Ukraine

Is dyna_ti Mark Francois in disguise?

Ah yes our press is over sensationalising the situation – that’s got to be worth what, 5 years?

No Kelvin, it is you who has been warmongering across this entire thread. Conveniently forgetting our own atrocities in our conflicts, ignoring political analysts, department of defense ,politicians both retired and in office and even Noam Chomsky to keep putting forward the point that it is only Putin’s fault, nothing but Putin, nothing but Russia.

Russia is the aggressor here. But there’s far more to it than that. Only you dont agree, and i fear never will

Why is it you hate the Russian people so much. What have they ever done to you for you to continually spit hate towards them.

What is needed is sense and sensibility, and were someone like yourself as the peace conference table, we’d be in a nuclear winter by now.

So you stop. Either look at solutions, or find a different thread to post on. Not constantly attacking the person you disagree with.

Is dyna_ti Mark Francois in disguise?

First time ive been compared to a conservative MP. not sure what to make of that really :lol:

Oi! Mark Francois is a personal hero of mine; when I grow up I want my own action figure too.

#thankyouforyourcervix
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Not that I want him to ‘win’

If you don’t want him to win then the flip side is greater destruction, escalation, inevitable NATO involvement and all the terrifying consequences that brings. I know it feels very virtuous and defiant but the cold harsh reality is that a Russian defeat is far more dangerous than the opposite.

Those covering the war need to slow down. Any attempts to report in “real time” are going to keep being wide of the mark. Alarm about attacks on a nuclear facilities are understandable, even when more up to date information is so reassuring. The problem is the knee jerk initial reporting is more “sticky” then than the follow up more reassuring news.

As for the completely made up notion that the UK population is now thinking that a preemptive nuclear attack on Russia is justified… well, I’m very glad that poster isn’t involved in the reporting of anything themselves.

Why is it you hate the Russian people so much.

I have never said anything like that. Far from it. Stop trolling. Just stop.

Who are people donating to? There seem to be a large number of options out there.

I’d generally donate to the DEC but I’m angry enough to want some of my money to go to the military and I also think that it’s right Ukrainia itself gets to decide where the money goes.

Both the Ukrainian Embassy and the Central Bank are running funds. Is either best or are there better options?

Stick with DEC, that’s were the money will really be needed.

@Kelvin

OK  then Kelvin, lay on me your path to peace. How do we go about ending this conflict before the real horror begins and the reports start coming in of hundreds or thousands of civilian deaths. Lay it on me.

This site was created by Ukrainians and is pretty helpful. Various donation options.

https://how-to-help-ukraine-now.super.site/donate

Personally I’ve donated to the UNHCR and Red Cross Ukraine appeals. Didn’t really feel comfortable with giving money to arms companies. But that was on day 2. My next donation might not be quite so worthy.

Lay it on me.

Engaging with you is a mistake. Happy to have that conversation with anyone else.

Who is Mark Francois?

Anybody who thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine is deluding themselves, same as they were deluding themselves when they scoffed at the idea of this invasion.

The UK equivalent of Chuck Norris.

Who is Mark Francois?

Those covering the war need to slow down. Any attempts to report in “real time” are going to keep being wide of the mark.

That’s LONG been the case for the awful 24hr constant news loop. The stations are desperate for content, they also love a good* disaster.

As facts are understandably scarce at a time of fast-moving events, tragedy and destruction, they bring in ever-more lunatic “experts” and “eyewitnesses” who get their 5 minutes of fame to spout utter bollocks and the channels pump it out on loop.

Reporter: “What did you see?!”
Eyewitness: “well nuffink really but i heard like 2 loud bangs like and then someone was yelling and like i ran outside and there was someone just lying in the road…”

Great, thanks for that forensic analysis there, exactly what have you brought to the story. Oh that’s right. **** all.

*you know what I mean: “good” in terms of ratings, not that a disaster is in itself “good”.

No Kelvin, it is you who has been warmongering across this entire thread.

That may be but you seem to have a knack of being the fart at the centre of each argument that arises on this thread. I hope you don’t take this personally but it would be a considerably more pleasant atmosphere if you stopped posting

How do we go about ending this conflict before the real horror begins and the reports start coming in of hundreds or thousands of civilian deaths.

We can’t. Ukraine can by surrendering and allowing Russia to annex them. They’ve rejected that. Russia can by accepting Ukraine’s sovereignty and withdrawing their troops. Putin will not do that. Other countries cannot end this, the only thing they can do is support Ukraine (who are the innocent victim in this.)

I totally scoffed at him invading. Then I was like: “He did what? Oh, okay, so we’re doing that now.”

Anybody who thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine is deluding themselves, same as they were deluding themselves when they scoffed at the idea of this invasion.

dyna-ti,

You had a reasonable point with regards press reporting but that point gets lost when you reveal that you are looking to leverage the point to fit your anti NATO narrative. And if you keep on accusing people of war mongering then no one is going to listen to you.

If you were to talk about how all this feeds into the military industrial complex or something then you might find you’ll solicit a more interesting conversation.

Ask yourself wether you are critiquinng western democracy in order to improve it, or to undermine it?

We have a standing donation to the RC, but we’ve thrown some money into UNHCR as well.

Who are people donating to? There seem to be a large number of options out there.

warmongering across this entire thread

I haven’t seen anyone warmongering on this thread. Someone disagreeing with you doesn’t make them a warmonger.

Regarding the scale of the convoy: Imagine you are at the front of it. Now imagine a town 17 miles away, that’s Kyiv. Now think of a town 40 miles away, that’s the other end of the convoy. Then think of all the terain in between, all the bridges, even small ones, etc.

