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Why can't people understand the simple fact that if nato gets involved this will escalate to a full blown war in Europe and when Russia start losing it will involve nukes, nato can't do anything but who is going to be able to stop a bunch of very committed hackers.
Ive sat watching and listening to the news for the last 48 hours in shame for what one blood thirsty tyrant has done. In normal life people sit, talk and sort problems out simply. Not send people off to murder others. Putin is simply in my eyes now a war criminal. A bully and with Bullys unless people stand up to them they carry on and on. I only hope the Russian people see him from what he is and his demise comes swiftly.
Images of the general populous taking arms, the saddening news of the 12 on the Island in a defiant last stand to the artilary ship, and the lady in the car that was run over with the tank, make me wish any suffering they endure is not for nothing.
My Unkle and three cousins are all Ukranian and the pride they must be feeling in their country men now can only be oershadowed by the dissapointment they have for the countrys they thought might uphold international law.
This clearly isn't going as smoothly as putin expected/wanted so I think he has 3 options:
1. Continue and accept russian death toll as necessary; Ukrainian deaths will be seen as collateral damage.
2. Back down.
3. Escalate with objective of rapid capitulation.
Option 1 will further damage his credibility and 'popularity' in Russia; doubt he cares.
Option 2 is a non-starter.
Option 3 in whatever form it could take - dirty bomb, indiscriminate (carpet) bombing, limited nuclear strike - would, almost certainly, result in Nato becoming directly involved on the ground and retaliatory action; doubt he's particularly bothered by this either.
There are other options but none of them include him taking decisions; they will be around others deciding what to do about him and enforcing their will.
Tune in to byline TV on YouTube now, show independent journalism some support!
Putin is undoubtedly clever and an astute politician. He’s spent 20 years quietly making Russia more powerful. Strategically he’s a world apart from the likes of Boris, Truss, Trump etc.
But I think he’s also somewhat deluded. He’s obsessed with returning Russia to it’s former (in his mind) glory from the Soviet era. He’s surrounded by sycophants and has few checks and balances. He reminds me a bit of Saddam Hussein.
And he’s 70 this year. It’s not unusual for someone’s mental faculties to decline at or even before that sort of age.
Which is of course a very dangerous combination.
Interesting how the Russians respond to the Cyber attack. Given any retaliatory Cyber attack could trigger NATO's Article 5 (According to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner).
Saw the Ukranian politician on C4 news, my first thought was how much more intelligent she seemed than the rabble we call our government. Also saw the ex president joining the defence forces. I was also quite surprised by the numbers of office worker and graphic designer types queuing for kalashnikovs.
I very much got the feeling that rather than expecting any kind of conventional military victory they see inflicting as many casualties as possible on the invading Russians as the only option open to them.
I also wonder how Belarussians feel about their country being used a s a launch pad for invading a third country. Lukashenko's is a puppet dictator with a much weaker grip than Putin has over his nation's population. Should there be protests or unrest there, maybe some of those Russian tanks will be swinging north again to crackdown on Belarussian protesters .
I'm reminded of 1968 and the Prague Spring, Country elects a reformist government, Soviets send in the tanks.
^^18000 assault rifles handed out in Kyiv alone.
It will be a powderkeg of a country to try and occupy.
There’s just been a female MP on channel 4 news who very eloquently explained now she’d got a Kalashnikov and was going to fight. You could tell that she meant it too
The Leader of the Opposition party in Ukraine no less... She is their equivalent of Keir Starmer.
I watched the interview earlier, live... I ****ing cried I'm not afraid to admit!
This was probably discussed some pages back but could Ukraine have done a better job of pacifying Putin without totally submitting to all his demands? Did their foreign office sit in the fence to long?
Why would it have been their job to...? They are their own sovereign nation. They have no responsibility to appease the megalomaniac demands of a facist dictator!
Some very brave Russians making their view of the invasion clear.
