Ukraine (Mod Note & Threadbanned Users in OP)

I'm reading that was one of the mildest Christmases and New Years in Kyiv in years (by Ukrainian standards) : the temperature hasn't gone below zero at any point since mid December. Seems nothing is going to plan for Putin.

How do you peer review an opinion piece about 'liberal delusions'?

Utter nonsense.

What you call a 'coup' I call a legitimate democratic revolution. But whichever it was is actually irrelevent.

It all started with Russia, in clear violation of the Budapest agreement, putting economic pressure - threatening a blockade - on Ukrainian PM not to sign the EU treaty.

Ukraine is freely entitled under Budapest and the NATO-Russia Founding act and Helsinki agreement to align with the West and NATO.

All of these were signed either by Russia directly, or by the USSR and Russia claims to be USSR's successor state in these agreements.

Russia signed an agreement to remove its soldiers from Moldova by 2002. They are still there!

How can you have a peace treaty with a gangster country like that? They only respect military power.

There is no point pushing for a peace if it just another Budapest.

Sure they are listening, but they have no choice in Putins Russia. Voice a different opinion , protest etc, 15 years prison for you, ( if you are lucky) if not, front lines in Ukraine. So far, the Russian death toll has passed the 100'000+ mark ( will take a very big hike this week) So you will have this Nr of families who for sure do not agree with Putin + an estimated 3 times the Nr injured, who also disagree. And not a peep out of them. Not yet anyway....but maybe when the new mobilization start's, things might start to change. Not before time.

After todays events I’d be quite worried living in Donetsk

Ukrainian army only 20km away

There will be lots of pillaging in retreat, sorry, "advancing in reverse".

Ha Ha Ha, Amandtsu. There's only one exit for Putin, and he knows it. I'm not sure that it will be the one that you have ascribed to him,( it has a nice ring to it) but for sure Putin will fight to his last breath ( literally ) to avoid it. At different times in recent world history, it suited western / US ( and other's, Assad for example ) to cooperate with Putin. Merkel for the cheap energy was one ( which landed us in the current mess) etc. But over time, he was seen for what he really was, the Georgia and Crimea land grab's, Novichok poisoning in the UK, downing of flight 17 Malaysian Airlines, interfering in elections and referendums'. Supporting dictatorships around the world, always trying to weaken the west. Nope Amandstu, in the last few years, despite all the flowery speeches, Putin's mantle slipped, and the mafia thug emerged.

According to this

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/11/europe/france-emmanuel-macron-pcr-putin-meeting-intl/index.html

the Russians said Macron would not take a Covid test.

It mentions that the talks took over 5 hours but I don't think it mentions Putin talking non-stop although that might seem to be in character if it happened

Who would blame them at the time either,

Can't imagine Putin didn't need several naps to Naps to make it through 5 hours especially in the state his health has appeared lately

It clearly shows if the US wasn't there to support and re-enforce NATO countries nato would be in a world of trouble, two things I believe Russia has infiltrated many eu States and institutions which may explain the reasoning behind some lack of support as recently seen in Germany with the Russian spy case , another is the lack of military spending done across the whole of Europe over the last 20 + years ,let's cut back the Berlin wall is gone and America Will always save us attitude is going to hit hard at some stage if not against Russia but when china comes knocking and wants something,who's going to stop them,

Think Germany had an aircraft more stealth the the F117 at the time and they binned it ,the have one of the premier small arms producers in the world H&K yet still managed to make a mess of the procurement to replace one rifle with another, despite having one of the most modern military rifles in the world in service,

Their airforce and Naval systems are in a similar state of not exactly knowing what they need and where and when they are getting it ,

Ukraine offered them big money to sell them Marader infantry vehicles and repeatedly refused to sell them to Ukraine,but then selling them for less to the Greek government,

Yes it is great to hear positive statements like that. And the bottom line is that Ukraine has to win it. Their very survival depends on it, and not only Ukraine, Europe needs to be protected from Mad Vlad too.

Well at the outset I think the prevailing view may have been that nothing could stop Russia from taking most of the country even if it had to put up with a guerilla resistance in the short to medium or even long term.

So capitulation of a sort seemed to be accepted .

It was Ukraine that refused to accept that, not NATO ,USA or Europe.

We had to put up with the Iron Curtain for most of my life and it seemed this was going to be a return to something very close.