Just been talking to a good friend of mine, who knows more about military strategy and war than all the rest of us put together. He seems pretty certain that Putin stops at Ukraine, mainly due to the fact he doesn't have enough ground troops to actually go further. Which, although still awful, is mildly reassuring.
I hope it doesn't escalate and there's as little suffering as possible. Covid put halt to our travel plans so we bought a 10m steel canal cruiser, a bit of a project, and thoroughly enjoyed exploring the Dutch waterways. Haarlem. Woerden on the Grecht close to its junction with the Oude Rijn The Grecht heading north to the Amstel at Uithoorn.
There is no way any Russian team should be involved with international sport of any description for the foreseeable future. Putin's gamble has to totally fail in strategic terms and in the eyes of the Russian public. It will take a long time to register such a success, perhaps but there can be no reward for him or his cronies, ever. Even if, as some suggest, he stops with crushing Ukraine, the world has now to recognise there is an unpredictable, clever and duplicitous person leading an extremely dangerous regime prepared to have it's way by brutal force, whatever the cost to their nation.
Dominic Cummings has waded into the Government’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and claimed the Conservative Party has been “financed by Putin’s mates for decades”. He also made the bold assertion that Russia has been able to influence UK voters. Boris Johnson’s former ally and chief aide said the Prime Minister’s approach to Vladimir Putin’s latest offensive in Ukraine will fail to stop Russian oligarchs from sending their children to be educated in Britain’s best school – and claimed Moscow refers to the UK capital as a “laundry”. Taking to Twitter, the Prime Minister’s former ally and chief aide said: “tories literally have their party FINANCED BY PUTIN’S MATES FOR DECADES, won’t even stop them sending their kids to eton/harrow or using London as a ‘laundry’ (London’s actual Moscow nickname), then their MPs start babbling about no fly zones!!!” Mr Cummings concluded the Tweet with a number of clown emojis. But the former Downing Street aide was confronted with questions by i that the outcome of the 2020 Russia report by House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee warned of “illicit Russian money buying influence across the UK establishment”. The report claimed that the British government and intelligence agencies failed to conduct any proper assessment of Russian attempts to interfere with the 2016 Brexit referendum. But Mr Cummings dismissed claims of interference in the EU vote as “fake news” and “almost all” false, but claimed Russia was involved in the Scottish referendum two years earlier. He wrote: “Fake news. Report was leaked from the cmte [committee] before sent to PM’s office, then Grieve popped straight up on tv spinning it. Classified version then had to go thro[through] redaction process. “Brexit REF claims almost all false. but Russia DID help independence in Scottish REF.”
We're spending this weekend on the boat, bright and chilly, no problem with plenty of layers. probably take a roundabout route to Leiden not far from us.
Brave brave men. Bastard Russians! No doubt “only following orders” - they should be ashamed Russia needs to be made a pariah state like North Korea. Seize all Russian assets in every country, expel diplomats and their families, expel all Russian oligarchs and seize their assets (most of central London) - then publish a list of ALL MPs who have been given Russian money and force them to resign. If that means a general election, so be it - what we need now is a government of general unity with cross party MPs running it and no Russian influence allowed
Really lucky my GF's family thought about doing the below last week... The'yre all together now and just hiding in her grandparents basement about 30km from a city currently under attack.
