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Again, you assert that any intervention, no matter how measured and limited in scope will be met by immediate nuclear destruction, and yet can provide no substantiative evidence to support this.
This seems counterintuitive im sure but its possible Putin thought he could just walk in and get what he wanted without too much aggro and now thats not happened he's having to get in much deeper so he doesn't lose face at home. The West needs to give him a Golden Bridge rather than just keep upping the ante in what almost seems like the West trying to outdo each other on sanctions without realising there will be consequences elsewhere in the world from the economic damage that is being done.
We're between a rock and a hard place. Intervention would result in WW3, doing nothing will result in the fall of Ukraine. So all we really have left is sanctions.
I like to avoid effing around and finding out. We don't know what intervention will bring.
We're between a rock and a hard place. Intervention would result in WW3, doing nothing will result in the fall of Ukraine. So all we really have left is sanctions.
The West needs to give him a Golden Bridge rather than just keep upping the ante in what almost seems like the West trying to outdo each other on sanctions without realising there will be consequences elsewhere in the world from the economic damage that is being done.
And what do you suggest? Ukraine is a independent democratic country (well, at the moment), so we can’t decide for them.
As to the economic damage, a lot of that is due to the cost of fossil fuels increasing. To be fair, that partly our own fault (mainly that of our governments) in ignoring climate change and allowing themselves to be far too reliant on imports from countries with, shall we say, questionable human rights and morals.
Any sensible person in charge of a supply chain will tell you, that it’s wise to have alternative sources of critical supplies.
This seems counterintuitive im sure but its possible Putin thought he could just walk in and get what he wanted without too much aggro and now thats not happened he's having to get in much deeper so he doesn't lose face at home. The West needs to give him a Golden Bridge rather than just keep upping the ante in what almost seems like the West trying to outdo each other on sanctions without realising there will be consequences elsewhere in the world from the economic damage that is being done.
The threat by Putin is widely regarded in the industry I work in (subsidiary industry to defence) to have meant he was authorising additional front line personnel to man his deterrence assets (on top of the personnel already there). Indeed the deliberately ambiguous nature of the statement is being seen as potential posture without declaring he would start nuclear war.
I wasn’t too far off with my (amateur) assessment then when I said it could mean simply recalling all personnel from leave. As you say “special alert” (or whatever term he used) is rather ambiguous and not a recognised alert level from what I’ve read. It sounded strong domestically and ominous to the rest of world though which is what matters. That doesn’t change my opinion on military intervention though.
It is also being seen as an admission that he's weakened by Ukrainnlian resistance & sanctions but doesn't want to be seen personally making "weak" public statements.
Ukrainian Railways are still running some services across the whole country, including near the front lines, and are putting on extra services to "evacuate women and children".
Unfortunately we find ourselves in a situation where to save the world, we basically have to let this happen. Now we probably all hope that the Ukrainians can hold off or push back against the Russians and this situation can end.
Red telephone, nuclear football, who cares what Putin has? The point is he has the means to launch several thousand nuclear warheads at a moment's notice.
I appreciate there are many like yourself who feel anxiety about the current situation, I understand you might be younger than myself and no experience of the cold war, or 1991 gulf war for that matter, where it seemed a chemical weapon armed iraq would drive an atomic armed Israel into the conflict.
Consider that the cabal that runs Russia and empowers Putin (Abramovich and chums) have looted their country of anything not nailed down and squirrelled their wealth in London and EU cities like Paris, Milan, Monaco. Western Europe is their playground since they stripped Russia bare, there is not much there for them to spend their ill gotten gains on. The Russian regime has not stopped supplying gas to Europe, as if the lights go out it would spoil their caviar in the fridges of their palaces. They are hardly likely to damage the places they prefer to hang out over their own country. And they are effectively human shields Western Europe should detain.
What the Russian regime and its enablers don't care about is their own people. Grinding attritional war has always been the preferred Russian MO and there is no indication it will be different this time. I am a little worried that the sanctions we are placing on the Russian economy will hurt the people in the street who are already suffering and actually rally them behind Putin for a bit.
