What a surprise, the Chinese aren't condemning the Russians but encourage dialogue, I take it they don't care that Putin is ignoring the Ukrainian president's phone calls.
Having been called a white supremacist on here the other day I should point out that that’s a reference to a well known South Park episode about wrongheaded attitudes to immigration and I’m not seriously taking a shot at potential Ukrainian migrants.
Wasn't accusing you of anything negative...that tagline just reminded me of the Bloc Party song expressing very similar views re: such wrongheaded attitudes.
Ah good, I’m just being twitchy! Only really remember Silent Alarm, I’ll have to go back and listen to more of their stuff because I really liked that album when it came out.
The Russian Gazprom cycling team is competing in this week's UAE Tour (which is not a misspelled tour of @UEA_Hornet ’s garden). In an uncomfortable instance of art imitating life, three of its riders got into today’s breakaway. The European and US teams allowed them to build up a decent lead and then misjudged the run in allowing insufficient time to catch them. Czech teenager Mathias Vacek won it for the Russian team, who the other teams can only hope is now expelled from future competitions.
Yes, it can get a bit annoying to say the least when someone accuses you of something you most definitely are not...I tend to experience that from one poster in particular. The album after 'Silent Alarm' is 'A Weekend In The City' & that's really good, although I find the next couple of albums a bit mediocre.
BBC live feed reporting the Ukrainian interior ministry saying: "Ukrainian military equipment is entering Kyiv now to defend it. I am asking all residents of Kyiv - please do not film it, do not film its movements. This is necessary to protect our city." I did think earlier this morning, when Sky News were happily broadcasting live troop movements in Kyiv as soldiers moved into buildings and established defensive perimeters, that the Kremlin would be loving it. No need for spies or satellites when moronic Western journalists are happy to do the leg work for you.
It doesn't seem that our thoughts and prayers are doing much to deter Putin. Hopefully a candlelight vigil for Ukrainian democracy will do the trick. Guess Moldova will be the next one Putin fancies.
So what should have been done by whom? I understand all your points, but they seem to have nothing to do with the apparent anti-Blairite/Starmerite (if such a thing even exists) rant of your initial post I responded to.
What’s confusing about the position of @La_tempesta_cielo_68 is the contradiction between blaming everything on Western Imperialism (and let’s face it that’s a dish I’m fond of) and then saying it’s all the West’s fault for not putting other Countries ‘in their place’. An attitude that sounds like a Campaign for Real Imperialism. It’s very possible for the West to behave extremely badly at times and then reasonably at others or at least be presented with genuinely difficult problems like Putin. What we can all surely agree on is the attitude to Russian influence and money has been too lenient. It’s still in the business of drugging its athletes and bumping off political opponents. Rich Russian friends of the dictator shouldn’t be allowed to buy UK citizenship for a £1m, buy Country Estates, have the PM’s ear and exercise more freedom than the rest of us. We shouldn’t have been trying to beat them at sport when they are conducting murders here.
A lot of the software development teams for my employer are in Kyiv. Some people have spoken to them this week - they said that they never expected it as Putin has been threatening them for the last 8 years. Men can't leave, women and kids are fleeing. Literally writing code in C# and Javascript one week and being instructed how to make Molotov cocktails and give AK-47s the next. Some are still working, which I expect is a distraction for them. One had to leave a call as the air raid siren went, another came on to beg for help and then went. Must be terrifying. It really is the kind of stuff you though only happened in the past, decades before we were born. F--king blitzkrieg in 2022 as a dictator wants to write himself into the history books.
Do try to catch 10 minutes of Russia Today. The presenters are delivering the Kremlin’s lines like they handling discarded haddock they found in a landfill. Labour has asked how RT is able to carry on. Because we have a free press! screamed Nadine Dorries, who wishes to abolish the BBC. She then checked and found that the Government has already asked OFCOM to ‘review’ RT’s licence.
Did they have a segment with Comical Alik denying there was an invasion as Russian tanks cruised through buildings in the background?
Russia removed from this years Eurovision. I know Russian's will be jailed for protesting, but what's the point in such a worthless and futile freedom? Riots tonight I reckon.
Confirmation on the Beeb that cyber attacks have been used, specifically against the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.
Not far off. There is some extraordinary horseshyte on offer. Straight-facedly offering the opinion that the Ukrainian military in Kiev was using the population as human shields ‘a tactic of terrorists’ and you think wtf? The BBC has played some of the most bizarre footage. The Russian tank flattening a car in Kiev and then the occupant, dazed but ok being prised out of the car by members of the public and then tanks getting in the way of a bus. I mean fair play if you turn up to drive the bus in Kiev today. That’s on another level.
The grandchildren of the snake island soldiers are going to have one hell of an anecdote to tell their friends. “my granddad got a posthumous medal for what he did in the invasion” “Oh what did he do to earn that?” “told a Russian to go feck himself”
Belarus cooperating and letting Russian troops pass through there en-route to Ukraine just reeks of desperation to me: "Maybe daddy Vlad won't invade if we give him military access..."
I've never once said the west should be putting countries in their place, please produce some evidence or retract it
A US division in Ukraine on friendly manoeuvres would have stopped any idea of a Russian invasion in its tracks. Regarding BLiarite/Starmerite comment, life is about consequences and everything is connected. BLiar and Bush invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and make a total mess of both. The consequence of one is the growth of Isis, and the consequence of that is the war in Syria. The consequence of the other is war weariness in the US and a retreat with tail between legs from Afghanistan. The consequence of both of those is an emboldened Putin who believes he can do whatever he wants and can expand in every direction. We arrived at this point because our wonderful political class have been making mistake after mistake after mistake. That was my point. And no it wasn't a rant, I am quite calm.
What does this post of yours actually mean then? It sounds like a call for an unbeatable more military West. It was you that wanted unending occupation of Afghanistan. It’s you that thinks the West should be so ready for War Russia wouldn’t dream of doing this to Ukraine, even though you think this should be achieved without alarming Russia. (You’ve just made the fanciful suggestion the US could have been on manoeuvres in Ukraine, yet you criticise the EU for expansionism it hasn’t yet done). All over the place you are. Stop having your cake and eating it. And while we are asking for accuracy, correct your ridiculous assertion that I am a Blairite.
Not quite sure how you can bring Starmer's name into a discussion about Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a very valid argument that catastrophic mistakes were made in relation to both Iraq and Afghanistan. The exaggeration to the point of creating evidence to justify military action was unforgivable. But our current leaders are dripping in Russian money both personally and as a political party. Johnson is personally compromised, as would Trump have been for that matter. Making a total mess of things is bad. Being blind to the possibility that the money you're being given is intended to subvert your opinion is quite another matter. It's complicity and a pattern of behaviour that does not demonstrate they have the country's interests at heart. They have their own interests at heart to the point of moral bankruptcy.
This is what I mean. You criticise the EU in your lazy way for even contemplating Ukraine applying for membership as provocative, but think it could have been possible for the US to go on manoeuvres there. Are you actually just on a wind up? Fair play if you are.
