Russia v Ukraine

[Section_31]

Arming civilians is understandable, the Russian troops are mostly conscripts and they'll probably shoot first and ask questions later, at least if you've got a gun you've got a chance, doesn't necessarily mean they'll be mobilised in squads on the front lines, more that they can defend themselves.

[TheHowieLama]

Russia’s communications regulator on Saturday urged media to remove reports describing Moscow’s attack on Ukraine as an “assault, invasion, or declaration of war”.

In a statement, Roskomnadzor accused a number of independent media outlets including television channel Dozhd and Echo of Moscow radio of spreading “unreliable socially significant untrue information” about the shelling of Ukrainian cities by the Russian army and civilian deaths.

 

Kyiv Post has some timely stuff - they had a DDoS cyberattack that was timed as the first wave of invasion came across - they have folks reporting from bunkers, under bridges etc.

Sputnik Int'l and Sputnik Czech have had similar attacks.

[dockers_strike]

24 minutes ago, SasaS said:

 Why would you wonder that? Even Germany has authorized the sale of 400 RPGs from Netherlands. They can get the supplies via Poland. There is no arms embargo against Ukraine. They apparently have quite extensive in-country manufacturing. They used to provide maintenance service for older Russian equipment to other countries still using it until recently.

I know Vlad's a lunatic but if he's not targeting civilians, you'd think he'd be targeting their weapons manufacture and maintenance facilities as well as any arms dumps, no?

[TheHowieLama]

Polish PM on Germany:

 

Morawiecki also took issue with Germany’s decision to send helmets rather than weapons to Ukraine.

 

“Five thousand helmets? That must be some kind of joke. There needs to be real help… weapons,” he said.

[Guest Alex_K]

• China abstained from veto-ing UN motion. That, combined with Kazakhstan refusing to send support for Russia or recognise independent DNR/LNR despite being in same military alliance suggests Chinese support for Russia is tenuous at best. Kazakhstan is key territory for China; president studied in China, and there were strong rumours in Jan. that China forced Russia to withdraw their troops from Kazakhstan after protests.
• More and more motion for Russia to be excluded from SWIFT, likely as West perceives less and less recoil from China if Russia are removed from SWIFT

These 2 factors will be critical. Putin faces real danger of Russian economy not just being sanctioned against but being obliterated, and being less essentially ally-less against full force of the world (minus 'abstainers').

[TheHowieLama]

18 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

Yeah it feels like this is about to get really ugly shortly. I can't do anything other than side with them trying to defend their home against a Russian invasion but this really should have been negotiated to some type of agreement by this point to save lives.

https://www.uniindia.com/story/Ukraine-denies-refusing-negotiations-with-Russia

[dockers_strike]

20 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

Yeah it feels like this is about to get really ugly shortly. I can't do anything other than side with them trying to defend their home against a Russian invasion but this really should have been negotiated to some type of agreement by this point to save lives.

Macron thought he had. Peace in our time and all that.

[Rico1304]

You know those laws introduced to strip people of their U.K. citizenship?   Can’t they be used to kick out the Russians who bought passports?  It’s a cunt law, but this may be a positive unintended consequence. 

[SasaS]

6 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

I know Vlad's a lunatic but if he's not targeting civilians, you'd think he'd be targeting their weapons manufacture and maintenance facilities as well as any arms dumps, no?

 

He would be, but from reports, Russians didn't launch that many cruise missiles nor carried out that many airstrikes to take out their capabilities after two or three days. Depots that were hit were apparently empty, and they did know what was going to be hit in the first wave. They must have enough stockpiled and hidden away for many more days. I wouldn't expect that to be their main problem. And they can always resupply as long they hold the western Ukraine and are not surrounded. And even then, it's a fairly big country.

[Guest Alex_K]

6 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

You know those laws introduced to strip people of their U.K. citizenship?   Can’t they be used to kick out the Russians who bought passports?  It’s a cunt law, but this may be a positive unintended consequence. 

There are millions of good Russians living and working abroad. As I mentioned some pages ago - there are a lot of incredible Russian politicians who have been forces for good: Nemtsov, Navalny etc. Nemtsov was assassinated outside Kremlin. Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, escaped that attempted assassination and still returned to Russia to protest and was then put in prison on false charges. Garry Kasparov has been a constant thorn in the Putin establishment side despite the threats on his life too. Countless opposition members have simply been assassinated or put in prison. There are many similar figures to these.

 

My point is - carte blanche attacks on Russians abroad is not a good thing. Targetted attacks or sanctions against those who have abetted Putin are a good thing. The latter is what should (and hopefully will) happen.

[Red Phoenix]

4 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

https://www.uniindia.com/story/Ukraine-denies-refusing-negotiations-with-Russia

 

I keep seeing how one side stopped negotiations from working out but no idea who to believe. That article says Russia set out demands and conditions that couldn't be accepted (Guardian said the same earlier too I think), but I haven't seen what they were.

[dockers_strike]

2 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

I keep seeing how one side stopped negotiations from working out but no idea who to believe. That article says Russia set out demands and conditions that couldn't be accepted (Guardian said the same earlier too I think), but I haven't seen what they were.

Surrender your sovereignty or else doesnt seem much in the way of negotiations never mind acceptable ones, in my opinion.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

He's probably right, but fuck knows how you get there from here.

