In light of the Ducth investigation into the destruction of MH17 and its conclusions, what do you think Europe’s/the UK’s policy toward Russia should be?

Or is it not something that is much on your radar?

Just interested.

The reaction should depend on what you are trying to achieve.

its complicated….
it feels like Russia and “the west” hasnt agreed on anything for years now. We’re like a really bad couple who should get divorced but cant.

We’ve lost our backbone with Russia. We should call Putin’s bluff (not us on our own) and we’ll soon find ourselves in a cold war style stalemate where we all know where the lines are drawn, respect that and work within that, but we’re giving Putin too much space and he’s taking advantage becoming more and more bold the longer he gets away with it. He has over the Ukraine and Syria and will continue to do so until someone stands unto him.

He’ll stretch out this issue indefinitely, not cooperating with any efforts to establish what happened and who is accountable. It’s frustrating but unless something changes then this is how it’s going to be from now on.

The Dutch report just confirms what we all really already knew. We shouldn’t forget what the Russians have done on the ground in the Ukraine either. Sanctions and other measures should be extended.

As far as I can tell, both sides are ****!

Policy as in what exactly? The MH17 downing or Putins general foreign policy?

Putin has politicly outmanoeuvred the West quite a few times now, Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, Georgia and Transnistria spring to mind. He is also willing to commit combat troops & hardware if necessary to back that up. The price of oil & gas isn’t helping the Russian economy, neither is sanctions imposed by the West and yet he enjoys widespread support from the Russian public.

The UK alone is too small to worry Putin. The USA has shown with Ukraine that it doesn’t really want to get involved. The EU states would never all agree on a confrontational stance with Russia as Germany needs the oil & gas, as does the Eastern European states. Then factor in the fragile economy that the West has, therefore…

Carry on Putin. And he will.

piemonster – Member

As far as I can tell, both sides are ****!

When you refer to ‘both sides’ piemonster, do you mean Russia and Europe? Or Russia and Ukraine? If the latter, why do you say so?

I called the West chicken for not daring to start a nuclear WWIII. Remember without Russia & Merica … UK is nothing in WWII. Yes, nothing … but go on use your underhand tactics.

Ya, let’s start WWIII nuking everyone to kingdom come … Turn the earth into vast desert.

So what you say you chicken big girl blouse west? Do you want to start a nuclear war with Russian now or do you want to pussy foot around. 🙄

I want to see how many people can survive several nuclear hits in the UK then see how many people are half melted or half death like road kills on the road …

They can nuke me as much as they want … dust to dust, ashes to ashes … I come with nothing and I shall go with nothing.

Let’s start a nuclear war NOW!

😀

When you refer to ‘both sides’ piemonster, do you mean Russia and Europe? Or Russia and Ukraine? If the latter, why do you say so?

Russia and Europe, although as Ukrainians are human. I’m sure they’ll be **** at some point.

Ukraine will not last a week if Russia really wants it back by “Blitzkrieg” … 🙄

As far as I can tell, both ALL sides are ****!

FTFY.

I can’t think of a logical reason the Russians would have deliberately ordered the shooting down of a passenger jet – so surely it’s just a tragic cock up or loonie terrorist nutjob.

Putins backed into a corner, he cant afford to loose the Russian base in Tartus, just as he couldnt loose the ones in Crimea or S Ossetia.
Once he realised Aassad was unable to stay in power even with Iranaian support and Russian arms, hes intervened enough to setback the rebels and leave Assad with a small but secure state.
He’s also had to pull out of Ukraine leaving a buffer hes comfortable with (tho the ukranian rebels arent)

with complete control over tv and media that must be the envy of even Burlesconi and Murdoch he’s safe enough at home, as long as a prolonged conflict doesnt provoke suicide/terror retaliations the way it did in the UK

the Russian economy is even more screwed than the european one, so both sides dont want all out (cold) war

I don’t think Putin is backed in to a corner in the slightest. I’ve listened to alot of his interview recently, out of curiosity to understand him more. He is far from backed into a corner, and has a shedload of valid points regarding America.

i don’t particularly agree with his backing of Assad. But in that conflict, tbh as dodgy as Assad is, he’s probably the only possible solution for taking the country back from the brink of warlords. Although, it’s a grim future for your average Syrian which ever way I reckon.

In Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, tbh, I don’t particular disagree with him. European involvement in that at the beginning was more than a little dubious. He’s skillfully taken advantage of it.

He’s far from under pressure and is pretty much running rings around the “West” at the moment as far as I can see.

Putins interviews are for consumption at home on the state controlled tv channels that offer no counter opinion whatsoever, he’s playing his audience very well

Hes built his reputation as a strongman and the loss of the crimean base wouldve been a ridiculous blow, hes kept the base but is now lumbered with a supporting the dysfunctional rebel held areas
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/05/01/putins-promises-to-eastern-ukraine-could-bankrupt-russia/
Syria has enabled him to quietly pull troops out of eastern ukraine, again he was forced to act not because he wanted to but because assad was loosing territory month on month, theres no way Putin could spin loosing the only russian toehold in the med, so hes had to commit a lot of money and materiel to try and ensure assad stays in power,its still a gamble, IS in particular seem to be very resilient to bombing campaigns.

and russias economy is still shaky, despite putin’s spin
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-10-14/putin-s-fake-good-news-on-the-economy

It’s just dawned on me that chewkw is actually Putin using a second STW account. Oh Vladimir, you cheeky little scamp!

davosaurusrex – Member

It’s just dawned on me that chewkw is actually Putin using a second STW account. Oh Vladimir, you cheeky little scamp!

