Everyone but the British government. This is either all or nothing imo. Either you cut Russia off from the world or you don't. No swift cut off it seems. Half the oligarchs not touched etc etc. Smacks of self interest over caring too much about Ukraine. The germans are at the heart of this in the eu. Poland and the baltic 3 are next and are screaming for more and the usual self interested eu states are saying as long as they are not affected economically.
That's a dangerous policy though. International diplomacy pays scant regard to justice - it's pure pragmatism. Forcing Russia into a corner where they're left with nothing to lose is not something the rest of the world will want to do. Regardless of belligerent rhetoric, the solution most nations will want is to restore some sort of peace to the region, even at the risk of Ukrainian sovereignty being jeopardised. The economic interdependence of the world now is the only thing that has staved off large-scale wars.
Well once a rich guy decides to shoot putin in the back of thebhead all will be well. Pragmatically speaking. His rant on Tuesday basically spewing rubbish about was neither the iron man or statesman. It was simply a twisting loon ranting on about former times. The message should be clear. Put the old dog down and whoever is stong enough to replace him can come back to the table. This is like Czechoslovakia in 1930s. Hitler got his way. Give putin his way here and then it'll be Poland and the baltics States next.
Can’t say I’m a huge historian, but not sure given what happened 100 years ago, shooting a guy in charge ends that well?
I'm hoping that now a lot of Russians have experienced capitalism and Western culture,travel,Mcshitties etc that they'll rebel about going back to the grey days of old Russia and do the job for us of removing this lunatic.
Public opinion seems strongly divided there, with some anti-war protests going on - but you imagine they'll be dealt with quite harshly if they get out of hand. One problem is that a lot of people in the poorer rural regions feel they were better off in the communist era anyway, and don't have any great love for the capitalist system.
We shouldn't consider Russia to be anything but a modern day Rome. there were about 100 oligarchs running the roman empire and it didn't matter what a peasant, a legionnaire or a pleb in the city thought or did. The oligarchs own russia. They have the be squeezed to the point of losing it all. And that means SWIFT right now, not in a months time Mr Biden. Per the roman empire, once the oligarchs were sick of an emperor they butchered them. be it Caligula, Julius Caesar or any other example you care to mention. The only issue here is how you get the russians to leave ukraine now they are in. As long as putin's head is on a spike we shouldn't care too much either way.
