Ireland's defensive frailty exposed by Russian exercise

@buried The Russian people, who over half the country of the Ukraine in the east identify with.

No less than 40 percent identify as russian ,the majority identify as Ukrainian with Russian as there first language ,

The Russians completely control all of the narrative in eastern Ukraine , they don't allow political opposition or decent ,they only allow pro Kremlin media ,and any so Called separatists leader are members of the Russian military , and not Ukrainian,

Might explain why Russia has placed tanks , artillery, mortar emplacements in between and beside civilian housing and flat complexes ,

If so many Ukrainians in the east are Russians why are they not all taking up the offers of free Russian passports and citizenship ,

A claimed population of 20 + million and only 400,000 took Russian passports and citizenship.....

They are under foreign occupation

The majority want to be European a small minority want to be Russian so whats stopping them upping sticks and moving home to Russia.

In the western half of the country they want to join the EU, but what about the people in the east? They don't want to be Russian, they want to be Ukrainian, just like the people in Crimea want to be Crimean's. What the folk in the east definitely don't want to be is under the yolk of the EU, NATO or the Americans, which is fair enough, given the history, so what's the problem? Leave them be. We have no problem allowing cultural differences to co-exist on our island so why not the same for the Ukraine? Why the hawk call for war and conflict that will destroy everybody?

Who invaded and annexed parts of Ukraine? I don't know man, probably the same sort of despicable c**ts that overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014 was it? Maybe it was the Crimean's who asked the Russians to come over and protect them when that disgraceful and illegal $hit happened? I dunno, you tell me, because that's all you are interested in, you telling me and you literally looking at nothing else, so g'wan there and let me know all about it.

Fair enough, you don't want to tell me so....

Don't know why so many on this thread are getting their panties in a bunch about defence.

Any problems and "Irish roots Biden" will come a running... err... stumbling to the rescue. Seemples!

Try to remember

Russian Naval Training in International Waters 240km off Ireland = bad

American Troops landing in Shannon = good

Here endeth today's lesson on double standards

I've seen lee's Enfields and fn fals in the same situation,DSA who recently upgraded a number of FAls to spotters rifles asked to buy our stock of FAls and they were told there not for sale,

Remember if we come under foreign aggression the army will be disbanded and the guerilla war begins , there is weapon stocks just not made public

Great weapon, as good today as it was in the 30s 😃

The End Of The World As We Know It - You forgot about provisions in our defense budget for tinfoil hats? Realistically, how many do you think we'll need to keep the population safe going forward?

Yes, cyber attacks are a real and present danger globally.

However, this threat doesn't actually need to fall under defense spending, as we can see many private and public entities are starting to take their cyber security more seriously and putting in place the necessary procedures to protect themselves. No real need for extra defense spending contracts to achieve this goal.

Also worth considering that antagonizing a large player like Russia for no legitimate reason, makes you a far more likely target for some sort of government co-ordinated attack. So one of your best defenses against this, is to not go around sticking your nose into other nation's affairs. And certainly not trying to create an international incident by throwing a hissy fit about a routine military training operation 250km out in international waters.

What are you talking about we are essentially a vassal of US and NATO. A pretender of Neutrality, fooling nobody but ourselves.

Obviously no-one would start a war against only Ireland, that's just daft. If Ireland needs defensive capabilities, it's going to be during a major international crisis in the future. How far in the future is that going to be, I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Neutral.

https://www.dfa.ie/our-role-policies/international-priorities/peace-and-security/neutrality/