As they say in the motherland … Beliaat! Beliaat! 😆

There’s no doubt that Putin is a massive throbber of epic proportions.

But what do we do? Russia has some epic nukeage which isn’t going away soon, Putin needs his bases in Syria and he desperately needs to land a bloody nose on the West.

Meanwhile, NATO is hamstrung by internal politics, poor planning and public opinion swayed against intervention in Syria.

He’s far from under pressure and is pretty much running rings around the “West” at the moment as far as I can see.

To be honest, I think he’s repeating a historical mistake and fighting the wrong fight. Or at least he’s trying to maintain the focus on a fight he can look like he’s doing OK in.

In the long run, it’s money that matters.

But what do we do?

Containment?

Meanwhile, NATO is hamstrung by internal politics, poor planning and public opinion swayed against intervention in Syria.

Well, now there’s an evil bogey man in the frozen east. Perhaps there’ll be some focus?

In the long run, it’s money that matters.

Putin’s foreign policy is all about maintaining a strongman image for domestic consumption. He can never be seen to take the backward step.

The US and its allies thought that the ‘Arab spring’ would be a fine way to undercut his Middle East power base, but must now be realising that oppressive undemocratic regimes may occasionally be the least worst option, even if they are allied to your political opponents.

As for the airliner, we all know that if you arm these kinds of militias, those arms will invariably end up killing non-combatants. The US and ourselves have dished out the weaponry to these groups for decades too. The deaths of a few hundred in an instant is undeniably shocking, but civilian casualties happen every day in these proxy wars.

I suppose it’s convenient to demonise Putin to draw attention from our own foreign policy failings and weakness which may have contributed to the situation.

I suppose it’s convenient to demonise Putin to draw attention from our own foreign policy failings

yip, it’s not even subtle either.

To be honest, I think he’s repeating a historical mistake and fighting the wrong fight.

maybe, maybe not remains to be seen. If he fails its a mistake, but if he succeeds its a massive win and going forward he’ll gain alot from it. Syria is a gamble for him, but I suspect a calculated one.

What piemonster says

Russia does not want NATO in its back garden anymore than the US wanted missiles on Cuba. We have won the cold war but the bear still has a bite and wants some respect and some leverage in its areas. Its not expansionist per se it is just saying this far and no more.
We cannot think it will let us remove its allies/sphere of influence [ ukraine and Syria] reducing its access to ports and influence and it will just go ok that is fine and it wont react.
We like to ignore all the shit we do to extend our political and military influence whilst portraying the other side as the baddies.
Reality is there are no goodies here just a turf war for the planet.

As for the airliner clearly an accident [ i dont think anyone meant to shoot down a passenger plane] and a casualty of war. This is of little comfort to the relatives but I cannot see diplomatic measures getting an admittance from the Russians or any outcome personally. We can either decide to mend fences at this point before they get worse or we can use this as reason to try and “attack” them further with sanctions and other measures
I know which one is the safest long term but I am sure the hawks will have a little wood by now and will want to smack the shit out of the bear and that is a little worrying. Ironic thing is they are more like Putin than they can see

IMHO Putin needs a face saying way out where he can act triumphantly to his people but i cannot see the west acquiescing to this so I fear another proxy war. That will sure help the middle east region and the rest of the world no end.

I suppose it’s convenient to demonise Putin to draw attention from our own foreign policy failings and weakness which may have contributed to the situation.

Pretty sure I described our side as **** earlier. So I’m in agreement there.

Putin and Russia are really suffering from the sanctions, the currency has collapsed, the economy is in free fall. The Russian economy is half the size of the U.K now. The US does very little trade with Russia so it cannot hurt them directly with sanctions so it falls to the EU to take action.

On MH17 Russia sent the missiles to the rebels and most likely also the crew to operate it. Clearly they made a mistake shooting down the airliner but in the weeks prior they had shot down many Ukranian aircraft.

The West’s policy error in Syria is to focus on Assad, our efforts should be against ISIS. Assad is very unpleasant but IS is the greater danger and Russia with its military bases in Syria was never going to allow him to fall and for chaos to reign there. If Assad did fall the civil war between IS / FSA and Kurds would be far worse than we see now

Russia does not want NATO in its back garden

Exactly. Or the EU, for that matter. What is portrayed to us as the rise of genuine democracy in some of these states is simply western expansionism at the expense of Russian influence.

Ukraine is a perfect example. Here is a flawed state with wide regional variation in ethnic makeup, including a lot of people who would describe themselves as Russian first, Ukrainian second. We encourage the pseudo-democratic overthrow of a president who favours Russia, ‘democratically’ installing a government with a fair slice of people who, to put it mildly, are very anti-Russian.

