Russia Vs Ukraine (Part 1)

Current Affairs
4215

It irks the fuck out of me how many people in the public eye are calling Ukraine “The Ukraine”.

Louise O’Reilly of Sinn Fein the latest example on #TodayCB just now. It’s an absolute giveaway that the person in question is at least one of the following: i) somebody who wouldn’t have been able to point out Ukraine on a map two weeks ago and is thus totally out of their depth conversing on the subject, or ii) Sneaking regard for Putin’s Russia is deeply ingrained into them.

The divide and conquer narrative of Putin lovers like a recently departed member of this forum has been that “you only care about Ukraine because they are white”.

The reality is that Ukraine has been the victim of racism on two counts here.

One from Putin and the Russians, who deny their existence.

The second from the rest of the west, who did nothing because “Ukraine, well, they’re really Russians anyway, aren’t they?”

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4216

Like pringals i guess. But in all seriousness i cant see what putins end game is here. Does he think the world will go back to normal after he takes none nato nations? If he attacks a nato nation does he expect to win? A dog with a mallet up its hole can see hes backed into a corner. A dangerous place to have a rat

4217

There is no point imagining Putin as a rational actor with a desired “end game” here. There is no end. He must be captured and/or killed.

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4218

Serious ramp up of Ukrainians landing in DUB today. Much more landing with nowhere to go too (a lot of the earlier ones had friends, cousins here etc). Their stories are pretty grim. One lad, studying law with very good English, was chatting to me. Telling me what he had in his bag was now his life.

15 Likes
4219

Be a good time for them to have a marriage of convenience.

4220
4221

The start of western “decoupling” from China can’t be that far away. That will be much more painful. But it will have to be done.

The Premier League and the NBA etc. are going to have to be shamed into it. Sport will only be the start.

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4222

I keep asking the question - what do you do when you have Hitler with nukes. Nobody knows. But if Hitler with nukes is not defeated totally, the future of the world is Hitlers with nukes getting their way. Which means a world of tyranny.

The Russian army cleans Ukrainian cities off the face of the earth. Destroying key infrastructure so that there is no water, light, heat. Rescuers can’t dismantle the debris under the shelling. The Russian army is squeezing the civilians out of the cities so that they can then…

fight the rest as if they are terrorists. Yesterday, many of my Kharkiv residents became refugees. This is what happens in life: just yesterday you were finishing an article and making plans for your vacation,

and today you are standing with a bag at the station in Poltava (a good city, I’ve been trying to see a long time ago), with your scared children and a cat in a carrier. I didn’t have time to drive in to pick up my mother (no gasoline, traffic jams and debris everywhere,

burned cars and again shelling). And there is a chance to start your life with a clean leaf, but you are somehow not very happy about it.
What’s on my mind today? What is more terrifying than the destruction of my country …

by the request of a nuclear-button maniac will be a new world in which such crimes remain unpunished. The defeat of Hitler’s Germany and the trial of Nazi criminals have created confidence in several generations of Europeans that there is a global moral order …

in which evil is punishable. But for justice to prevail, a military defeat of the criminal regime is necessary, and there are problems with that in the nuclear era. So as soon as the maniac has a remission period, Western politicians will sit with him again at a very long table.

This is and will be the collapse of the world order, the real end of history. The thought of my children and grandchildren having to live in this world of evil conquering makes me physically sick. END

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4223

Belarus will be subsumed into a new USSR. Only Lithuania between them and their ports at Kaliningrad then. Over to you NATO. What price a “popular uprising” in Lithuania at some point?

4224

That’s a bit of a silly comment. Shur we might as well rejoin the UK, aren’t we Anglo Saxons anyway? Linguistically and culturally similar to the British.
Maybe you hang around with morons who patter that line?

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4225

I’m on a Teams call right now. There is a Russian on the call and I have to say, straight away, my back is up. Never met this chap before, he could be a grand lad, but to me, right now, Alexy is a cunt.

#Ukraine #stopthewar

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4226

Paul from swimming’s company just pulled the plug on a deal he had been working on for nearly a year with gazprom.

4227

Has anybody been to Moscow ? What’s it like?

4228

Eh, yes, the point is it is a very silly view to have - and that a lot of ignorant people had that view - some still have, even now.

There was a blasé shrugging of shoulders among far too many ordinary people in the west when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 which provided Russia with cover for its destruction of a sovereign European democracy.

There would not have been that shrugging of shoulders if the victim had been Finland, or Sweden, or Switzerland.

Because nobody considers those countries as “well, they’re basically Russian anyway, aren’t they?”

There is a similar shrugging of shoulders with regard to Belarus, and Georgia and Moldova.

4229

Why did the USSR collapse in the first place?

A few lads knocked a wall in Berlin but I’m sure there was more to it than that?

4230

Correct there was more to it than that

12 Likes
4231

Much of the problem with the current mood of western self congratulation comes from the culture amongst western liberals to see everything as basically a Twitter bunfight, and the delusion that dictators and far right lunatics can be shamed or “owned” in Twitter or informational battle.

Dictators and the far right don’t give a fuck about being “owned” online. They only care about power, about defeating you, routing you and killing you. They don’t play by rules.

Until the liberal world understands that and hits back by using what remaining power it has and expanding it - and by defeating and routing the far right - and killing those who have to be killed - like Putin, it will remain at nothing.

4232

There was this song called ‘wind of change’
The lads who knocked the Berlin Wall and the Scorpions, that was it :man_shrugging:

4233

Apparently Ronald Reagan did it by saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”.

There are lads here that genuinely believe that.

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4234

I think it was all david hasselhoff. Torn it down personally

1 Like