Soon as you fire one nuke, everyone shhites their pants and become trigger happy, China, Russia and America pressing buttons all over the shop. I doubt our UK nukes will have time to get off the ground though, because Boris will want to do a Churchill speech first, by that time we'd all be disintegrated.
The ****e their pants part I agree; kind of what you want to happen. Left unchecked I can see Putin trying to grab more. He's not a young man anymore so he'll accelerate his ambitions if he can wrap up ops in Ukraine pretty quickly.
More seriously, I had given thought to Putins age, remembering when he gave his recent long boring speech, that he was 69. He's of an age where he no longer cares and took this opportunity to reclaim what use to be part of the old USSR before Gorbachev's reign came to an end. I'm not a great fan of the EU movment, nor do I forget the bombs of peace NATO planted on the old Yugoslavia, nor do I forget the lies in the run up to the war in Iraq, and the mess we left behind in Afghanistan. So seeing the argument from both sides of the fence, and I do agree, Putin is in the wrong, I merely suggest we sit this one out or risk dragging us into a world war for the sake of a nation that for little more than only three decades ago, sat on the other side of the fence.
It's a worrying situation for sure. I guess a peaceful solution would be, that Putin will take the land, then we (EU/UK) offer refugee status to those that want to come from any land he takes and that Putin allows civilians safe movement to wherever they want to move. Right now, the EU with the aid of the UK ie NATO, need to be reinforcing it's own front line as a warning to Putin, if you step here, we are ready for you. I'm not talking Boris style rhetoric on toecaps btw, that was just stupid talk.
He's already started. Listened to him on the radio and his tone and intonation is deliberately Churchillian already ffs. It's his dream come true "We will of course do everything to keep our country safe" Where the fck did that come from?
Depends what his goals are in Ukraine. If it's to take it over completely, no way is he wrapping it up quickly. Ukraine have got a formidable and substantial army backed with NATO armaments. Iirc about 3-4 times the numbers Putin has based there. If however, Putin just wants to annex a part of it then big scale operations could be over quite quickly with more smaller battles still continuing as in the Crimea.
Best strategy is to allow Russia to use resources, get in further debt, tank their currency and anger their citizens tbh. Russians are worse off already, its been a few hours. It could be a disaster for mini-hitler
I reckon he’ll annex the separatist republics in the east and lay the foundations for a pro-Russian puppet government in the rest of Ukraine, similar to the government in Belarus. People who insist we, the ‘noble’ West, have to do ‘the right thing’ lest we allow dictators and tyrants take over with impunity have short memories. We’re best pals with some right vile ****s around the world and we have our own sordid history. The West does not have a leg to stand on morally. Our closest allies in the Middle East are Israel and Saudi Arabia ffs. We rubbed shoulders with General Pinochet in the 1980s. People need to stop viewing geopolitics like it’s some Marvel movie with ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’. It isn’t. There’s ‘us’ and ‘them’.
Putin has said he wants demilitarisation and 'denazification', whatever the **** he means about the latter is mind boggling. The country has a Jewish president and is no Nazi. Wit Russia attacking from all sides and trying to take out air and sea bases, it looks like he wants to disable their military and then make an assault on Kiev to dispose of the leader and impose a Russian friendly regime **** knows really, personally I think Putin is off his head.
If he thinks anything he is doing is not just going to piss off Ukrainians and mean they pull further West, he's an even bigger moron than I thought. It boggles the mind honestly
Ordinary Russians have no beef with Ukrainians either, they view them as their brothers and sisters. There's no appetite for a long term conflict with Ukraine from the people of Russia. Like you say, best way to disarm Putin is to cut off his financial supply, but China will step in and support him if the west do that. Add to that, Europe can't agree on what sorts of sanctions to impose, because most European countries have financial interests in Russia that would hurt them if sanctions are imposed.
Zelensky isn’t far-right. That being said, a lot of the security forces and paramilitaries of Ukraine are outright fascists who consider Bandera, a Nazi collaborator during Operation Barbarossa, as a hero.
There's a problem with far right politics right across Eastern Europe and Russia itself. Putin should look on his own doorstep if he's wants denazification
The ruble falling against the dollar will hit average Russians hard, the purchasing power falling means their savings basically just disappear.
It’s difficult to judge, because of course no opinion polls and he just locks up anyone who opposes him, but I’m not sure Putin is that popular in Russia right now. It seems he has the armed forces on side, but for how long if his invasion turns into a ****show?