Bravery gets you where in Russia...? These people no longer exist! They might still be alive, but their social security numbers, their personal records etc... All wiped from record!
Let's not **** about here... Putin has spent the last 30yrs planning this. He takes his impetus directly from Stalins legacy, and shows equal disdain for his own citizens as he does anyone else who happens to disagree with him, just as Stalin did.
Some very brave Ukrainians standing up to the invading forces.
Heartening to see just how much fight they have in them! It's going to be a horrendous conflict to say the least, but when Russian forces casualties already outnumber total Ukrainian casualties by 4:1 or more going from independent sources so far, lets hope their resolve doesn't dwindle!
It’s just going to escalate isn’t it. Putin going to push and push for more, already mentioning Sweden and Finland. China will be watching ever-so closely, they’ll see Putin getting away with it (relatively) and will think as nothing will happen to them they’ll invade anywhere they want to.
For China, this is make or break... They have the ability to align themselves with the western world right now and to reject Putin's Russia, and they will inevitably take their place as number 1 economy and political power in the world sooner than later.
Or they can align themselves with Russia... And spend the next several decades facing massive sanctions worldwide as a result of their involvement in this conflict! This isn't a fight where people can afford to sit on the fence... I feel quite disgusted that NATO is offering such poor support to a country that has been trying to join for a prolonged period without question as to their loyalties now. I do feel that Sweden or Finland may not be allowed to fall so readily by NATO though.
Absolutely disgusted that NATO isn't imposing a no fly zone over Ukraine though! Shockingly self serving behaviour...
It's just mental, i watch this stuff in complete disbelief just now, what is the long game for Russia, i know Putin has a dream of overpowering them to victory and then installing a puppet government, but that's not working long term, it has never worked, christ Afghanistan should tell them that, Vietnam, those parts of the Ukraine that would want to join up again didn't need an invasion, so watching it all unfold is just weird, Russia can't just hold what they take either, they aren't as mighty as they want people to think, and turning into an occupying force is never going to end well.
Lets just hope that the world just shut down Russia (and Belarus) now, all those accounts, all those yachts, all that London property and so on, it's been a dirty (well known) secret for ages, so just make it hard for the oligarchs and others to continue life like this doesn't matter.
Absolutely disgusted that NATO isn’t imposing a no fly zone over Ukraine though! Shockingly self serving behaviour…
I hate to say it but NATO cannot get involved militarily. Ukraine is not aligned, the gamble is Putin does what he wants there and stops, and no military action is required.
If NATO takes any direct action, WW3 properly starts. It won't be confined to Eastern Europe, it will be us and our kids being bombed.
Putin has very carefully not made threats to any NATO country. He's not that mad yet
Absolutely disgusted that NATO isn’t imposing a no fly zone over Ukraine though! Shockingly self serving behaviour…
How would they enforce that without starting Ww3?
Lukashenko’s is a puppet dictator with a much weaker grip than Putin has over his nation’s population. Should there be protests or unrest there, maybe some of those Russian tanks will be swinging north again to crackdown on Belarussian protesters.
There were a lot of protests the last couple of years, and they were dealt with very very harshly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_Belarusian_protests
And again, a lot of women going out to fight the good fight, knowing that they would very likely take a baton in the face from a fascist in riot gear.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/14/women-belarus-take-protests-into-their-own-hands
At the end of 2020, the Viasna Human Rights center documented 1,000 testimonies of torture victims ... as well as reports of sexual abuse and rape
Lukashenko is a ****ing ****.
Absolutely disgusted that NATO isn’t imposing a no fly zone over Ukraine though! Shockingly self serving behaviour…
I can think of no quicker and surer way of starting full blown world war 3 than trying to impose a no fly zone over Ukraine
180,000 troops May win the war but you'd need 10 times that to hold the country.
They'll be an insurgency for years.
