Russia - threadbanned users in OP

yeah seems to be a lot of propaganda coming out of ukraine ,9000 russians dead ? surely nobody with a brain beleives that

@gandalf wrote:

A new policy of appeasement at this stage is merely storing up a new "crisis" further down the line. Agreeing to a scenario where Russia gets rewarded for invading another nation with redrawn borders or new autonomous puppet states is unacceptable.

Russia needs to be pushed back to Russia and driven into the ground. The sanctions lift when Russia formally agrees that it recognises the sovereignty of every nation along its borders and cannot object to any of them seeking membership of NATO or the EU at any time.

A lasting legacy of nuclear weapons that has come into stark focus here is that once a country has them, they basically have a blank cheque to violate other countries because the world does not want to spark a nuclear war.

Arising out of this should come a general agreement between all nuclear nations to dismantle their stockpiles with ongoing independent oversight and auditing. The doctrine of MAD quite clearly doesn't keep the peace. Now it's a get out of jail free card allowing nuclear powers to do whatever the **** they want, safe in the knowledge that the only countries who can stop them, won't.

While I am sure there is some tactical value in having nukes, limiting countries to (say) 20 weapons with a combined yield no greater than 50kT, is more than enough nuclear weapons to be able to wave your dick around without putting the existence of our species at risk.

Any country that doesn't agree to it, gets sanctioned out of existence. One can dream...

Serious bang of Neville Chamberlain of ya Wibbs.......

Putin could have Ukraine conquered within the hour if he wanted but he's trying to do it with the minimal amount of civilian casualties.

https://i.imgur.com/5whxzV2.jpg

The use of wholesale global sanctions currently being imposed on Russia by multiple countries and corporations is very much a new form of retaliation in the face of war.

It has in part came about precisly because Putin is hovering his finger over that big red button and no-one dares lift a physical finger against him. And even at that he has still raising the nuclear threat level because of those same sanctions.

The other facet of that is the digital revolution, where interconnectivity and global digitisation links ever facit of business, in contrast to previous decades where everything was largely based on bits of paper stored locally. There's also the argument that these types of sanctions work best in countries largely dependant on digital technologies. Banning Facebook or whatever in some remote or poor country is probably not going have quite the same impact as it would even in somewhere like Russia

Many of the wars in the last century have not only involved European Christian on European Christian but also Muslim on Muslim or Asian on Asian and were often limited in their theatre of war to a limited geopolitical region. I would agree the west have frequently interceded in many of those wars and caused not a few and for a whole load of reasons. One of which without doubt has been self interest.

Of victims of these wars many indeed have been cast aside, but that is not to say that atrocities in these theatres of war have been ignored. In the last couple of decades it's the direct opposite with mass media coverage, refugees agencies and movement and international aid now being a global phenomenon. But I wouldn't agree with the notion of 'oh look its white men fighting and getting all the attention as usual'. Any war that involves a superpower such as Russia, invading and thrashing another country with the potential of nuclear aggression is going to ring all the bells. Anyone crying racism over that can go take a long jump for themselves as far as I'm concerned.

Who are the other two?

A tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine would set off huge radiation levels which would immediately enter Russia itself, putting millions of Russian people at risk of being contaminated.

And some people have followed all this for years and know a lot about Putin, the oligarchs and modern Russia. But you don't need to know a lot to put two and two together.

Take a look at what is happening in Russia right now; Independent media is being shut down, only state media remaining. Real political opposition? murdered or in prison (or poisoned with nerve agent and then sent to prison). Protesters? whether they are kids or grandmothers, they are all arrested. UN vote to condemn? 142 countries to 5.

This isn't recent, this has been going on for years, and decades. Putin annexed Crimea, they weren't given a chance to have a normal referendum. Putin sparked an uprising in S.E Ukraine with no chance at any normal process. Putin is now invading Ukraine.

He appears to be consumed with rewriting history whatever the cost (not that it affects him and his inner circle who are all unfathomably rich) There have been many leaders like him in history, if people want to label him evil based on his actions, absolutely they can, if they want to compare him to e.g. Hitler, absolutely, many comparisons there. Just because some MTV presenter on Youtube who makes money from telling people there must be another "narrative" doesn't mean there is one.

1850 715 815.

(Although I think they changed the number!!! Just googled and it's now 0818 715 815 )

Might be fake news. But would be in line with the tower bloc bombings suspected to have been planned by Putin's circle to get him into power.