Russian invasion of Ukraine

The news this morning talking about Russian bombs designed to suck the oxygen out of the atmosphere, and should things not go well for Putin, he might resort to them.
At what point will someone in Europe say fuck it, were on our way to help.

They probably mean the TOS-1. It can launch themobaric rockets and would be a significant escalation.

 
The sheer amount of videos online of people talking to Russian soldiers, small skirmishes, tanks running out of fuel, civilians telling Russian soldiers to fuck off (in a variety of ways) and general odds and sods is just incredible, war has never ever been covered like this. It's remarkable.
 
Disgusted to see UAE Abstaining in UN vote against Russia last night.
There was a thread on this. Listen to what the UAE delegate had to say. They opposed the violence, called for de-escalation and called for all member states rights to sovereignty and independence to be respected. It looks more like the abstention was more a "what's the point in voting when Russia is just going to veto it anyway".
 
Most conflicts in the world are complicated with valid points of view from both sides.
This isn’t one of them. It’s the most straightforward act of unprovoked naked aggression since Germany invaded Poland, and we’ve still got the usual wankers on here trying to see it from both sides. Wish they’d just fuck off.
You can’t spin missiles hitting residential tower blocks and tanks driving over cars with people in them into something else. The world can see it and anyone being apologists for these murdering sub humans are special type of weird.
 
There was a thread on this. Listen to what the UAE delegate had to say. They opposed the violence, called for de-escalation and called for all member states rights to sovereignty and independence to be respected. It looks more like the abstention was more a "what's the point in voting when Russia is just going to veto it anyway".
Missing the point entirely. Nice spin.

The resolution was an opportunity to show a united front and condemn this disgusting aggression, whether you were 100% behind it or not. Not to vote with the resolution is sending a very poor message and disrespectful to your supposed partners. I mean, Putins actions are so reprehensible - why would anyone think abstaining is even showing neutrality - no matter what weasel words they preface it with?
 
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Not sure how accurate all this is as need to be careful these days, but it seems well researched with videos and links to old news article, and found it useful as a starting point to look into whats lead up to this crisis

 
Most conflicts in the world are complicated with valid points of view from both sides.
This isn’t one of them. It’s the most straightforward act of unprovoked naked aggression since Germany invaded Poland, and we’ve still got the usual wankers on here trying to see it from both sides. Wish they’d just fuck off.

It’s the thing I hate the most about any discussion on here that it always devolves into certain posters sniffing their own farts and trying to prove they’re smarter than everyone else by playing the contrary when in reality they just come off as massive cunts.
 
There was a thread on this. Listen to what the UAE delegate had to say. They opposed the violence, called for de-escalation and called for all member states rights to sovereignty and independence to be respected. It looks more like the abstention was more a "what's the point in voting when Russia is just going to veto it anyway".

I don't think that is a great excuse to abstain in my opinion.
 
Disgusted to see UAE Abstaining in UN vote against Russia last night.
Nations do what suits their own national security interest. Abstaining doesn't mean that the UAE or India support the Russian invasion. The delegation speech afterwards clarifies this.

The resolution was always deemed to fail anyway with Russia's veto vote!
 
Seriously impressive leadership from Zelensky. There will be squares named after him in many towns after this is over.
Very impressed by him. And I hope he makes it through this.
If he doesn't Putin who is already a pariah internationally will become whatever the next word after pariah is.
 
What a leader Zelenslky is. Nothing but admiration for this man, his cabinet & his people (& the whole of Poland too). I’ve said for years, what we are short of in this country is a leader who identifies with the common , working class people, not some lemon from an upperclass, privately educated background. Anyway, drifting a bit off topic I suppose, but I just wish we had someone like him to lead us. All hail Zelenslky!!
 
The problem is that his “authority” bases his entire philosophy on the idea that no international organisation or agreement can prevent war, which has been fundamentally disproven by 75 years of peace between NATO and Russia and that only countries NOT in defence pacts have been attacked in that time.

That single, undeniable fact completely destroys Walt’s entire philosophy, so he must come up with a way to blame the defence pact for war.

