Russia - threadbanned users in OP

ronivek

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119016180#Comment_119016180

I agree; but as recently as today Zelenskyy's language doesn't indicate they're looking for anything other than a complete military defeat of Russia inside Ukraine.

I suppose it really depends on how things develop over the coming weeks: if the NATO artillery and additional armoured vehicles can't be translated into any kind of forward momentum to retake areas of Ukraine then I imagine a ceasefire becomes more and more likely. They're already retaking some towns and villages in Kharkiv now though.

Also it's not beyond the realms of possibility that Russia continue to eke out incremental gains particularly around Izyum and northern Donetsk. In addition the troops who left Mariupol recently might pose more problems for Ukraine wherever they might be repositioned after refitting.

greenpilot

Agreed, of course, but I see a different narrative beginning to form. The key here is the US and Poland. Will they have the stomach to finish the job.

greenpilot

Want to know everything, and I do mean everything, about RT goon, ex-Carlow man Brian ( Bryan) McDonald?

Here's some of the best investigative journalism I've seen in a long time. And this was 2014.....

The piece also gives a fascinating insight into the murkier corners of the socio-political landscape.

Well worth a read.

https://www.interpretermag.com/life-of-bryan-how-an-rt-columnist-tries-to-influence-the-debate-on-russia-and-ukraine/

greenpilot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119016238#Comment_119016238

Thats a great point about Sevastapol. Have a look at it through Google Earth. It's a real eye-opener. They were loading missles onto a submarine in its port just last week.

greenpilot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119016175#Comment_119016175

Ha! I've just discovered the same thing! It's a great piece of journalism.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119016180#Comment_119016180

Ukraines economy would suffer through loss of her ports. In normal circumstances, but these aren't normal circumstances. The EU will(and should if they've any sense) just help Ukraine consolidate her road and rail "ports" in the west of the country. They run straight into the heart of the EU. Bypass the ports entirely. Let putin watch the ports he blasted to hell, that he can't afford to repair, lay empty while Ukraine's exports and imports go elsewhere.

cnocbui

Speaking of the Baltic and escalation:

"Finland's Defense Ministry says Russian helicopter violated their country's airspace

According to the ministry, the Mi-17 helicopter flew from 4 to 4.5 km in the districts of Kesyalahti and Parikkala in eastern Finland.

Yesterday, May 3, media reported that German fighter jets intercepted a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft (pictured) after it crossed international airspace"

cnocbui

"⚡️The Russians found a traitor among the former employees of the plant

"Azovstal", which showed them secret underground passages under the territory of the enterprise, and now the occupiers are storming these tunnels."

The face of a traitor:

This is the same arsehole who showed the Orcs a detailed 3D map of the place and where he thought people would most likely be hiding so they could pinpoint where best to drop the really big bombs.

jmreire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119015373#Comment_119015373

I lived in Russia for several years, first visit in 1995 for a year, then back again in 2000 to 2003. You have to think about Russian Society back then, Communism on the way out...the only system people knew, and they were facing the unknown. Capitalism and Democracy were thought of as been from the decadent enemy west, and not to be trusted. And no one understood them anyway. I remember in the 90's when I first went there, the air of mistrust of not only foreigners ( although they attracted more attention) but of everyone, and this was considered normal. Babushkas would sit at their little desks on each hotel floor corridor, painstakingly writing down the details of who arrived and when they left. Sitting down in a restaurant having a meal, could be interrupted anytime by dark suited gentlemen, demanding your documents. They never said what or why they were doing this, or showed any identification. People were so conditioned to the Communist system, no one ever questioned them. So you had a society which was ready made, you could even say "tailor made" for Putin. Just like when you squeeze a tube of toothpaste, because the opening is round, so is the toothpaste as it comes out. If the opening was triangular or square, that's the way the tooth paste would be configured. And it was Putin who shaped Russian Society. Once he demolished the power of the Oligarchs, starting with Khodorkovsky, he established that there was one supreme boss, and it was him. And so he molded Russian society as he wished, to his benefit. Any divergence or opposition was ruthlessly put down, and we have seen countless recent examples of this. So at what point will Russians decide that they have had enough, and decide to rebel ? or will it ever happen?? They have not reached boiling point yet. One thing has not changed anyway, as far as I can see.....under the Communists, it was a police state...its still the same.

cnocbui

https://youtu.be/20GY4aFztRc

"❗️A minimum of 631 missiles were launched from Belarus in Ukraine - monitoring group "Belarusian Guyun"

The missile launches began at 6:20 a.m. on February 24, 2022. The last of them was yesterday, May 3, at 11:35.

The video shows the history of launches"

I find that hard to get my head around. If a single one of those landed in this country I think it would implode and come to a grinding halt.

mcsean2163

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119015743#Comment_119015743

Same as the Ukrainians so, except omitted the 55-60 category.

Interesting perspective from former UN weapons inspector.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6a0YT17R6dulyYtH1m9YN8

mcsean2163

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119016238#Comment_119016238

Bonkers. Serious echo chamber here.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119016516#Comment_119016516

8 enlistment centres have been torched so far in Moscow.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119015743#Comment_119015743

Payback time I guess for pro Russian citizens in the Donbas. Putin has blazed in to 'help them' - now they may realise this comes at a serious cost. What you get when you get into bed with the devil.

jmreire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119016616#Comment_119016616

This is Putins worst nightmare...street protests, he can handle, flood the place with police / military, etc, crack plenty of heads, men women and children, bundle them into vans, and remove them for "processing". But this urban guerilla warfare, is something else. I would not like to be assigned to work in any of these centres....

