[Politics] Russia invades Ukraine (24/02/2022)

[swindonseagull]

Paywall bypassed:

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www...n-sick-covid-russia-ukraine-invasion-illness/

Personally, I’m not totally convinced that Putin being a desperate, doomed, dying man would necessarily be a good thing for the world.

Ta very much

 

[swindonseagull]

Paywall bypassed:

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Personally, I’m not totally convinced that Putin being a desperate, doomed, dying man would necessarily be a good thing for the world.

Interesting read,

Fingers crossed...

 

[Eric the meek]

Paywall bypassed:

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Personally, I’m not totally convinced that Putin being a desperate, doomed, dying man would necessarily be a good thing for the world.

Interesting article.

Now watch this collection of videos of Putin walking. His left arm swings, but not his right. Is there something else going on?

https://www.indiatoday.in/newsmo/vi...dimir-putin-walks-this-way-1919350-2022-03-01

 

[dazzer6666]

Let's hope it's nothing trivial.

 

[Icy Gull]

Paywall bypassed:

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www...n-sick-covid-russia-ukraine-invasion-illness/

Personally, I’m not totally convinced that Putin being a desperate, doomed, dying man would necessarily be a good thing for the world.

I have heard this mooted from a couple of people recently. He's not going to give a shit about anything or anyone that gets in his way is he?

Maybe we should be trying to take him out and hope his inner circle come to their senses if we succeed. Bit of a gamble though

 

[Eric the meek]

BBC's Frank Gardner has written a piece on the convoy approaching Kyiv. It's good news of sorts.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-60542877

Go down to 'Russian column near Kyiv hampered by breakdowns' at 16.31.

 

[essbee1]

Let's hope it's nothing trivial.

I think he's had a big stroke myself. Would explain the lack of movement in one side and drugs a plenty.

 

[Baker lite]

I think he's had a big stroke myself. Would explain the lack of movement in one side and drugs a plenty.

Let’s hope it is nothing terminal,two reasons, when all this is over, I want him to face charges for war crimes, secondly, a tyrant with nothing to live for is a very dangerous person indeed.

 

[essbee1]

The Mirror reports today that a dozen ex-SAS are on their way to Ukraine and another dozen to follow. Paid for it says by a
private company.

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

I'll repeat it again, youre clueless. Youre the hard left version of Swansman. A nut.

You do realise it was the same false pretext Hitler used in the Suduntenland to invade Czechoslavakia.

I'm beside myself really with this total nonsense, from a wife who comes from as far in the East of Ukraine as you can be Mariupol, who is ethnic Russian speaker, whose family are cowering right now as Russian missiles rein down on civilian areas, where locals in the street have been killed, homes destroyed and you spout imaginary Kremlin talking points.
You can enjoy your loony left utopian fantasy land all you like, but the discrimination from nazis driving people out of eastern ukraine is beyond deluded and utterly clueless.

Ukraine is a soverign nation, the peoples republics are not real, they were Russian actors who seized building with Russian special ops, and the latest high tech weaponary claiming to be civilians.... at a time when the Ukrainian army was weak..... Oh I know the kremlin, russian state TV narratives of 2014, that Nazis are coming to drive you out, but thats what it was narrative. Nobody was driven out, they came to defend their nation against a hybrid Russian invasion.

Svoboda is a Ukrainian nationalist party that polls under 2%, not in power ever, an opposition party a bit like UKip. The current President is a Russian speaking Jew, his grandfather was in the red army, he lost family to the concentration camps, the Ukrainian PM is a Jew too.