In doing so he ends up repeating Russian propaganda and just being incredibly dishonest by saying things like Russia is forced into war by having NATO states on its border - which obviously doesn’t hold water because Russia has shared borders with NATO countries since the founding of NATO in 1949…
I did say there were opposing views, but I still don't regard either myself or Mr Walt as russian propagandists. All nations do propaganda of a sort, and at the point of conflict as nation's are jockeying for position it is quite common for any other view to be derided as enemy propaganda - see for example those that dared to suggest there were no WMD in Iraq and Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 back in 2002-3.
 
NATO decides who joins NATO.
I mean, of-bloody-course NATO decides who joins NATO. But NATO has an open-door policy to joining and a country only has to approach NATO to open negotiations.

The 2004 and 2010 (in fact, all!) Ukraine elections were fraught with election fraud with meddling from Russia.
After the 2010 elections, pro-Russian president Yanukovych, threw all opposition leaders in gaol.
In 2013 Ukraine was set to join the EU with an overwhelming majority in favour of this across the country. Russia again meddled and Yanukovych refused to sign the papers and Ukraine didn’t join.
Ukraine was invaded in 2014 - to be fair in Crimea it was mostly welcomed, but in Donbas it wasn’t despite there being a large pro-Russian and Russian ethnic population.
Yanukovych put 46% of the Ukraine budget towards the large pro-Russian and Russian ethnic Donbas region when it only has 11% of the Ukraine population.
In 2014 Russia were kicked out of the G8 for numerous reasons including being untrustworthy, unfriendly if not dangerous, and basically dickheads.
Russia does not recognise Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Russia thinks Ukraine is a region of Russia.
Putin is big on making Russian Orthodox Christianity as part of every day Russian life - in Ukraine they have a different denomination of Orthodoxy that Putin does not recognise and wants to get rid of it.
Ukraine approached NATO about joining as they were sick of Russia and fearful of their next moves.

Also, importantly…


This is why Ukraine matters.

It is the second largest country by area in Europe by area and has a population
of over 40 million - more than Poland.

Minerals:
Ukraine ranks:
⚗1st in Europe in proven recoverable reserves of uranium ores;
2nd place in Europe and 10th place in the world in terms of titanium ore reserves;
⚙2nd place in the world in terms of explored reserves of manganese ores (2.3 billion tons, or 12% of the world's reserves);
2nd largest iron ore reserves in the world (30 billion tons);
2nd place in Europe in terms of mercury ore reserves;
⛽3rd place in Europe (13th place in the world) in shale gas reserves (22 trillion cubic meters)
4th in the world by the total value of natural resources;
7th place in the world in coal reserves (33.9 billion tons)

Ukraine is an important agricultural country: ‍

1st in Europe in terms of arable land area;
3rd place in the world by the area of black soil (25% of world's volume);
1st place in the world in exports of sunflower and sunflower oil;
2nd place in the world in barley production and 4th place in barley exports;
3rd largest producer and 4th largest exporter of corn in the world;
4th largest producer of potatoes in the world;
5th largest rye producer in the world;
5th place in the world in bee production (75,000 tons);
8th place in the world in wheat exports;
9th place in the world in the production of chicken eggs;
16th place in the world in cheese exports.

Ukraine can meet the food needs of 600 million people.

Ukraine is an important industrialised country:

1st in Europe in ammonia production;
⛽Europe's 2nd’s and the world’s 4th largest natural gas pipeline system;
☢3rd largest in Europe and 8th largest in the world in terms of installed capacity of nuclear power plants;
3rd place in Europe and 11th in the world in terms of rail network length (21,700 km);
3rd place in the world (after the U.S. and France) in production of locators and locating equipment;
3rd largest iron exporter in the world
4th largest exporter of turbines for nuclear power plants in the world;
4th world's largest manufacturer of rocket launchers;
4th place in the world in clay exports
4th place in the world in titanium exports
8th place in the world in exports of ores and concentrates;
☄9th place in the world in exports of defence industry products;
⛓10th largest steel producer in the world (32.4 million tons).

Ukraine matters

Russia has a small, unvaried and struggling economy… look at that list and think why Russia might want to invade Ukraine.

Also Russian is the world’s biggest spreader of misinformation. Don’t fall for it!
 

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