Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Some of the stuff that was produced in the Soviet era is eye-popping, not necessarily always in the good way! I think Channel 4 used to show the odd one back in the day and I do remember sitting on my sofa in absolute befuddlement looking at these 'masterpieces' of Soviet realism. A bit different to Die Hard and Police Academy. 😏

Although Battleship Potemkin should be watched once by everyone.

Kind of sums it up for me.

I will say this: if the world would be to lose Russia altogether the world will surely miss the russian culture, but indeed it will be a better place nevertheless.

I like those Tarkovsky films you mentioned and yes I agree they're very "meditative" and not the kind of thing that'll be on show in multiplexes around the world. Not that that says anything about quality.

The later Zvyagintsev films however, especially Leviathan, are quite pacy and a bit more mainstream in style. Quite different to The Return and a really brutal critique of Putin's Russia and top to bottom corruption. Needless to say, culture ministry attacked him for it after being stupid enough to fund the film without checking what it was about.

The Russian soldier who was charged with a killing a civilian has been found guilty by a court in Ukraine and sentenced to life imprisonment. Interestingly, this has been widely reported in the Russian press. Strikes me that this is extremely awkward for the Russian public. No matter what way the Kremlin spin this, stories of soldiers murdering Ukrainian civilians is not something they are supposed to be hearing about. The fact that he is only a a young lad and looks like a Leaving Cert student doesn't help either (conjuring up images of the young of Russia being used by the regime as cannon fodder).

No, what we shouldn't do is worry about what will Putin say, or do. He has widespread support as a president and for the war both in Russia and abroad.

Absolutely, some of the press are just reporting the whole thing factually ('a 21 year old Russian soldier has been found guilty of murder in a Ukrainian court' and giving the basic details) but no doubt the Kremlin fruit loop propagandists on the nightly TV shows will spin it as "fake news" and so on. But it's a subject that the propagandists would 'much' rather not prefer being aired in their media at all - stories of young Russian soldiers being ordered by their commanders to kill helpless Ukrainian civilians.

China must be so pissed off with Putin right now. Before Putin's disastrous invasion, China only had an ambiguous US that had recently withdrawn demoralised from Afghanistan to consider when deciding upon an invasion of Taiwan.

Now they've gotten a US that has reconfirmed over the past 3 months that it is the only global superpower and is no longer ambiguous in its defence of Taiwan. Pooh may very well focus his expansionist nationalism northwards to get his revenge on Putin.

Definitely i say they wish putin had of waited a few years and when they were ready invaded Taiwan same time Russia invaded Ukraine.

Not a bad idea:

Lithuania has called for a naval coalition “of the willing” to lift the Russian Black Sea blockade on Ukrainian grain exports.

The Lithuanian foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, proposed the plan during talks with the UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, on Monday in London.

“Time is very very short. We are closing in on a new harvest and there is no other practical way of exporting the grain except through the Black Sea port of Odesa,” he told the Guardian.

There is no way of storing this grain and no other adequate alternative route. It is imperative that we show vulnerable countries we are prepared to take the steps that are needed to feed the world.

A barley field near Kyiv in 2016. Landsbergis said ‘the worst is yet to come in the next five to seven weeks when the first harvest arrives and there is no place to put it’. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

Landsbergis proposed that a naval escort operation – not run by Nato – could protect the grain ships as they headed through the Black Sea and past Russian warships. He suggested that, apart from Britain, countries that were affected by the potential loss of grain such as Egypt could provide the necessary protection.

What we have seen now is just the beginning. The worst is yet to come in the next five to seven weeks when the first harvest arrives and there is no place to put it, so that means people in northern Africa, the Middle East and south-east Asia will be paying exorbitant prices for wheat, corn and the other commodities they need to put food on their table.

He said Ukraine needed to export 80m tonnes of wheat alone this year and the only option was through Odesa, the last Black Sea port held by Ukraine.

His plan, under gestation for weeks, would require demining parts of the Black Sea to ensure safe passage, as well as the agreement of Turkey, which guards the entrance to the Black Sea.

“This would be a non-military humanitarian mission and is not comparable with a no-fly zone,” he said.

In this endeavour military ships or planes or both would be used to ensure that the grain supplies can leave Odesa safely and reach the Bosphorus without Russian interference. We would need a coalition of the willing – countries with significant naval power to protect the shipping lanes, and countries that are affected by this.

Nato as an alliance should not take a role, he said.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has warned of “a hurricane of hunger” if Ukrainian grain is not exported. The world’s 41 least-developed nations import a third of their wheat from Ukraine and Russia. Soaring food prices have already driven inflation levels in Egypt to the highest level since mid-2019.

..

The position of Ukraine in the east looks increasingly untenable. Russia are making advances all accross the line and it's clear that Ukraine are struggling to plug the gaps.

Was saying this weeks ago, but giving Ukraine some parts to get some obsolete MiG's back in the air and other equally obsolete S300 air defence systems simply wasn't going to cut it.

I'm sure that Odessa is the most efficient way to get Ukrainian grain to the rest of the world, in normal times, but if Odessa cannot be used because of mines in the Black Sea or missiles pointed at grain warehouses, is there anything that can be done to get the grain out of Ukraine overland into Romania, down to Bulgaria and into Greece, out into the Med? Can ordinary people set up networks to transport some of this grain and improvise places to store it? Is this already happening to an extent? I guess this wouldn't compare in terms of the tonnage you can move over sea in a logistical network designed to carry that kind of cargo, but something is better than nothing.

The other option is for NATO to finally move forces into Ukraine, confront Russian forces on the ground and rout them. Call Putin's bluff on the nukes. Putin might be well advised not to f**k with the food supply coming out of Ukraine in a total way, lest it leaves the West with no other option.