Better to target the oliogarchs. A so-called "yacht" the size of a cross channel ferry has been seized by the germans. I like the suggestion for its fate proposed by the Ukrainian minister.
German authorities did not immediately respond to Reuters inquiries. Forbes reported that representatives for Usmanov did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ukraine’s advisor to the minister of internal affairs, Anton Geraschenko, responded to the report on Telegram by saying the yacht should be sent to Ukraine and refitted as a missile cruiser.
I also heard on the radio somebody saying it is time to publicly seize the kleptocrats mansions and use them to house ukrainian refugees.
Ukraine was a similar kleptocracy to Russia until a decade ago so they have the measure of these people. They are calling for NATO intervention despite any concerns that WMD might be used in the conflict. Park your fantasies about atomic bombs and consider this could involve chemical weapons that were indeed used in the conflict of Syria. Given these have been used on British soil also, it seems telling that the media know-it-alls are not discussing these horrific weapons, presumably they are not as exciting or so culturally ingrained. The Ukrainians are prepared to make their calls for intervention nonetheless and it is on their battlefields that these weapons could potentially be used, so they are apparently confident that this will not happen under the world's gaze.
Given we're not intervening militarily, we should absolutely be exercising the alternative power options we have. Russia has no inalienable right to interact with Western countries outside of high diplomacy whatsoever, and I think it's about time they were reminded of that.
To be honest I am a bit surprised by the lack of retaliation by Russia in response to the West's sanctions, being banned from international sport, arming Ukraine and suffering significant cyber attacks. Obviously we have had the nuclear threats but Russia has not stopped any of its exports, imposed any sanctions of its own or hit the West with any meaningful cyber attacks of their own. Not sure why this is, considering the options at Putin's disposal.
To be honest I am a bit surprised by the lack of retaliation by Russia in response to the West's sanctions, being banned from international sport, arming Ukraine and suffering significant cyber attacks. Obviously we have had the nuclear threats but Russia has not stopped any of its exports, imposed any sanctions of its own or hit the West with any meaningful cyber attacks of their own. Not sure why this is, considering the options at Putin's disposal.
I appreciate there are many like yourself who feel anxiety about the current situation, I understand you might be younger than myself and no experience of the cold war, or 1991 gulf war for that matter, where it seemed a chemical weapon armed iraq would drive an atomic armed Israel into the conflict.
Consider that the cabal that runs Russia and empowers Putin (Abramovich and chums) have looted their country of anything not nailed down and squirrelled their wealth in London and EU cities like Paris, Milan, Monaco. Western Europe is their playground since they stripped Russia bare, there is not much there for them to spend their ill gotten gains on. The Russian regime has not stopped supplying gas to Europe, as if the lights go out it would spoil their caviar in the fridges of their palaces. They are hardly likely to damage the places they prefer to hang out over their own country. And they are effectively human shields Western Europe should detain.
What the Russian regime and its enablers don't care about is their own people. Grinding attritional war has always been the preferred Russian MO and there is no indication it will be different this time. I am a little worried that the sanctions we are placing on the Russian economy will hurt the people in the street who are already suffering and actually rally them behind Putin for a bit.
Better to target the oliogarchs. A so-called "yacht" the size of a cross channel ferry has been seized by the germans. I like the suggestion for its fate proposed by the Ukrainian minister.
I also heard on the radio somebody saying it is time to publicly seize the kleptocrats mansions and use them to house ukrainian refugees.
Ukraine was a similar kleptocracy to Russia until a decade ago so they have the measure of these people. They are calling for NATO intervention despite any concerns that WMD might be used in the conflict. Park your fantasies about atomic bombs and consider this could involve chemical weapons that were indeed used in the conflict of Syria. Given these have been used on British soil also, it seems telling that the media know-it-alls are not discussing these horrific weapons, presumably they are not as exciting or so culturally ingrained. The Ukrainians are prepared to make their calls for intervention nonetheless and it is on their battlefields that these weapons could potentially be used, so they are apparently confident that this will not happen under the world's gaze.
