their own personal perspective.

I get what you are saying, mate, but I cannot help but feel that a world war is the least desirable of the options that seem open at the minute. Nothing looks particularly great though does it.

 

[Death]

View attachment 158245

Protect civilians in Ukraine

We uncover truth and hold the powerful to account. Take action, donate and join the Amnesty movement to protect human rights.

www.amnesty.org.uk

You can only imagine that list for 20 years straight. Week in week out.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

we should all be very concerned how much the papers are repeating things they saw on Twitter.

Seems it came through Christo Grozev/Belligcat



Letter translation below

 

[devogue]

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

You can only imagine that list for 20 years straight. Week in week out.

You're right. Let us all get behind Putin's invasion.

 

[JammyP]

Right but none of us know the "plan" of Putin, if we did we'd be able to stop it. None if us know the "Russian playbook" either that keeps getting mentioned as a metric that apparently they are failing on according to our media and twitter sources.

End of the day Ukraine aren't winning this war against Russia alone, not even remotely. Its like saying Iraq beats USA. That's a cold hard reality and people can share as many tweets of pics showing deserted coloums of jeeps or the occasional downed plane/ heli, it doesn't change that fact and its not making a dent in the Russian war machine.

I mean do people in here really believe what they're reading /being told, by blue tick twitter accounts and the media outlets, translates to Ukraine having any chance of winning this disaster of a situation? Because they can't without NATO stepping in and NATO stepping in means WW3 which is far worse than the current situation. Sending weapons only prolongs Ukrainian suffering and serves as a proxy war for the West at the expense of more civilian lives.

The reality is Putin will get what he wants here, no doubt. There will be no Hauge trials or Putin loss to Ukraine or whatever else fairy tales people believe in here and it doesn't matter if he takes military losses... For every loss he takes Ukraine are taking 5 to 6 times more. He gets what he wants and his own puppet regime leader will be put in charge of Ukraine. Then Russia will withdraw, barring units they leave in Belarus and maybe Ukraine, and the West will be back at the negotiation table with Putin for resolution.

I don't know what people in here are expecting other than that. I've got slammed /called delusional and stupid for telling it as it is rather than towing the "party" line and saying sweet nothings about Ukraine and how they'll win... Im being a realist and I hope I'm wrong but I don't think I am

If Ukraine falls - and the Russians might be odds-on favourites given their resources, if NATO does not step in, what is to stop Russian intervention in the Baltic states, or the Balkans, or Poland? It really is grim. Because defending them is also potentially WW3, and leaving Ukraine to be trampled down just flies in the face of anything like civilisation. I worry that not stopping Putin solves nothing at all. We are left hoping he will be overthrown - but he does control the media and the state security apparatus. What happens when he dies - and he will not live for ever? I know this is all questions. But the answers are vital.

 

[Tree13]

I'm glad you were OK with the alien abduction part of the post though! lol

Isn't everyone ok with alien abduction?