The Azov battalion was a defence battalion that tried to protect Ukrainian cities in the east from Hybrid Russian take over (with Neo Nazi Russians - sorry thats not told to you on RT). Wagner group - the way Russia tries to insert Russian fighting troops into conflicts like hybrid take overs without being regular troops, is full of Neo Nazis.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/wagners-rusich-neo-nazi-attack-unit-hints-its-going-back-into-ukraine-undercover

https://euromaidanpress.com/2015/08/30/german-neo-nazis-carry-dnr-flag-while-kremlin-tries-to-portray-it-as-anti-fascist/


The Russians tried to also Seize Mariupol, Kharkiv and Odessa also but the Russians, yes actual Russian citizens, neo nazis and hard lefties with Russian special ops, sent from Russia (not Ukrainian Russian speakers), were driven out of seizing administrative buildings and trying to do what they succeded with in Donetsk and Luhansk.

https://sciencenorway.no/conflict-foreign-fighters-terrorism/this-is-where-neo-nazi-foreign-fighters-fought-alongside-communists/1853856

Ukraine had no military, the money was stolen, they had nothing and were willing to use anyone to defend against seizure of cities by Russians.

Thats the truth. the rubbish you spout is Kremlin myth. I despise hard left and hard right extremists ideoligcally, but if Hard left and right French citizens started to seize buildings in Brighton and get French speaking Brightonians to rise up against the rest, I wouldnt care what your political views are. You stop them and send them packing. It was military defence not political or ideological.

You really are attempting to kock down paper castles -

1. you will note that I put the word 'protect' in inverted commas - Putin and the Russian oligarchs he represents have no concern for the ethnic Russians living in Eastern Ukraine - they are merely pawns in their geo-political adventures.

2. did you read the very first line of my first post on this thread? - Ukraine is entitled to self-dertermination without interference from an outside power - and Russia must be condemned for its actions

3. what is nauseating is your defence of the far-right and fascist elements within the Ukrainian political and military system. In 2014 Svoboda held the defence ministry and 25% of all the government ministries and Right Sector held the deputy National Security Chair (which controlled the police force). One of the leading lights in Svoboda at the time was the founder of the "Joseph Goebbels Political Research Centre" and hailed the Holocaust as a "bright period" in human history. Far right and fascist elements continue to play an influential role in the Ukrainian military. The neo-liberial, pro-EU elements have re-established their dominance in Ukrainian politics in the intervening period, but they still accomodate the influence and involvement of the far-right and fascist elements within the political and military sphere.

4. It is nonsense to say the Ukraine does not have a military - it has 250,000 in its armed forces - the second biggest in the region after Russia - as well as 900,000 reservists. It has 1,000 battle tanks, Turkey supplied Ukraine with Bayraktar TB2 drones which it deployed against Russian separatists in the Donbass, Britain supplied Ukraine with 2,000 anti-tank missiles last month (and troops to train the Ukrainian forces in their use). The USA, among other things, supplied large numbers of Javelin anti-tank missiles. While nothing on the scale of Russia - it still has significant military capabilities.

5. It is also nonsense to say that Ukraine has no money - in 2020 Ukraine spent $4.3billion on its military. On top of that the USA supplied it with $1billion in military hardware in the past year - on top of $2.2billion that it supplied since 2014.

6. None of this takes away from the fact that Ukraine is entitled to self-determination free from outside influence and the Russians should immediately withdraw their forces.

7. It should be noted, for example, that the 5,000 NATO troops stationed in Poland, nor the American Aegis SM-3 Block IB missiles currently on-site in Poland have made Poland any safer in the slighest - in fact it has placed Poland at much greater risk as a result. Military power blocs exist to exercise political power - and that political power is wielded in the interests of the wealthy elites in the USA, the EU and Russia (and China).

8. It is extremely unlikely that NATO will accede to Ukraine's demand for NATO military intervention - to do so would in all likelihood provoke a global conflict with the possible use of nuclear weapons which would be disasterous for the global population and the planet. Furthermore, Russia is not capable, either militarily or politically of conquering Ukraine. It would be an enormous political, military and economic cost to occupy Ukraine - an occupation that would be unsustainable for any period of time - just as the US (and British etc) occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq were unsustainable. Putin will attempt to re-establish a pro-Russian puppet government in the country - just like existed pre-2014. The likelihood of that being sustainable for any period of time is also very much an open question. And throughout all of this the world will become more unstable, politically, economically and militarily - with working class people suffering the consequences.