It’s worth pointing out that the Ukrainians may feel like they have little or nothing to lose at this point and are already in a desperate fight for survival, but I do find your post(s) interesting.
What concerns me is that there’s a lot “I don’t think” going on here (that’s not aimed at you specifically by the way), and it concerns me because a small miscalculation is exactly what could cause this conflict to escalate. As I see it, there’s a very fine line between the right and wrong courses of action here, and in truth the majority of the views expressed are divided only by this fine line as opposed to being poles apart (with the odd exception).
This is a thread on twitter about a photo of a Russian army wheeled missile launcher, where the tyres had decayed during storage. It means they now have a convoy stuck on a road, where the tyres will rip to shreds if they go onto the mud.
I like to avoid effing around and finding out. We don't know what intervention will bring.
We're between a rock and a hard place. Intervention would result in WW3, doing nothing will result in the fall of Ukraine. So all we really have left is sanctions.
You contradict yourself. First you're saying that we don't know what intervention will bring. Then you're saying that it would bring WW3. Of course it's the first statement that's correct. The reality is, no matter what we do, we don't know what the result will be. And whether we intervene or whether we don't intervene, there is either way a small possibility of it leading to WW3.
You contradict yourself. First you're saying that we don't know what intervention will bring. Then you're saying that it would bring WW3. Of course it's the first statement that's correct. The reality is, no matter what we do, we don't know what the result will be. And whether we intervene or whether we don't intervene, there is either way a small possibility of it leading to WW3.
The difference here is that one person won't die, 90% of the world's population will, a large portion by radiation poisoning or starvation from nuclear winter. Both long, painful deaths, made worse by a collapse of health systems. You need to get a grip on reality, we can't go in guns blazing like we did in Iraq.
90% of the World's population? You say that with remarkable certainty. Do you have access to some top secret research that no-one else knows about?
The reality is of course that we don't really know what would happen. However, only a minority of of the World's population lives in Europe or Russia, the places where attacks would happen. There is of course a possibility of fallout, and 'nuclear winter' affecting other parts of the World too, but that's fairly speculative, and is probably only a risk if hundreds of nuclear weapons were fired - seems unlikely given that even the first few of weapons could effectively destroy the Governments of the warring nations.
Don't get me wrong, a nuclear war would be utterly awful, and really needs to be avoided at all costs. But at the same time, I think we can get by without gross exaggerations of the likely consequences. With all our modern knowledge and technology and with humans spread right across the World, it's pretty unlikely that a nuclear war would be the end of humanity or anything like that. (It could well be the end of Europe as any kind of major power though, and may well see many of us in the UK being killed).
The reality is that we all have our own tolerance for accepting the risk of nuclear war. For me the red line is a NATO state. If Russia attacks a NATO state then we respond in kind and damn the consequences. I would hope that they wouldn't use nuclear weapons in such a conflict and instead we "just" have a conventional war ("just" because the loss of life and damage would make the current war look like a children's play). If others risk appetite for nuclear war includes Ukraine then that's fair enough and your (in the general sense not trying to single you out specifically!!) desire to protect freedom no matter the cost up to and including nuclear war is, in my view admirable. I wish to protect freedom and our way of life also. I would love nothing more than for NATO to ride to Ukraine's rescue. But my risk appetite for nuclear war does not extend that far.
That sounds a fair assessment. And maybe the difference is largely just in where our 'red lines' lie. My red line is a bit fuzzier and is based on that, to me, Ukraine is a pro-Western democracy and for all practical purposes part of the European democratic block, so morally, the fact that it's not a member of NATO makes not much difference in terms of what our response should be. My red line would tend to be, if Putin starts mass-destroying civilian targets (which he seems to be not far off doing), and if it looks likely that by using war-crimes, he will actually win and we'll end up with another democracy lost and a stronger, bigger, Russia having tanks and warheads on the SE border of Poland/etc.