NATO enforced a no-fly zone in Libya on humanitarian grounds, as I understand, so could technically enforce this over the Ukraine, but arguably would create more problems than it would solve.
fatmountain
Free MemberNATO enforced a no-fly zone in Libya on humanitarian grounds, as I understand, so could technically enforce this over the Ukraine, but arguably would create more problems than it would solve
But NATO would actually have to enforce it, which is going to mean shooting at Russian jets (as there’s not a chance they’ll stay on the ground). So it’s back to WW3 as mentioned above
NATO enforced a no-fly zone in Libya on humanitarian grounds, as I understand, so could technically enforce this over the Ukraine, but arguably would create more problems than it would solve.
I'm not sure there was much to enforce over Libya. Taking on the entire Russian air force is a slightly different ball game. One that might see our own kids being bombed. If we're lucky, just with conventional bombs.
Don't like to say this but I think it will be all over in a few days.
I can think of no quicker and surer way of starting full blown world war 3 than trying to impose a no fly zone over Ukraine
Be under no illusion... WW3 has already started!
NATO or not, somebody else will get involved sooner or later. Putin is, as has been stated repeatedly, a calculated bully. There's only one way to stop bullies! He will overstretch his mark sooner or later, bloodshed will spill over into a neighbouring (NATO member) country, Russian planes will get caught in NATO airspace and be (quite rightly) shot down, and/or one of the other former Soviet Bloc countries that are now NATO member states will begin to feel the squeeze from Putin and Article 5 will be invoked.
The only way that this won't fully escalate is if the rest of the world turns a blind eye to the forced destruction of democracy in Europes 2nd largest country, a nation of 44m citizens, and the total indifference to military or civilian targets that are being employed.
Just remember, that the attacks on 9/11 might have happened on US soil but it wasn't just the US that has been embroiled in a seemingly never ending war on terror ever since...
Don’t like to say this but I think it will be all over in a few days
By Christmas, surely? We’ll remind you of that in 5 years
One things for sure is that this is the start of a conflict that will last, in one form or another, for a very, very long time
Yesterday was just popping the lid off a whole box full of cans of worms
I dont think I’ve seen anything in my lifetime where the law of unintended consequences is more guaranteed to come into full effect
Christ only knows where this is going, but wherever it is, it certainly won’t be over any time soon
Don’t like to say this but I think it will be all over in a few days
Yes and no.
I suspect 'over' in the same way that Iraq and Afghanistan were beaten very quickly. Winning the war is the easy bit
One things for sure is that this is the start of a conflict that will last, in one form or another, for a very long time
You say that, but this is Putins fight, it isn't Russias... We are not dealing with Al Qaeda or ISIS here... This is mostly one mans retribution against what he feels was the wrongful disintegration of the USSR.
There are obvious parallels with Hitler and the outbreak of WW2 here quite sadly. But arguably just as with Nazi Germany Hitler's removal would have resulted in a rudderless ship, you could remove Putin and Russia loses its focus too.
You know that he’s spent decades building an authoritarian, totalitarian state where all dissent is ruthlessly stamped out?
So who’s going to ‘remove’ him?
To avoid unnecessary bloodshed, I propose putin and a chosen Ukrainian politician duke it out ‘mano o Mano’ to decide the fate of their respective nations
I propose the mayor of Kyiv to represent the Ukrainians…
Now that would be a fight well worthy of Ppv.
The most mysterious thing to me is the extreme right wing republicans before the conflict backing Putin. Fox news and Tucker Carlson come to mind.
Like Two Tribes? We really are back in the 80s.
The Russian Armed Forces are one of the world's largest military forces, with around a million active-duty personnel, which is the world's fifth-largest, and at least 2 million reserve personnel.[7][8] It is mandatory for all male citizens aged 18–27 to be drafted for a year of service in the Armed Forces.[9]
As the world's second-most powerful military,[10] the Russian Armed Forces contain the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.[11] It possesses the second-largest fleet of ballistic missile submarines,[12] and is one of only three millitaries operating strategic bombers.[13] The Russian Armed Forces have the world's largest tank forces,[14] and the second-most powerful air force and navy fleet.[15][16] Russia has the world's fourth-highest military expenditure, spending $61.7 billion in 2020.[17]
Source: Wikipedia
Food for thought.