9. The only real solition to this crisis is the building of a mass anti-war movement - globally, and particularly inside Russia. Not a pro-US, pro-NATO or pro-Western movement - but a genuine movement of working class people determined to act in the interests of working class people in Ukraine, in Russia and globally. Then and only then can tensions be removed and self-dtermination be secured by all involved.

10. you spout nonsense about Frenchmen in Brighton - while igoring the fact that British imperialism has been ensconsed for 100 years 350 miles away from Brighton, promoting sectarian division, collaborating with Loyalist muder gangs, indiscriminately shooting innocent civilians - and doing so to protect the interests of British imperial rule.

11. You say you dispise the 'hard left' - I dispise right-wing war mongerers who are willing to use working class people as canon fodder in their geo-political manouvres.I will continue to campaign for working class unity and solidarity - just as I have for the past 40 years.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Paywall bypassed:

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www...n-sick-covid-russia-ukraine-invasion-illness/

Personally, I’m not totally convinced that Putin being a desperate, doomed, dying man would necessarily be a good thing for the world.

Best website ever

https://12ft.io/

 

[Poojah]

Best website ever

https://12ft.io/

Like many good things, it was NSC that introduced me to it.

 

[dangull]

These reporters from the western media are brave people just to get their information too our TV sets.

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

You really are attempting to kock down paper castles -

1. you will note that I put the word 'protect' in inverted commas - Putin and the Russian oligarchs he represents have no concern for the ethnic Russians living in Eastern Ukraine - they are merely pawns in their geo-political adventures.

2. did you read the very first line of my first post on this thread? - Ukraine is entitled to self-dertermination without interference from an outside power - and Russia must be condemned for its actions

3. what is nauseating is your defence of the far-right and fascist elements within the Ukrainian political and military system. In 2014 Svoboda held the defence ministry and 25% of all the government ministries and Right Sector held the deputy National Security Chair (which controlled the police force). One of the leading lights in Svoboda at the time was the founder of the "Joseph Goebbels Political Research Centre" and hailed the Holocaust as a "bright period" in human history. Far right and fascist elements continue to play an influential role in the Ukrainian military. The neo-liberial, pro-EU elements have re-established their dominance in Ukrainian politics in the intervening period, but they still accomodate the influence and involvement of the far-right and fascist elements within the political and military sphere.

4. It is nonsense to say the Ukraine does not have a military - it has 250,000 in its armed forces - the second biggest in the region after Russia - as well as 900,000 reservists. It has 1,000 battle tanks, Turkey supplied Ukraine with Bayraktar TB2 drones which it deployed against Russian separatists in the Donbass, Britain supplied Ukraine with 2,000 anti-tank missiles last month (and troops to train the Ukrainian forces in their use). The USA, among other things, supplied large numbers of Javelin anti-tank missiles. While nothing on the scale of Russia - it still has significant military capabilities.

5. It is also nonsense to say that Ukraine has no money - in 2020 Ukraine spent $4.3billion on its military. On top of that the USA supplied it with $1billion in military hardware in the past year - on top of $2.2billion that it supplied since 2014.

6. None of this takes away from the fact that Ukraine is entitled to self-determination free from outside influence and the Russians should immediately withdraw their forces.

7. It should be noted, for example, that the 5,000 NATO troops stationed in Poland, nor the American Aegis SM-3 Block IB missiles currently on-site in Poland have made Poland any safer in the slighest - in fact it has placed Poland at much greater risk as a result. Military power blocs exist to exercise political power - and that political power is wielded in the interests of the wealthy elites in the USA, the EU and Russia (and China).

