USSR invades Ukraine. (5 Viewers)

[SBT]

I also see some of the global oil giants are now dumping Russian interests.....

...that might actually learn 'em.

I doubt it changes much in the near term, but the fact that BP is apparently prepared to write off tens of billions of dollars just to get out of Russia ASAP shows you that the sanctions are doing what they’re designed to do.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be a truly brutal day for Russian markets - we’ll start to see if Putin really doesn’t care about them when the ruble collapses at the start of trade in a few hours.

 

[PVA]

Russian economy is going to implode tomorrow

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Of course they do, it’s no different from all major powers in global politics. That fact clearly does not justify the actions of Russia and China taking actions to antagonise their smaller neighbours.

Its very obvious that China is watching developments closely given they are training for an invasion of Taiwan.

Well let’s consider that at the moment Putin wants to topple the ‘bad’ regime and put in place his own puppet in charge of a pseudo colony.

Then let’s compare with all the times, and there are plenty, that the US invaded countries to remove a ‘bad’ regime and install a favourable one.

None should have happened, but as we have defined ourselves as ‘good’ and Russia and seemingly China as ‘bad’, the Western world is dogpiling Russia economically but did no such thing to the US for all of their own invasions of sovereign states.

Also as above this idea that we’re all in favour of freedom loving democracies falls flat when the US is allied to a high % of dictatorships and turns a blind eye to their own misdemeanours. Yes, what Putin’s doing is wrong and he deserves what’s coming to him. But it’s gross hypocrisy to act like we haven’t done what he’s done many times ourselves. Just we were too big to be challenged.

 

[Philosoraptor]

 

[Deleted member 7943]

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I for one am totally shocked by this

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

Friend says that’s the only way. Turn off our heating and drive less

 

[SkyBlueCharlie9]

It's usually the same few gimps.

No one has ever resorted to you as an expert! Are you jealous that some clever people on here read and absorb news and writers? What a sad lonely person you must be.

 

[Otis]

Apparently, Ukraine believe they are doing so well, they think NATO may well apply to join them.

 

[clint van damme]

Pretty worrying stuff

 

[skybluetony176]

I doubt it changes much in the near term, but the fact that BP is apparently prepared to write off tens of billions of dollars just to get out of Russia ASAP shows you that the sanctions are doing what they’re designed to do.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be a truly brutal day for Russian markets - we’ll start to see if Putin really doesn’t care about them when the ruble collapses at the start of trade in a few hours.

There was a run of money yesterday with people queuing for hours and hours at cash machines and it looks like the interest rate is climbing from 9% to 20% today as well as hyper inflation expected due to a tumbling ruble making imports more expensive.

 

[skybluetony176]

A very salient point from the excellent Dan Hodges

 

[Otis]

Love it

 

[PVA]

Blimey. This from The Times

 

[chiefdave]

Blimey. This from The Times

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Obviously in the world of social media it can be hard to separate fact from fiction but seeing immigration lawyers tweeting about people being refused entry because they haven't got the right visa or filled in the right form when fleeing war is, even by this governments low standard, poor.

Seeing people tweeting this morning that the definition of family being used excludes an adult’s parents, siblings and more.




They also chose Friday to publish this, which may well have been scheduled in advance but surely someone had the sense to point out that it might not look great at the moment.

 

[PVA]

Oh dear. There's talk that Russia might have sent in the 18 year old kids and the shit equipment first to take the initial hit, and will now follow it up with the proper stuff.

Let's hope not.

 

[CCFCSteve]

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Love it

I was expecting western governments to consider doing this. Getting some real news playing on the propaganda channels

 

[CCFCSteve]

Oh dear. There's talk that Russia might have sent in the 18 year old kids and the shit equipment first to take the initial hit, and will now follow it up with the proper stuff.

Let's hope not.

Yeah, this view was shared on someone’s Twitter post last week. I don’t think Putin expected the resistance he’s faced but they appear to have a near endless supply of troops he’s willing to send to their deaths. Disgraceful and will hopefully lead to continued backlashes back in Russia

 

[duffer]

It's usually the same few gimps.

My advice, get off your lazy arse and do your own research, or accept that you're always going to come across as a bit unhinged.

I'll give you a hand; twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are pretty good for tips on things make-up and fixing taps, less useful for geo-politics and public health issues that need more than 140 characters.

You can obviously read, try looking at some proper news sites and get your facts there to start with.

I'd delight in being a 'gimp' if the alternative is to be some kind of anti-intellectual troglodyte, seemingly outraged by certain opinions but impotent to challenge them other than by offering insult.

 

[Deleted member 7943]

Oh dear. There's talk that Russia might have sent in the 18 year old kids and the shit equipment first to take the initial hit, and will now follow it up with the proper stuff.

Let's hope not.

Well some of us did say this was the case earlier in the thread , they have 500,000 full time , paid soldiers .

 

[CCFCSteve]

Mix of good and scary news at the moment. Scary for us here is obviously the threat of nuclear war (although you’d hope someone would take care of Putin before that, especially as Russia aren’t being directly threatened). The good being the unbelievable resistance in some parts of Ukraine…what brave people. The pressure on the Russian economy with runs on banks and interest rates shooting up is probably quicker than anticipated. Some oligarchs are publicly suggesting Putin should enter peace talks. Also some continued protests in Russia

Let’s hope Putin sees sense in the Ukraine/Russia talks on Belarus border which I think are later today. But what will he find acceptable to save face and walk away, that’s still my concern

ps I googled ‘Putin serious illness’ last night as I’d heard some rumours in the last. Both Parkinson’s and cancer were mentioned although obviously unverified. Might explain why he’s in a hurry to ‘secure his legacy’…let’s hope it doesn’t tip him over the edge

 

[PVA]

Well some of us did say this was the case earlier in the thread , they have 500,000 full time , paid soldiers .