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119016566#Comment_119016566

We've got a live one

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119012880#Comment_119012880

It's completely bizarre the continuous references to Russia being Nazis.

They are putting up statues of Lenin, most of the senior leadership have had Communist party membership and Russia actions against Ukraine have a long way to go savagery wise. before they come close to Communist Russia's actions there.

Sure what was fascism but Communism's younger brother.

Mecanudo

Some recent twitter feed.

https://twitter.com/kiranjoshi235/status/1514236039191474194?s=20&t=THnYaTBZH-IAyOh0gDdzdA

No comment needed. But that old man survived and his pup rescued by firefighters 😔

https://twitter.com/kiranjoshi235/status/1521951475483947008?s=20&t=THnYaTBZH-IAyOh0gDdzdA

Russians attacking Ukrainian Military instalation Children's theme park in Kharkiv

Dirty rotten cnuts. I hope they rot in hell for eternity 😡

fritzelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119017107#Comment_119017107

Better to lose a park and to have less bombs to use on civilians - they're so stupid they don't even realise they have an ever dwindling supply of ammunitions to call on

Mecanudo

From an Irish Times article today

"Finnish officials highly sceptical about Ireland’s ability to defend its territory. State needs to triple military spending to stand chance of defending itself"

Lieut Gen Pulkkinen is quietly confident Finland is ready for whatever Russia has planned when Helsinki applies to join Nato. But he is not so sure what the future holds for Ireland

For 20 years the soft-spoken Finnish military man has worked closely with Irish officials and, in 2020, was invited to be a member of the Commission on the Irish Defence Forces.

Two weeks after the commission’s 183-page report was published in February, Russia invaded Ukraine. “The report was quite revolutionary in Irish terms but, given the situation today [with Russia], we would have been even more ambitious,” said Lieut Gen Pulkkinen. “Your defence forces are seriously underfunded; I said in webinars that you would have to triple spending. The Irish people –and your defence forces – deserve that.”

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/finnish-officials-highly-sceptical-about-ireland-s-ability-to-defend-its-territory-1.4867585

shillyshilly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119017172#Comment_119017172

"but sure who would want to attack us"

eire4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119017172#Comment_119017172

Right now we spend a paltry 0.3% of gdp on defense. As recently as the early 1980's that figure was 1.5% we need to work our way back up to that so we can build a creditable and functional defense force.

Dohnjoe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119016541#Comment_119016541

Ukrainian men have been mobilised to defend their country.

Russia is using men from conquered territory to kill their own countrymen as part of Russia's invasion of that country, which is very different and breaches the Geneva convention.

Northernlily

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119017301#Comment_119017301

We'd be a fairly handy target to make a strong point, that's for sure.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119017301#Comment_119017301

It's not so much a question of who would want to attack us but why they'd want to attack us. It wouldn't be high on the list as a strategic imperative for the likes of Russia or China, IMO. If Russia wanted to slam a nuke into Shannon, okay, but that renders the idea of defence forces a bit moot.

It seems to me that a world in which Ireland is undergoing a conventional military attack of some sort is one quite changed from the current. I suppose that logically speaking, the biggest threat remains from our nearest neighbour, only because it would be the most logistically-feasible to mount an invasion. In that case, even with increased military spend, we'd still be outmatched.

If this is Finns giving us advice, though, maybe take a leaf out of their book and bring in national service and have plans for the formation of civil militias for guerrilla warfare in the event of an invasion. Outside of that, I'm not in principal to increased military spend, but think it would best go on aerial defence systems, a few jets to patrol our own skies, and maybe some of those Neptune rockets as well.

Ceramic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119017348#Comment_119017348

Bear in mind that our GDP is completely bonkers. If we spent 2% or GDP on defence :

Our GDP was in USD 425.89 billion in 2021, so roughly $8.5 billion on defence, which would be absolutely ludicrously huge.

Hobgoblin11

08:30. A division of S-300PS missile system of the Belarusian Armed Forces was moving from Brest towards Makrany / Ukrainian border along the R-17 highway

https://twitter.com/MotolkoHelp/status/1521770184750546944

wylo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119017348#Comment_119017348

This would be nothing but a waste of money for so many reasons.

Firstly, there is no impending or genuine threat to our sovereignty unlike Ukraine has been dealing with since 2014.

Secondly, we are basically protected by allies on either side, with the UK and EU to our east and America to our west, you can be absolutely sure, whether we would like it or not, these countries would be stepping in if even something as close as an army build up happened outside our borders. That is not because they care so much about their good Irish pals, but because they absolutely would not allow an enemy base in Ireland.

Thirdly, it would basically be short sighted almost bandwagon like spending because of whats going on in Ukraine. Spending we'd possibly question after 5 years.

Fourthly and most importantly, as someone who has close friends and direct family who are either in the army or were, I would say the organisation needs to be completely overhauled from a cultural point of view from the very top before even another cent is put in. Money wont fix our current defense force problems.

How many useful ports and airports do we have? The Brits would have them wiped in an hour if they felt under any threat from this direction.

Dyr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119017631#Comment_119017631

If Ukraine has taught us anything its that relying on your neigbours to step in is the height of foolishness. The country needs to understand that a capable defence force is a minimum requirement.

I would agree on the Defence forces, like most Irish government institutions you might as well piss the money up against the wall for all the good it will do, completely beyond reform.