 

[dockers_strike]

Just now, AngryOfTuebrook said:

He's probably right, but fuck knows how you get there from here.

 

Has he changed his comments slightly since last night when his verbage was generally panned?

[Guest Alex_K]

2 minutes ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

He's probably right, but fuck knows how you get there from here.

 

This is not a war - this is an invasion of a sovereign state. Please try and avoid propagating this misinformed or propagandist view on the internet, it is not helpful.

[SasaS]

4 minutes ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

He's probably right, but fuck knows how you get there from here.

 

They should send him to negotiate after the tremendous success in talks he had as a Greek minister.

[Red Phoenix]

4 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

Surrender your sovereignty or else doesnt seem much in the way of negotiations never mind acceptable ones, in my opinion.

 

Agreed, I'm just hoping they can meet somewhere soon with whatever their conditions are for talks so that something is resolved.

[Rico1304]

22 minutes ago, Alex_K said:

There are millions of good Russians living and working abroad. As I mentioned some pages ago - there are a lot of incredible Russian politicians who have been forces for good: Nemtsov, Navalny etc. Nemtsov was assassinated outside Kremlin. Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, escaped that attempted assassination and still returned to Russia to protest and was then put in prison on false charges. Garry Kasparov has been a constant thorn in the Putin establishment side despite the threats on his life too. Countless opposition members have simply been assassinated or put in prison. There are many similar figures to these.

 

My point is - carte blanche attacks on Russians abroad is not a good thing. Targetted attacks or sanctions against those who have abetted Putin are a good thing. The latter is what should (and hopefully will) happen.

At the risk of being threatened if I ever set foot in Anfield you’ll note I said the ones who bought passports. 

[J-V]

7 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

Agreed, I'm just hoping they can meet somewhere soon with whatever their conditions are for talks so that something is resolved.

Fuck Putin and his conditions the cheeky cunt. 

[Rico1304]

28 minutes ago, SasaS said:

 

He would be, but from reports, Russians didn't launch that many cruise missiles nor carried out that many airstrikes to take out their capabilities after two or three days. Depots that were hit were apparently empty, and they did know what was going to be hit in the first wave. They must have enough stockpiled and hidden away for many more days. I wouldn't expect that to be their main problem. And they can always resupply as long they hold the western Ukraine and are not surrounded. And even then, it's a fairly big country.

And you can fit about 10 Stingers in a car. Distribute them and helicopters become pretty vulnerable. 

[TheHowieLama]

9 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

Agreed, I'm just hoping they can meet somewhere soon with whatever their conditions are for talks so that something is resolved.

They will meet and there will be a quick discussion, you can count on it.

[Guest Alex_K]

5 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

At the risk of being threatened if I ever set foot in Anfield you’ll note I said the ones who bought passports. 

No, you simply made a stupid comment and you have too much pride to go back on it. How do you differentiate who "bought" passports from good or ill-gotten gains? Chichvarkin made a billion $ company from nothing in Russia, then was forced out and had his company appropriated. He owns one of the finest wine companies in the world and Michelin star restaurants in London, all yielded by his own ingenuity against the current Russian establishment. No doubt he would have been on an Investor / Entrepreneurial visa, and his refuge from Russia has brought immense good to the UK. Did he "buy" his visa/passport through negative or positive means? Would he lose his passport under your ill-considered scheme? How do you begin to differentiate with such a carte-blanche approach? Think before you speak, and if you have no intimate knowledge on the subject simply do not speak.

[SasaS]

1 minute ago, Alex_K said:

No, you simply made a stupid comment and you have too much pride to go back on it. How do you differentiate who "bought" passports? Chichvarkin made a billion $ company from nothing in Russia, then was forced out and had his company appropriated. He owns one of the finest wine companies in the world and Michelin star restaurants in London, all yielded by his own ingenuity against the current Russian establishment. No doubt he would have been on an Investor / Entreprenurial visa. Did he "buy" his visa/passport? Would he lose his passport under your ill-considered scheme? Think before you speak, and if you have no intimate knowledge on the subject simply do not speak.

This would be a pretty dead forum very soon if we started abiding by that rule.

[dockers_strike]

11 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

Agreed, I'm just hoping they can meet somewhere soon with whatever their conditions are for talks so that something is resolved.

Id imagine the Ukrainian negotiating position would be stop bombing us, fuck off back over the border to Russia and leave us to determine our own destiny. Or something along those lines. Not sure Vlad the lunatic would agree though.

[Rico1304]

1 minute ago, Alex_K said:

No, you simply made a stupid comment and you have too much pride to go back on it. How do you differentiate who "bought" passports? Chichvarkin made a billion $ company from nothing in Russia, then was forced out and had his company appropriated. He owns one of the finest wine companies in the world and Michelin star restaurants in London, all yielded by his own ingenuity against the current Russian establishment. No doubt he would have been on an Investor / Entreprenurial visa. Did he "buy" his visa/passport? Would he lose his passport under your ill-considered scheme? Think before you speak, and if you have no intimate knowledge on the subject simply do not speak.

Ha ha he’s off again. You can tell what I said because it’s written down you fucking clown. 
 

It’s not ‘my scheme’ it’s a shitty law introduced by the government. 
 

If you need intimate knowledge on a subject to speak this forum is fucked.