Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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Roar87 said:
Historically Russia has sought to avoid conflict with NATO in the same way we have with them, there's nothing at all to suggest Russia would attempt to invade a NATO member. Largely because as much as they talk big, they're aware of the disparity between NATO and Russian Armed forces.
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It doesn't appear that Russia was aware of how weak they were until *after* the 3-day special military operation failed as spectacularly as it has.

The corruption runs deep and it's not until someone actually stood up to the "second strongest military" in the world that Putin got a hint that all wasn't what he thought it was.

So, I wouldn't bet that Putin would have stopped if he had rolled over Ukraine because it would have tought him that his army is strong and effective and the west is all talk...just like we were when he took Crimea.

Putin took Crimea by force and claimed that was all he wanted.

Too many people took him at his word and now he has tried to take more land by force.

He. Will. Not. Stop.

Putin must not gain anything from this. After Crimea, no one should expect him to stop until he FORCED to stop.
 
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Murf said:
Have you got a link to the source for this? Not saying he hasn't said that, but he's been the only Tory politician that's been any good recently. Most of the interviews with him or speeches by him that I've seen have been well measured, appropriate tone, insightful etc.
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Here you go (I had seen a headline not the full article when I made the comment):
www.theguardian.com

US and UK call for more gratitude from Kyiv after Zelenskiy’s Nato complaint

Comments come after Ukrainian leader complained his country had not been given firm timetable for joining alliance
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
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Roar87 said:
Historically Russia has sought to avoid conflict with NATO in the same way we have with them, there's nothing at all to suggest Russia would attempt to invade a NATO member. Largely because as much as they talk big, they're aware of the disparity between NATO and Russian Armed forces.
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Whilst I tend to agree with your logic to some extent you need to remember.
Russia as a power individually is only reasonably recently returned to the world stage. They were part of the USSR for most of the post war period until today.
Only once the USSR fully collapsed did Russia individually have an issue with NATO. Many of the other parts of that USSR now being within NATO. So clearly a large part of the USSR didn't have any issue with NATO.

After the collapse of the USSR the military machine that had been the USSR was heavily fragmented. With a lot of the equipment being in places now not under Russian influence. Such as the famous nukes in Ukraine.
With those massive issues Russia struggled for a while. Fleets going into mothball etc. Then they started modernising and slowly actually getting closer to their theoretical power.

Simply until fairly recently Russia would have only had limited opportunity to directly invade or attack a NATO member. Well certainly a NATO member that was not quite capable themselves.
As NATO expanded East then that got closer to home.

There was a big difference between when the USSR started collapsing and the now unified Germany was the nearest Western NATO member to Russia and where we are now.

Generally until Putin the friction between NATO and Russia was reducing. It was Putin that restoked the nationalism to levels they are now in Russia.
It was Putin who is behind the main friction. He had ideals of reuniting some of the USSR under his watch, it was becomingly increasingly unlikely to happen and as such he reached (before I figured he would) the point when he decided enough was enough.
Russia could have easily been far more significant on the world stage. There levels of corruption etc means they fall so far below their potential.

Western leaders are to blame as well. We got too accustomed to peace, and the thoughts that the cold war was over. In a way that probably fuelled Putins issues more.
We went from putting a lot of forces and troops on the borders of the USSR to pretty much basically ignoring Russia. As if we considered them no threat at all. Which in reality is pretty much what our position was.
 
ltron said:
Ben Wallace the defence secretary is saying today Ukraine should be more grateful for the weapons. I think this is the wrong the message, if anything we are the ones who should be grateful to them. They are the ones putting their lives on the line to keep Russia in check and are weakening them.

In truth I don't care if they are grateful or not, I just want us to do everything possible to make sure they win, that's the only way we thwart Putin's imperialist ambitions and get a just and lasting peace.
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He's somewhat bitter I imagine after having been blocked by the US after having ambitions to be the next head of NATO

Roar87 said:
Historically Russia has sought to avoid conflict with NATO in the same way we have with them, there's nothing at all to suggest Russia would attempt to invade a NATO member. Largely because as much as they talk big, they're aware of the disparity between NATO and Russian Armed forces.
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Russian commentators were saying they'd like to roll their tanks up to Poland's border but there doesn't appear to be any serious call to cross it they want what they regard as traditionally russian controlled or influenced areas to be back under their control they're not calling for WW3 at least not openly. Like the middle east/syrian conflict theres the russian influenced areas and the american influenced areas and both are careful not tread on each others toes the only spillover was the Turkish jet shooting down a russian one and the russians only complained much like when the russians downed a US drone over the black sea, only complaints the US administration were careful not to hike up the rhetoric. Its all a chess game.
 
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It's right that we robustly support Ukraine, but it is coming at a huge global cost, I think we might be starting to see some fatigue setting in now in terms of support.

Ukraine have to be able to push the Russians back or this will never end.

There is absolutely zero chance of Ukraine joining NATO until long after the war is over and Putin is gone. It would effectively be declaring war on Russia.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
I agree on the principle.
I think had Ukraine fallen then by now the conversations would be now what?
Had Ukraine fallen quickly would the Sweden and Finland applications have happened or not, and in what timescales.

