Russia - threadbanned users in OP

An incomprehensible amount of suffering could have been avoided for the price of a bullet or a vial of poison.

Is it 40 million the pre-war population was? - let an online list be compiled of those unaffected by this - let maths do the rest.

The French and Germans want this to go away so they don't have to worry about their cheap gas. Unfortunately its been shown up that having these two as the leading lights in europe is only a step away from disaster. The Germans waffle about arms being damaged or needing repair but you can be damn sure that if Germany was attacked tomorrow they'd pull stuff out from all angles. The most industrialised country in europe that spends its every waking moment telling us the brilliance of German engineering, how its superior to all others and they can't even fix up a few tanks or RPG's. Its not believable. The only explanation is the most obvious and that is that not upsetting Russia and the continuation of Russian gas to flow is the more important than Ukrainian lives.

China will do what further advances their own strategic interests.

It's pretty well known that the German armed forces have been allowed to rot away for quite some time. Which isn't to excuse the Germans for not doing more; but they do have large amounts of equipment which isn't operational. There's a reason they announced such a huge increase in spending as a result of Russia's invasion.

The frustrating part about Germany's response has been that they're not allowing German industry to complete deals with Ukraine to supply IFVs and tanks; which is a separate issue and is not really going to help Ukraine in the very short term anyway.

France is a slightly different story; I'm not even sure what they've supplied to Ukraine or in what amounts. For some reason they've decided not to say what has been sent even though virtually every other country has been very open about it. Possibly they're doing it to avoid criticism, or Macron wants plausible deniability when talking to Putin; who knows.

The Ukrainians are certainly using propaganda, but it mostly seems to me to be via concealing setbacks and bad news and strongly pushing good news. But I am unaware of them using outright lies and misinformation to any degree. Would you have some examples where they have done so?

An accusation of the Ukrainians lying about the use of chemical weapons to gain sympathy from the west is pretty strong and needs some justification in my eyes.

This didn't start with the report of chemical weapons use, but several hours earlier:

"Occupation authorities in parts of Donetsk region of Ukraine via Russian State media urge to use chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops in Mariupol" https://liveuamap.com/en/2022/11-april-occupation-authorities-in-parts-of-donetsk-region

Russian state media is fairly open and verifiable source and unlikely to be subject to fake news originating from Ukrainian intelligence. So now the narrative has to be that following the convenient urging of chemical weapons use by Russian agents, the Ukrainians decided to mislead about them being used a few hours later.

Another circumstance the Ukrainians couldn't be argued to have engineered is the Russians appointing General Alexander Dvornikov, known as the butcher of Syria who has instigated the use of chemical weapons.

My version of Occam's razor has the simpler explanation being that the Russians went 1 then 2 then 3, rather than the Ukrainians seeing an opportunity and crying wolf and shouting 3.

Also, the US chipping in wouldn't hurt for the crying wolf scenario, but at the same time, it would more suggest the US perhaps has intelligence that certain brutal tactics were about to be used and that the Ukrainians wouldn't need to lie about it.

"Pentagon spokesman John Kirby in a statement last night. “These reports, if true, are deeply concerning and reflective of concerns that we have had about Russia’s potential to use a variety of riot control agents, including tear gas mixed with chemical agents, in Ukraine.”It’s unclear what sort of weapon was employed. CNN reported it appeared to be a small munition dropped from a drone that sickened three people. “Before today, there was credible information available to us that the Russians may have been preparing to use agents, chemical agents, potentially tear gas mixed with other agents, as part of an effort to weaken, to incapacitate the Ukrainian military and civilian elements that are entrenched in Mariupol,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told CNN last night. “We shared that information with our Ukrainian partners. We are going to be in direct conversations with them to try and determine what exactly has transpired here, and as soon as we gain additional fidelity, we’ll be in a better position to say what this was or what this may have been.”

I don't believe the US warned the Ukrainians chemical weapons might soon be used and the Ukrainians then piped up a couple hours later and said 'chemical weapons have been used'. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/as-new-russian-general-takes-charges-of-ukraine-invasion-reports-of-possible-chemical-weapons-use-in-mariupol

Which assumes they haven't been working on contingency plans in the meantime for if/when Europe pulls the trigger on oil or gas embargoes.

The key is that nobody knows what cutting off oil and gas will actually lead to. There is only speculation based on very little evidence or historical precedent; and based on intelligence departments who couldn't even decide whether or not Russia was going to invade Ukraine in the first place nor predict how adept their military was likely to be.

It was posted above what France sent and if its correct then Ireland probably sent more. Anti armour weapons and Fuel was the sum of it. They always talk a good game the french. World leaders at nuking coral reefs and that's about it.

I think you're giving Putin a bit too much credit here. Foresight is not a strong point if the last 7 weeks is anything to go by. He thought this would be over in a week. That the west would shrug and ignore. I very much doubt he spent any time looking to build a pipeline to China (whom I'm sure he probably detests but finds them a necessary evil, or to india where he has the small matter of somehow negotiating with Afghanistan (hates Russia) and Pakistan (hates India) to allow a pipeline or get china to agree to one to india through their territory. Its all a bit pie in the sky when you investigate it. Plus how does Russia getting knockdown prices from China and India help them vs getting two to 3 times the value in europe.

If Russia take Ukraine they have a land bridge of friendly countries right to the Balkan’s with Hungary and Serbia and then you have non NATO aligned Austria and neutral Switzerland and then the French who have already surrendered they could be at the Atlantic in weeks.

Ehh why are the the two C***s suing RTE ?

I mean it will be hard for them to argue their character was impuned or some such, when they have spent last month refusing to sanction a war criminal and his regime.

I think it’s very relevant- to my mind, Serbia and Russia are one and the same. Their flags are almost the same ffs. Religion, language, culture, ethnicity are two sides of the same coin.

Ah not fair is fair, they were quite good at sinking old trawlers in port as well. 😉

Well lets not get carried away. Ireland has sent no weapons at all. Ireland won't allow its "neutral" euros in the EU fund to be besmirched by someone using them to pay for weapons. If using that graphic (from https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118915712#Comment_118915712) as a source (dated March 26), the medical supplies are the "extra" for UK vs France (though going on posts here, sometimes you'd think UK is the only European country supplying weapons at all). On France I did see this article from a few weeks earlier (March 9) about lack of publicity or information out in public domain over exactly what they have done.

Yugoslavia didn’t need any interventions from the Red Army to maintain the communist regime. The other Warsaw Pact countries were far shakier and needed far more soviet assistance to maintain the system. This only increased Stalins paranoia and he often tried to take out Tito.