8. It is extremely unlikely that NATO will accede to Ukraine's demand for NATO military intervention - to do so would in all likelihood provoke a global conflict with the possible use of nuclear weapons which would be disasterous for the global population and the planet. Furthermore, Russia is not capable, either militarily or politically of conquering Ukraine. It would be an enormous political, military and economic cost to occupy Ukraine - an occupation that would be unsustainable for any period of time - just as the US (and British etc) occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq were unsustainable. Putin will attempt to re-establish a pro-Russian puppet government in the country - just like existed pre-2014. The likelihood of that being sustainable for any period of time is also very much an open question. And throughout all of this the world will become more unstable, politically, economically and militarily - with working class people suffering the consequences.

9. The only real solition to this crisis is the building of a mass anti-war movement - globally, and particularly inside Russia. Not a pro-US, pro-NATO or pro-Western movement - but a genuine movement of working class people determined to act in the interests of working class people in Ukraine, in Russia and globally. Then and only then can tensions be removed and self-dtermination be secured by all involved.

10. you spout nonsense about Frenchmen in Brighton - while igoring the fact that British imperialism has been ensconsed for 100 years 350 miles away from Brighton, promoting sectarian division, collaborating with Loyalist muder gangs, indiscriminately shooting innocent civilians - and doing so to protect the interests of British imperial rule.

11. You say you dispise the 'hard left' - I dispise right-wing war mongerers who are willing to use working class people as canon fodder in their geo-political manouvres.I will continue to campaign for working class unity and solidarity - just as I have for the past 40 years.

Item 11. How many lives did that bastion of communism Stalin destroy ….


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[raymondo]

PLEASE READ: Apologies if this has already been posted...
Russian population in general is not aware of the war waged by Putin in Ukraine.

You may help to enlighten them:

1. On the Internet, find photographs of remnants of Russian tanks, warplanes, killed soldiers; damaged houses, infrastructure in Ukraine.

2. Open Google maps (also, many Russians use Yandex)

3. Find any sightseeing attractions (shopping malls, restaurants, schools, branches of the Russian Orthodox Church, etc.) in Russian cities/towns/villages.

4. Choose Top Rated category for them.

5. Express your opinion on the war and add photographs of remnants of Russian tanks, planes, killed Ukrainian nationals, damaged houses, infrastructure.

Additional source:
https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko

 

[raymondo]

The Mirror reports today that a dozen ex-SAS are on their way to Ukraine and another dozen to follow. Paid for it says by a
private company.

Fantastic that they publicise it (if true)... always better to sell more papers than help Ukraine with a news blackout. Muppets.

 

[BRIGHT ON Q]

These reporters from the western media are brave people just to get their information too our TV sets.

They are, Clive is brilliant on BBC.

 

[Eeyore]

Item 11. How many lives did that bastion of communism Stalin destroy ….


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I think that's called 'whataboutary'.

The points made in that post are worth consideration.

Everyone is united in the hope that bloodshed is halted, the belief that Ukrainians should be left to enjoy their own country. The anger at Putin for what he is doing. The hope he fails.

But many are refusing to unite behind a NATO banner of the 'good guys'. NATO is a political organisation seeking to assert influence and authority.

Just listening to the American representative at the UN giving his speech, as if they were a country skipping down the Yellow Brick Road wanting to bring peace and love, made my stomach churn.

 

[nicko31]

YouTube has blocked RT across Europe, including here.

Ofcom needs to act, kick them off freeview

 

[Deportivo Seagull]

I think that's called 'whataboutary'.

The points made in that post are worth consideration.

Everyone is united in the hope that bloodshed is halted, the belief that Ukrainians should be left to enjoy their own country. The anger at Putin for what he is doing. The hope he fails.

But many are refusing to unite behind a NATO banner of the 'good guys'. NATO is a political organisation seeking to assert influence and authority.

Just listening to the American representative at the UN giving his speech as if he it was a country skipping down the Yellow Brick Road and wanting to bring peace and love made my stomach churn.

Time and place … ranting like that on this thread is not the time or place.
Starting a thread on the causes would be the best approach wouldn’t it not.


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