Do they not also have world's largest stock of chemical and biological weapons? Now that is scary.
Caher
Full Member
The most mysterious thing to me is the extreme right wing republicans before the conflict backing Putin. Fox news and Tucker Carlson come to mind.
They are still backing him. Fox news is for sure, anyway. Had a reporter on there earlier interviewing someone and basically insulting the Ukrainian PM for asking Russia not to invade! Suggesting it was somehow feeble basically. What the **** did she expect him to do? She sits thousands of miles away surrounded by the most powerful military in the world. He doesn't have that luxury, nor does his country.
Wonder if she would be donning camo and manning a trench if it came to it?😒
Russia may have the second most powerful air force and navy but the gulf between them and the US is colossal.
That's food for thought.
Just have a look at aircraft carriers as one example.
Long range strategic bombers; B52 anyone?
F35.
Surveillance capability.
To avoid unnecessary bloodshed, I propose putin and a chosen Ukrainian politician duke it out ‘mano o Mano’ to decide the fate of their respective nations
Haha. I remember Tariq Aziz challenging George Bush to a duel before the Iraq war. That might have been the better option...
Usually the way though Frank, the numbers comparison. But that's all most have to compare because the average joe has no insight into the technical, tactical or strategic elements which are often the game changer.
[early90s] When does Saddam Hussein have his tea? [/early90s]
The video of the APC taking out the old.woman in the car is horrific.
Somewhat bemused by all the people horrified at watching unfiltered footage of a war on social media. What were you expecting?
And for those calling for NATO to "do something", careful what you wish for or we'll get the live show.
I dunno Frank, the world's largest military couldn't beat the Tailban and all the aircraft carriers in the world mean nothing if you can level the European continent with the push of a button. Even an average Joe can understand that.
From the Beeb:
In a dramatic late-night appearance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in a video statement that the Russians would storm Kyiv in the coming hours.
“This night will be hard, very hard, but morning will come," he said.
“This night the enemy will be using all available means to break our resistance. This night they will launch an assault.
“This night we must persevere. The fate of Ukraine is being decided right now.”
Can you imagine being in that city tonight? Horrific.
Yes, harsh as it may sound we really don't want NATO to get involved. IF they do things will escalate rapidly.
im especially disappointed in India, who knew they would turn out to be such spineless ****ts
Just have a look at aircraft carriers as one example.
Long range strategic bombers; B52 anyone?
Those carriers could end up confined to port once the Russians start attacking them (either by means above or below the surface). I can’t even imagine what would happen in the states if one of them went down
B-52s aren’t going anywhere with a functioning air defence either. They’d be operating stand-off weapons only.
Yes, harsh as it may sound we really don’t want NATO to get involved. IF they do things will escalate rapidly
Putin presently seems so completely hatstand that he genuinely looks like he’d love to massively escalate everything, just for shits and giggles. He looks like a man who just wants to watch the world burn
Latvian politician on newsnight just now.
Georgia 2008 - we, in the baltic states, warned NATO that if nothing was done there will be a repeat. Nothing was done.
Crimea 2014 - we, in the baltic states, warned NATO that if nothing was done there will be a repeat.
Nothing was done.
Belarus 2017/18 - we, in the baltic states, warned NATO that if nothing was done there will be a repeat.
Nothing was done.
Something of a pattern there.
Followed by a direct appeal for more weapons and other military hardware.
Another chance for NATO and the West to get it wrong.
@fatmountain, The loss in Afghanistan wasn't due to kit, troops or tactics, it was due to an utter strategic and political failure to clearly define and execute a mission.
So no, the average joe clearly does not understand that because they jump on whatever easy to follow bandwagon that comes along.
mashr - don't agree but hope we'll never find out which of us us right.