Perhaps Nato should declare it independent and conduct a special operation to de-nazify it?
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran are here to talk about a frustrating 2 points dropped at Crystal Palace. They then discuss the regeneration of Old Trafford. Finally, Nik is joined by special guest Michael Statham from the Football Oranje podcast - who gives us a more in depth look at our EL opposition FC Twente, and then runs through the (many) Dutch connections currently at United.
Perhaps Nato should declare it independent and conduct a special operation to de-nazify it?
I mean for clarity are you expecting free and fair democratic elections to facilitate that ?
Fair enough. In that case Putin is ignoring the reason why those countries wanted to be a part of NATO and it's precisely because they don't want to be vassal states again.
In a nutshell it's a weak excuse for this action and he knows it.
And you would think they would get quite a bit of support in organising an insurgency in terms of finance and supplies, even tacitly. Not like there's any benefit for the other major European countries in Russia not being bogged down in an expensive occupation.
I'd like to see them try to suppress tens of millions of people into accepting their rule. Yes they can beat their armies, but the underground movements will cost them massively.
NATO will be forced to act eventually. Putin is currently lording it over them, someone will eventually draw a line in the sand and lord knows what'll happen.
Here's a new article about it. Good, not very long read.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-02-25/coming-ukrainian-insurgency
They are only processing family visa applications and not tourism or other more general visas. So we couldn't apply for our in-laws to come because parents of a UK national are not in scope. They would a tourism visa which cannot be applied for from Ukraine currently.
Anyone who expected Britain to be one of the easier countries to get a visa to is very, very naive. Our policies have been designed to keep families apart and make it way more difficult than it should be for people to even bring their partners to the UK. It is very expensive and you need to meet a certain barrier financially. We got married in Ukraine and I had to move back to the UK alone to earn a salary over the threshold to be able to apply for my wife to then move here.
Let them meet the Azov battalion.
Speaking Russia invading Norway. We've got the last series of Okkupert to watch, but it has always been a very uncomfortable watch given how close to the bone it is.
Dollars??? No point paying them in that currency now. Get more value getting paid in salt and potatoes
I’m no modmin, but I’d be amazed if you got banned because @RedDevilQuebecois doesn’t believe we should know what the Russians are saying. I think you’re safe
Haha, I didn't really think I was, but I still had to speak out on it. The hypocrisy was unreal.
After WW2 when Germany was forced to give up territory Russia wanted it as its a strategic port city and it wasn't a priority for anybody else.
"Expanding NATO" meant "welcoming newly democratic states into our alliance of democratic states when they asked to join". Let's not forget that.
We've always been at war with Oceania.
It's not just money. Fighting weak middle Eastern countries is no risk. A few thousand soldiers die over a decade - nobody even notices. Back home the war exists only in the news reports.
Fight Russia and its bombs landing in your cities, £100m worth of fighter jets being shot down, £300m worth of ships being sunk - the cost of war runs into billions of damages a week as well as hundreds of lives lost daily.
I watched season 1, and for sure. Even more now, I'd imagine.
Oh come on. Comparing Iraq is laughable. Russia is an enormous landmass, and a superpower armed with a ton of nukes. Nobody is ever invading that country.
feck. I hope if these 'people' are allowed to commit atrocities, it's at least recorded and shown.
Too often media talk but do not show the real impact of conflict. I thought similar for Corona - show the hospitals filling up to bring it closer to home. Same here and do it on repeat in case someone decides they're bored of this and want another new TikTok trend to follow.
This is a better response than your previous one to me, where you just called me insane, so thanks.
Nuclear weapons are a deterrent. Typically that has meant “a deterrent to protect one’s own sovereignty”, unfortunately the precedent that the Putin regime is setting is “the ability to go about your agenda unopposed”. This is problematic and escalators, and if he is allowed to get away with it (ie it’s shown that his plan works), then not only Russia, but other authoritarian states will follow suit.
Taiwan up next. The question is no longer “will the US defend Taiwan?”, the question is “will the US be prepared to blow up the world, for Taiwan”.
Putin is a rogue actor and essentially a terrorist. He is holding the world hostage, whilst he carries out his demands. The more you let him do it, the bolder he gets, and the bolder other states get. It’s a very slippery slope until you live in a world where all claimed territory belongs to one of a handful of nuclear powers.
We have to believe that there is still a middle ground, where conventional warfare does not lead to nukes being thrown around. If we defend Ukraine, but do not take a step onto Russian soil, there is no reason for escalation. Let Putin frame it in whatever way he wants to back at home with his propaganda channels. Let him claim victory in order to save face if he wants. Hell, let him keep Crimea. But show him that the west is prepared to defend itself.
Show him once, and show strength, and with any luck you never need to do so again - that is the best deterrent.
Indeed.
It's mind boogling how some people simealteanously blame nato for nato expansion and for not expanding to Ukraine.
Sweden and Finland are (alongside Ireland, Switzerland, and Austria) the few western democracies still not in NATO.
The opinion has been progressively pro-NATO. In January 66 % said we should be open to joining if the situation were to get worse.
In Finland the latest poll (published about a week ago) there was a big increase. It showed 43 % would support membership if the President and PM consider it in the country's best interest. 27 % against and 30 % undecided. I think it is the highest supprot ever in Finland.
More German clumsiness:
God almighty.
Good!
Yep. Iraq was a right feck up, but it had some basis from United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 which found Iraq in material breach of its obligations to disarm and was a "final opportunity to comply." Now if that justified what followed is still a legal debate now.
I challenge anyone to find me ANYTHING from the UN or other recognised international body respected by both sides that gives this the validity that had (granted based partly on some very bad intel.) But no one has, because there isn't.
This, plus the fact that the Chinese state banks seem to be ready to drop Russia at the first sign of economic trouble, is potentially a game changer. Let's see.
This psychopath should take a leaf out of his old man's book and join them in the front. See how brave he is then.
To add to the previous comment - this whole thing is about Putin knowing what he can get away with. He knows the west weren’t prepared to go to war for Ukraine, so he attacked. If he didn’t know whether the west would go to war, or if he thought we would, then he wouldn’t have attacked.
It’s really just the old saying - if you want peace, prepare for war. Freedom isn’t free. Blah blah blah. You need to be seen to be prepared to go to war (and then follow through if it comes to it).
Putin understands this. He puts on a big enough theatre and spectacle and comes across insane enough that the west BELIEVES he will launch nukes. And so he does what he wants, uncontested. If he didn’t project that image, and we didn’t believe that he would hit the button, it would be a different story. At some point it will be tested, it’s a question of “when”, not “if”
I wish. That area should have been a bargaining chip and a direct counterweight to the Russian build-up outside Ukraine before the invasion. And to be honest, Königsberg (I'm openly disrespecting the current name in favor ot its long-standing historical name here) and what used to be East Prussia should now belong to either Poland, Lithuania or even both based on geography alone.
Wow, that is pathetic.
Most powerful European nation? They've been a joke throughout this whole ordeal. Living in a total fantasy land, concerned primarily with their own gas bill. Shouldn't be forgotten. They just don't have the political appetite for the current climate it seems.
Yes its become clear by the day that the leaders within Nato are a bunch of spinless morons who think harming Russia's economy will stop him
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
Germany definitely have overcompensated for WW2 in terms of reducing military prowess 