However I think Putin would have consolidated first. Ie tapped into Ukraine properly.

Had we supplied nothing and used no more than a few harsh words I expect life right now would have been very much like it was pre invasion. Just with a chunk of Eastern europe now being controlled by another power.
I don't doubt we would have people saying "they have been very very naughty, but we need the oil (and now wheat/sunflower oil) so we need to make up with Russia."

Always tricky for Ukraine. They need to really push hard for more and better weapons saying its not enough, whilst simultaneously thanking everyone as if they have just been given the holy grail. Deviate too far either direction and they risk triggering more people.
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Zelensky has made a few statements in the past which were probably unhelpful, in terms of apparent gratefulness. Reading between the lines, the US has given him a stern talking to on more than one occasion about this.
 
potatolord said:
Zelensky has made a few statements in the past which were probably unhelpful, in terms of apparent gratefulness. Reading between the lines, the US has given him a stern talking to on more than one occasion about this.
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The thing is, he has a point. If all of the aid that has been given hadn't been drip-fed then things could have been very different.
 
I think the UK response to arming Ukraine has been well measured. We have pushed our resources and responded when other nations in better positions have refused.

Outside of sending all our RAF planes and crews and possibly the entire Navy, we can’t offer much of a solution for fighting an entrenched artillery battle along a front thousands of kilometres in length. No military in the world could.
 
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Dis86 said:
The thing is, he has a point. If all of the aid that has been given hadn't been drip-fed then things could have been very different.
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I don't disagree, but you can't change the past.

The NATO comms strategy has had hundreds of people considering the legal, practical and presentational aspects of their support to Ukraine.

Demands for immediate supply/ increase don't help NATO manage the news, and therefore public understanding. Not least as they may give an impression of panic and weakness.

In short: no-one likes surprises.
 
Dis86 said:
The thing is, he has a point. If all of the aid that has been given hadn't been drip-fed then things could have been very different.
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If Ukraine hadn’t been “drip fed” arms things could have also been very different. I keep in mind Ukraine is a fledgling democracy and former Soviet block nation with it’s fair share of internal issues to overcome.
 
Robbo said:
It's right that we robustly support Ukraine, but it is coming at a huge global cost, I think we might be starting to see some fatigue setting in now in terms of support.

Ukraine have to be able to push the Russians back or this will never end.

There is absolutely zero chance of Ukraine joining NATO until long after the war is over and Putin is gone. It would effectively be declaring war on Russia.
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The cost is in letting Putin get away with it (as we did in 2014 and 2008, it didn't stop him then did it?). Whatever cost in terms of lives and suffering is currently being borne by the Ukrainians not NATO troops. It will only stay that way through a Ukrainian victory.
 
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jigger said:
Outside of sending all our RAF planes and crews and possibly the entire Navy, we can’t offer much of a solution for fighting an entrenched artillery battle along a front thousands of kilometres in length. No military in the world could.
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Sure a bit idealistic on my part but we have a lot (in terms of the spread of capabilities rather than amount) of the kind of equipment Ukraine needs, sure it would take time and money but we could do a lot more scraping together spare systems and/or restarting production and ramping up production of stuff like artillery ammo. Could also put some effort into developing medium range mobile air-defence systems, etc.

Ukraine is crying out for stuff like the AS-90, something a little more advanced but combining the capabilities of the Gepard and Starstreak HVM platform, main battle tanks of at least Challenger 1 capability but with the advantage of some modernisation, armoured fighting vehicles like the Warrior or CV-90 (which we don't have) but with a little better armour protection - even stuff like the CVRT family (in larger numbers and better equipped) but with a little modernisation for better survivability would go a long way.
 
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ltron said:
The cost is in letting Putin get away with it (as we did in 2014 and 2008, it didn't stop him then did it?). Whatever cost in terms of lives and suffering is currently being borne by the Ukrainians not NATO troops. It will only stay that way through a Ukrainian victory.
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We should go get Putin! Proper fill him in twice. Once for 2008 and once for 2014.

Who could we send… Indigo Rumbelow? Might as well send her on a world tour, why stop at Putin? North Korea, Afghanistan, Africa (pretty much the entire content) Asia, India, Pakistan, Israel and France of course.
 
jigger said:
We should go get Putin! Proper fill him in twice. Once for 2008 and once for 2014.

Who could we send… Indigo Rumbelow? Might as well send her on a world tour, why stop at Putin? North Korea, Afghanistan, Africa (pretty much the entire content) Asia, India, Pakistan, Israel and France of course.
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Actually it's the Ukrainians who should be supported as much as is possible in driving him out of Ukraine and winning the war, concessions of more land will not stop him as it did not stop him before. Putin is the aggressor and any claims to the contrary are nonsense as demonstrated by his actions.
 
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jigger said:
We should go get Putin! Proper fill him in twice. Once for 2008 and once for 2014.

Who could we send… Indigo Rumbelow? Might as well send her on a world tour, why stop at Putin? North Korea, Afghanistan, Africa (pretty much the entire content) Asia, India, Pakistan, Israel and France of course.
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Well… we tried it your way and here we are.
 
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