Russia - threadbanned users in OP

This is not a 'dispute' between two countries. One country invaded the other without any provocation or warning and completely in breach of international law (with the regime that did the invading being a deeply corrupt dictatorship). Very hard to see how any intermediary could bring a halt to it.

Expect the Israelis to react angrilly and prove him right by complaning about his lack of gratitude for the 7 baskets of bandages, 16 cases of MREs and the 5 tents.

Pro Russians would have us believe that the Maidan revolution was entirely comprised of little green American men who caused all the trouble while the real Ukrainians stood peacfully by, asking each other who these stangers were, and that it was little green US snipers who actually shot dead protesters, to make it look like Lukashenko was a badie, when in fact he was desperately looking for the stairs to the roof so he could personally go up there and hurl these foreign snippers to their death. For some reason, he couldn't find the stairs so went somewhere else - quite a way, in fact.

And all their trucks were painted military green...MAZ. KAMAZ etc.

Unfortunately, I do.

I grew up with a carreer soldier as a Dad, so have 1st hand experience of the mindset. A lovely man, still very much alive in his late 70's, still winning sharp-shooting competitions in gunclubs with his Lee Enfield and still riding around on him motorbike, but still has that career army mindset. He, like his current counterparts, want to go head to head with Russia for 2 reasons:

1. The World will be united against a common enemy, in an era when "purpose", or a sense of purpose has been lost over the last generation. As horrendous as war is, and words cannot describe it, many military folk and even government ministers across the world actually feel we NEED a war as a sort of reset. It will reset the status of all countries involved, it resets their economies ( which actually grow in proportion to production of weapons and associated materials), it resets the Imperalism of the US and it resets the mindset of those politicians, citizens and civil entities that have been going aimlessly from one week to the next with no real purpose. Remember, these are the opinions of soldiers, not mine, before you jump down my neck.

2. Putin has handed NATO and the West a one-time-only opportunity to expose its weaknesses for what they are and he has given the military leaders of the West a prime opportunity to test out, configure, tweak and develop hundreds of unproven or rarely tested military systems and hardware in a real-world situation without being directly involved with the enemy. This R+D circus is beyond priceless ( Russia is, of course, doing the same thing). You will see more and more "new weapons systems" being used for the 1st time the longer this goes on.

All Irish Soldiers, according to him, believe that Ireland should be in NATO and, in many ways that folks here do not realise, we are involved in NATO ( watching the landing rollout of 2 x C17's in Knock Airport recently with tonnes of room left for them to do a 360 on the runway where the wing-tips were not even over the grass) answered a few questions as to whether certain airports in the country were "over engineered "

Ireland is renowned across the world for its military training schools, especially the UN training college in the Curragh. Dad believes that when the conflict escalates, it will force Ireland to have a serious chat with itself about its tiny military budget and its standing as one of, if not the, most strategically important country in Europe.

And, in Dad's opinion, escalate it will. He firmly believes that this conflict will morph into WW3. There is fear among governments out there. Just look at what's happening right now in China and Iran.

Citizens are starting to see that, hang on a second, the Emperor isn't wearing any clothes!

They have realised that governments and autocratic leaders are only people. Not to be feared.

About as reliable as your source for the arrest of Xi Jinping. People in glass houses....

This would probably be the case, if he hadn't went ahead and put them in his army.

You wear the uniform, your the enemy, end of.

Nice story for in a pub ........ or at the gun club... Also nice to hear that apparently NATO and your dad are drooling by the prospect of war with Russia ... again only confirming that you have no idea what actual war is

I don’t think it would make one iota of difference. Russia are hardly going to start publishing a breakdown of the ethnic demographics of their war dead.

To be fair the shear incompetence of the russian Army only came to show after they invaded Ukraine. The only country to blame for factual NATO expansion is Russia itself, basically provoking Finland and Sweden to join after they invaded Ukraine. and by doing so adding 1100km of border to defend

Well the myth has been dispelled.