What did our governments honestly think the outcome of that would be? Ukraine as an EU member? The best outcome for the both sides now would be a swift partition.

The situation in Georgia a few years back was a similarly underhand effort to reduce Russian influence. Again, how was Putin supposed to respond when ethnic Russian regions were being directly threatened?

We need a sufficiently pro-Russian buffer zone of states. While none of these will match our fine western democratic standards 🙂 , the alternative is usually worse.

All this talk of sanctions and being tougher on Russia is all nonsense that seems to have forgotten one simple fact… the elephant in the room…

The City of London, that bastion of respectability and high morality, is absolutely awash with dirty Russian money that it is effectively laundering on behalf of Putins mates, who already own half the property in the capital, and support a whole network of ludicrously expensive restaurants, and people selling gold plated Rolls Royces, and gaudy, tasteless trinkets

So don’t be expecting us to be doing anything anytime soon

As for Syria… let them get on with it. I suspect they won’t pussyfoot around ineffectually like we’ve been doing

A family member works in the foreign office and on her first day she was emailed the afternoon’s meeting agenda. On it were two items:
[list]
[*]Does the office need a shoe rack?[/*]
[*]What are we going to do about Russia?[/*][/list]

So rest assured, they’re on it.

jambalaya – Member
Putin and Russia are really suffering from the sanctions, the currency has collapsed, the economy is in free fall.

tbh the Russian can and will take alot more shit that us. So I wouldn’t expect that kind of scaremongering to have the same affect that it does here.

I suspect they won’t pussyfoot around ineffectually like we’ve been doing

Even Putin will be highly wary of putting boots on the ground after the Afghanistan experience.

Our more recent Afghanistan experiences will do the same for us.

Things are so desperate that the The Great Satan has even gone back to wooing the Iranians.

Ineffectual will be the order of the day for some time.

Hey, perhaps the Israelis will go in full psycho as they are wont to do every now and again?

Putin and Russia are really suffering from the sanctions

Please feel free to use his popularity ratings to illuminate this point.

To be fair, I trust those ratings about as much as I do the Telegraph on Scottish Independence

On MH17 Russia sent the missiles to the rebels and most likely also the crew to operate it. Clearly they made a mistake shooting down the airliner but in the weeks prior they had shot down many Ukranian aircraft.

I heard on Radio 4 (I think it was) an expert postulating that the Buk system has IFF, and the default stance is to enable it.

His theory was it was likely an untrained or barely trained crew who didn’t understand the significance and just saw it as a block to firing – so overrode it. Maybe supervised by a Russian operative, maybe not.

Not 100% sure I go along with that, if you’re firing a large S2A missile launcher SURELY you know/understand IFF .. but it’s the most credible explanantion I’ve heard.

i reckon the Russians have probably just chucked a lot of weapons into eastern Ukraine, so fault there will lie through negligence. Same as chucking loads of weapons in to Syria, libya etc. If you’re supply the weapons, you are shouldering some of the blame for their use. Same goes for if you sell weapons, if you enable an act, you are complicit, that much is obvious. Guess the debate lies with how comfortable you are with helping to cause death, guess that’s the bit that’s more complex.

I do still find it mental that civilian aircraft were flying there. Is there not something that will automatically divert civilian aircraft round war zones? Or is it usual to fly through?

Popularity ratings don’t pay the bills or put food in the shops and who is publishing these ratings, the state controlled media. The oil price is really hurting Russia too. I do wonder whether the US/Saudis have a pact to keep it low, whilst a low price hurts US shale production it really helps the broader economy.

The most powerful argument I have heard against more sanctions is that the significant pain they will inflict will result in Putin doing something very rash making the invasion of Crimea and intervention in Syria look like a sideshow.

Jammers – whether you like it or not, Putins popularity ratings are the stuff western leaders can only dream of.

In our minds they shouldn’t be that high, but they are. Whatever he’s doing, the Russian people seem to like it

Plus: do you really think that the multi-billionaire oligarchs that are Putins mates are remotely bothered by ‘sanctions’? Seriously?

The sanctions, such as they are, are toothless token gestures from an America that does no business with Russia anyway, and an EU that can do nowt serious because their financial centres are awash with dirty Russian Money that’s propping up their pathetically weak economies. Look how fast George Osborne said NO to any restrictions on Russian capital in The City. He never even countenanced it for a nanosecond

And everyone in power in Brussels knows that if the topless shark-wrestler is feeling particularly bloody minded he can turn the lights off over half of Europe whenever he feels like it.

As for the Ukraine: thats Putin telling NATO to get its tanks off his lawn. And what have they done about it? Nothing! What will they do about it? Nothing. And everyone knows it

Which is why we should invest EVERY PENNY in getting the tidal power stations up and running right now.
It’s a matter of national security.

Isn’t this why LNG import facilities are getting built all over europe? We’ll soon be dependent on US shale gas instead.

Blog on the sanctions.

The EU’s latest sanctions against Russia: the legal basis and how they will work in practice