The US invading Siberia would be a canny play right now given that the Russians have nobody there.
Unfortunately they fund the Tories so don’t see that happening
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The Swiss would just take them in instead.
Listening to otb on the way home e this evening. Making g the exact same point. One of the few times I’ve been in agreement with Joe molloy
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Think they crave the cachet of mingling with certain Brits
Agreed. Although I saw a fair point that pretty much half of the venues for the grand prix shouldn’t go ahead then. But I’d be in favour of that too. I mean fucking Baku.
Money talks sadly, morals don’t exist at the top level of the political system across the world. The top brass in the EU or US will denounce Russia until the cows come home but if they face an economic hit on their own doorstep…
Biden doing nothing as this all unfolds. EU led by Von Der Leyen who made an absolute balls of the vaccine rollout, how is she going to outwit Putin in a war game?
Horrible viewing all evening, the Ukrainian people seem remarkably calm as they shelter or flee their homes. All this is happening only a few hours away from us, frightening.
I don’t think anyone knows how this will play out. It just seems many innocent people will be killed. Horrific.
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The Russians have cracked it. They can see in capitalism everything has a price. They’ll pay the price and its not even that expensive
This is the Antonov 225. It is the largest cargo plane in the world and there is only one of them in the world. Here it is taking off after a visit to Shannon in 2020.
This is currently on the runway at Hostomel Airport outside Kyiv and there are rumours it has been destroyed in the shelling.
You’d wonder what cyber attacks Russia are capable of carrying out. In theory they could bring down power networks, hospitals and air traffic control all across Europe.
Lucky the HSE have us locked down after last year.
This has been years in the planning by Putin. He might be many things but stupid ain’t one.
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get the Oligarchs out there and let them extend their power and influence, making them almost essential to a western economy. Like, if Abramovic was booted out in the morning and his assets frozen you’d probably have thousands down at Stamford Bridge protesting that they want their football club back.
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make the West dependent on Russia for gas and energy.
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wielding more and more political influence in other countries like Belarus.
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the cyber attacks, the information/intelligence gathering around the world.
On and on it goes, he has played the long game, bided his time and the western world has been caught with its pants down. The EU & Uncle Sam look pretty powerless now.
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Would the UK and US special forces be conducting any black ops in Ukraine
The oligarchs existed before Putin and if Putin had not existed they would have had international power and influence anyway. Putin just gave them an ultimatum. Give me 50% and you can continue to operate. If you refuse to play ball, like Khodorkovsky did, you end up in prison, or worse, dead, like Berezovsky.
It is said of Putin that he is a good tactician but a poor strategist. He has kept notching wins over the last 22 years, but the whole project has become more and more “too big to fail”.
Hitler was the same. A good tactician and a terrible strategist who flew too close to the sun.
Both were driven by a child like feeling of betrayal on behalf of their country, Hitler by defeat in World War I, Putin by the feeling of being a helpless functionary in Dresden as the Soviet empire collapsed. That sort of core motivation makes a person feel that their life is like a film, building to a big, glorious, climax of destiny.
Could it be argued that nobody within his regime would have the balls to tell him he’s wrong on calls or that his Military aren’t the best?
I definitely think that’s the case. Everything points to it.
Anything I have seen suggests morale among Russian troops is low. I don’t know what morale is like among their elite forces but it makes sense that morale would be low among the rank and file. You’re fighting an aggressive war in the winter against a people you have no real beef with and are close to culturally. It is widely thought that Russia has to win quickly here. To make a success of it in the long run would require a long slog over many years. A hell of a lot of Russian troops would be required to hold Ukraine. Whereas the Ukrainians are fighting a defensive war, they are fighting for their very existence.
Saw something on sky there that the Ukranian army say that the morale of the Russians is low. Probably conscripted kids.
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What sort of lemonade stand operation is Putin running
More evil than Putin that fella. Proper old school tyrannic evil
What would opposition to putin in Russia be like, we know that any high profile dissenters are disappeared and like any despot will have very ‘high’ approval ratings. But is there a strong enough resistance within Russia to bring people out in the street knowing the violent reaction they will get?