It makes no sense though. If they wanted to take Kiev within 72 hours as was apparently the plan they'd have sent the heavy stuff and elite forces in first, got air superioty etc. They did none of that

 

[Deleted member 7943]

It makes no sense though. If they wanted to take Kiev within 72 hours as was apparently the plan they'd have sent the heavy stuff and elite forces in first, got air superioty etc. They did none of that

The zulus used to use a similar tac , send the oldies in first to test the might of the enemy , then send the best of their soldiers after .

They probably hoped the conscripts could do the job though In all fairness, and as mentioned have been surprised by the resistance

 

[PVA]

Yeah I get that, just doesn’t make any sense if you wanted it done very quickly, which they apparently did. To seemingly not even make much of an attempt to establish air superiority is just odd.

If they really are bringing in the heavy stuff it will probably lead to significantly higher casualties, but hopefully it doesn’t come to that. Those thermobaric weapons look utterly terrifying.

 

[Deleted member 7943]

Yeah I get that, just doesn’t make any sense if you wanted it done very quickly, which they apparently did. To seemingly not even make much of an attempt to establish air superiority is just odd.

If they really are bringing in the heavy stuff it will probably lead to significantly higher casualties, but hopefully it doesn’t come to that. Those thermobaric weapons look utterly terrifying.

Hopefully they come to an agreement when they hold talks

 

[Tommo1993]

I like this

 

[Philosoraptor]

I would imagine scout units to be fast moving and lightly armoured.

 

[chiefdave]

Doesn't the send the expendable in to test the resistance approach just give you a bigger problem. In the time they've been doing that other countries have been bolstering Ukraines defences? For example there's now EU fighter jets in the area supporting Ukraine which will make it a lot harder for Russia to dominate the skies.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

Mix of good and scary news at the moment. Scary for us here is obviously the threat of nuclear war (although you’d hope someone would take care of Putin before that, especially as Russia aren’t being directly threatened). The good being the unbelievable resistance in some parts of Ukraine…what brave people. The pressure on the Russian economy with runs on banks and interest rates shooting up is probably quicker than anticipated. Some oligarchs are publicly suggesting Putin should enter peace talks. Also some continued protests in Russia

Let’s hope Putin sees sense in the Ukraine/Russia talks on Belarus border which I think are later today. But what will he find acceptable to save face and walk away, that’s still my concern

ps I googled ‘Putin serious illness’ last night as I’d heard some rumours in the last. Both Parkinson’s and cancer were mentioned although obviously unverified. Might explain why he’s in a hurry to ‘secure his legacy’…let’s hope it doesn’t tip him over the edge

I was thinking last night I wondered if Putin was very ill and thus rushing. He'd been very patient in the build up up to now. Or it could just be he's got tired of waiting.

 

[chiefdave]

Hopefully they come to an agreement when they hold talks

Its really hard to know what to expect with Putin. Logically you'd say this has gone pretty badly and you'd be looking for a way to exit without looking like a complete failure. Which then leads to a) is that even possible and b) its Putin so there's a good chance a logical course of action won't be followed.

 

[stupot07]

Oh dear. There's talk that Russia might have sent in the 18 year old kids and the shit equipment first to take the initial hit, and will now follow it up with the proper stuff.

Let's hope not.

An interesting counter thread to that.



Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

 

[chiefdave]

There's so much chatter on social media its difficult to work out who is genuinely knowledgeable and who has just moved on from covid and vaccines to this being their latest area of expertise.

I'm in an ice hockey Discord which has a lot of Americans in it and they chat about Ukraine as if they're watching someone play COD on Twitch, its very odd.

Talking of crap on social media those who monitor spam & misinformation saying there has been a huge drop off since twitter took steps to block access from Russia.

 

[Sick Boy]

Yeah I get that, just doesn’t make any sense if you wanted it done very quickly, which they apparently did. To seemingly not even make much of an attempt to establish air superiority is just odd.

If they really are bringing in the heavy stuff it will probably lead to significantly higher casualties, but hopefully it doesn’t come to that. Those thermobaric weapons look utterly terrifying.

Presumably he thought the Ukrainians would surrender/comply. I guess going in heavy means that there are going to be problems once he’s got what he wanted.

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

I wonder when it stops being useful and becomes inflammatory to ruin the Russian economy. Isn’t that what happened after world war 1 and led to world war 2?

I don’t know the answer but it strikes me that we need to leave putin room to step towards peace rather than with no hope whatsoever and no options whatsoever. Even if that’s only in his mind

 

[PVA]

Talks have begun...

 

[tisza]

I wonder when it stops being useful and becomes inflammatory to ruin the Russian economy. Isn’t that what happened after world war 1 and led to world war 2?

I don’t know the answer but it strikes me that we need to leave putin room to step towards peace rather than with no hope whatsoever and no options whatsoever. Even if that’s only in his mind

Guessing the difference with Germany and Russia would be Russia's huge resources of energy will enable it to recover fairly quickly once sanctions are lifted.
WW2 recovery was different because it involved the near total removal of the Nazi regime but more importantly Govts wanted a strong Germany to combat the threat of the Soviet Union.
For all the talk I haven't yet seen anyone prominent offer a practical method of getting Putin to withdraw that would be acceptable to both sides. Maybe these talks will throw up something but does feel "well we tried" exercise for domestic consumption.