When I though of it like this it changed my perspective. For me right now, Kyiv = Brighton and the other end of the convoy is somewhere north of Croydon. They could have devistated key targets in this convoy and we’d never know.

Also, I suspect the Ukrainian forces are being aided by intel and guidance based on a far better picture than we have. So if the convoy is not being hit it’s probably with good reason.

“The UK equivalent of Chuck Norris.”

No, that’s Graham Potter, since he grew that beard…

Donations – https://www.unhcr.org/uk/

Who are people donating to? There seem to be a large number of options out there.

One of the problems here is overheads. It’s hard to see that your 100 quid or so actually reaches the people who need it as 100 quid.

All of the big organizations have staff to pay, costs of transportation.

We discovered this when I did VSO in Romania. It was coupled to the Anneka Rice appeal with the poor infrastructure and a certain mad as a hatter Irish nurse called Monica McDaid.

Most people in our group were concerned as to where and to whom the raised funds were actually going to and when we went there, what we found was Monica was sleeping in a chair spending every single penny on the orphanages, even to the detriment of her own health.

So maybe look to the small appeals going on round the country, where small firms are supplying trucks to take donated goods, clothing,blankets,food etc directly overland to cross he border and bring those things directly to the people. They are spending their own money, and anything that can go to helping those small appeals means your donation will actually go to where you hope it will and not to keep the bigger charities afloat with directors wages*

*Im not saying this in any sort of a negative against big charities, and in this crisis they will be helping greatly, but to smaller public groups recently set up and using unpaid people(in fact nobody here is getting any sort of a wage,and even the drivers setting off on thousand mile journeys are using their own money for food for the trip. That I think is the best place to send to. You can google and no doubt will find some small charity or recently set up group organizing aid trips.

No, its more a case of cutting off power. Target the electrical generators and power being supplied drops.

Putin didn’t want to blow the reactor up, he wanted to switch the lights off. It was the press that wanted to ‘blow it up’.

This. As long as they still have grid power they are fine.

How can you ‘sensationalise’ the shelling of a nuclear reactor?

As said, that’s not what happened.

I would imagine that there are all manner of critical systems to a nuclear reactor, the failure of any one of which could lead to some pretty disastrous consequences

So I’ll stick with my opinion that only an absolute lunatic would even contemplate the idea

As pointed out several times that wasn’t what happened. They burnt down a training centre, tbh they probably did them a favour </joke>

As for all those systems, reactors aren’t built like that, post Chernobyl and Fukushima the redundancies and backups have only ever increased and the failure of one system would not be a problem. Even if ALL the systems failed you could still bring emergency equipment on site (if it isn’t already tucked away somewhere) which the US was gearing up for last night.

It seems several other folk have jumped in ahead of me though so I’ll leave it there.

“The UK equivalent of Chuck Norris.”

Ronnie Pickering surely! 🤣🤣

^Touché

I heard they’re related.

That’s LONG been the case for the awful 24hr constant news loop. The stations are desperate for content, they also love a good* disaster.

Made even worse by social media. I’ve often heard people complain (and no doubt done so myself at some point) that TV and radio news is as little as an hour behind what can be read on Social Media. Conventional news outlets are increasing competing on speed not accuracy, with each other and with a whole series of new entrants into the news space, as well as amateur reports from people on the ground. The acceleration of the event>reporting cycle has become insane in recent years, even compared to the time of the creation of 24 hour TV news channels.

Time has come for Mark to re-post his ‘…be polite’ request; it wasn’t time limited nor did it exclude certain posters.
Non-compliance with his request really pisses me off – particularly on a serious thread about a potentially world-changing event.

As for donations, there are countless avenues but cold hard cash would be going to MSF as per usual.

https://www.msf.org/

@pictonroad chill mate, you’re only going to earn a ban as I did the other day. He’s been reported by the look of it so leave it to the mods. Plenty of sensible conversations to be having.

Keep it civil ladies & gents.  No one, especially on this subject matter, has a monopoly on wisdom.  If you are rock solidly convinced you are correct in your opinions on the causes or solutions to this, then I suggest you are deluding yourself.  Show some humility, listen to others, back off with the insults and don’t wreck a useful thread.

I donated to DEC, apparently UK Gov is matching UK donations £ for £ up to £20M.

Supply and demand. Many consumers seem to care more for the scoop than the accuracy of what they’re demanding. Or they just want some war porn for some inane reason.

Conventional news outlets are increasing competing on speed not accuracy

I don’t think dyna-ti is being particularly anti-NATO, by the way, just talking about the nuance and murkiness of it all. I really object to the way debate is ruined by people extrapolating to extremes just so that they can then attack.

So maybe look to the small appeals going on round the country, where small firms are supplying trucks to take donated goods, clothing,blankets,food etc directly overland to cross he border and bring those things directly to the people

Maybe, although however well-meaning they are I do wonder is some of the independent appeals are actually sending the most useful stuff. Part of the overhead cost of the big organisations is because they are employ people to understand what is actually needed, best way to deliver it, and also coordinate with other organisations doing the same.

No need for personal insults, agreed, but when someone states that they’re deriving pleasure from constantly countering on such a terrible and heart-breaking issue then surely that comes under the banner of trolling?

As far as I know, deliberate trolling is banned on our forum?

Keep it civil gents.

indeed

But I’ll leave the question up, not just to kelvin but to everyone else

How do we solve this crisis ?.

I donated to DEC, apparently UK Gov is matching UK donations £ for £ up to £20M.I donated to DEC, apparently UK Gov is matching UK donations £ for £ up to £20M.

I didn’t realise that (but confirmed on the DEC site), that’s really good!