My other concern is that, while many politicians etc. are talking about not responding because Ukraine is not a NATO country, I wonder if that's actually just a cop-out for, being too scared to end up engaging Russian forces full-stop-ever, and that if Russia actually did attack Estonia or somewhere, then there would just be some other excuse for why, despite the NATO agreements, we don't want to risk getting involved and risking a full war and Estonia (or wherever) isn't worth the destruction of all humanity blah blah (not saying that you would take that line, but I suspect many of our Governments may well do).
Those who advocate for a no-fly zone need to be honest though that that is what they're willing to risk. Yes, we cannot know for certain that a Russian response would lead to war, including a potential nuclear war, but that is absolutely what that plan is risking. I've seen to many people on Twitter that seem to think that a no-fly zone is a something that comes with no cost. It wouldn't be.
Just to be clear, personally I'm not particularly advocating a no-fly zone, and I'm well aware that it's not cost-free. My position is more that, we should not be totally ruling out directly sending forces to assist Ukraine in whatever way is helpful if the Ukrainian Government asks for it and if the military situation suggests that would make a difference. Although at the same time, if there is any chance of Ukraine ultimately defeating Russia by itself with the help of the weapons we're supplying, I think that would be a better outcome.
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Yep, but we don't know to what extent. The point stands that you're making over-exaggerated 'definite' predictions about things that we really don't know.
Red telephone, nuclear football, who cares what Putin has? The point is he has the means to launch several thousand nuclear warheads at a moment's notice.
And what we've studiously avoided giving him, Yeltsin and the Soviet premiers before them is a reason to use them. Same as they gave the West no reason to use ours.
Again, you assert that any intervention, no matter how measured and limited in scope will be met by immediate nuclear destruction, and yet can provide no substantiative evidence to support this.
I haven't seen anyone assert that. What I have seen several posters say is that we need to avoid escalating the situation. Which means providing Ukraine all the indirect military and direct political assistance that we can.
I feel a lot of people are really rather underestimating the potential impact of modern nuclear weapons. Just because Hiroshima and Nagasaki were rebuilt in a few years and their damage was localised doesn't mean the same would happen now.
Little Boy, which fell on Hiroshima, was equivalent to about 15 kilotons of TNT. Those wheeled missile launchers the Russians like to parade can land up to four separate warheads of up to 500kt each, that's 2000kt per missile. And our figures we'd be throwing back are pretty similar.
Interesting a few people have been commenting on social media about how so many of the trolls seem to have mysteriously disappeared now Russia has cut it's links.
According to the BBC, Sergei Lavrov is calling the US "the ultimate evil", "subjugating Europe" and is preparing WWIII. At this point I can't tell if the Russian regime are genuinely trying to sell crazy lies or if they really are that delusional and paranoid.
According to the BBC, Sergei Lavrov is calling the US "the ultimate evil", "subjugating Europe" and is preparing WWIII. At this point I can't tell if the Russian regime are genuinely trying to sell crazy lies or if they really are that delusional and paranoid.
Also claiming we (the west) are actively pursuing WW3. Almost as if they are trying to set up a false flag for a wider conflict. Of course it just sounds like willy waving but I thought that's all it was before they marched into Ukraine.
According to the BBC, Sergei Lavrov is calling the US "the ultimate evil", "subjugating Europe" and is preparing WWIII. At this point I can't tell if the Russian regime are genuinely trying to sell crazy lies or if they really are that delusional and paranoid.
The BBC have a interesting take on this news conference. For the last 24 hours the BBC have been playing the nuclear war card. Yet the Sky News version of the same news conference has Lavrov saying that there is a well known doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons (there is) and that all talk of WW3 is in the heads of Western politicians. I find it reassuring that the Russian doctrine is still being referred to.
The BBC have a interesting take on this news conference. For the last 24 hours the BBC have been playing the nuclear war card. Yet the Sky News version of the same news conference has Lavrov saying that there is a well known doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons (there is) and that all talk of WW3 is in the heads of Western politicians. I find it reassuring that the Russian doctrine is still being referred to.
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