Do you also think that the UK owes reparations to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc, etc, etc and if not why not?
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It was an issue for Yeltsin before Putin, Russia have repeatedly been banging on about it since 2008. What makes you say itâs a red herring?
Not considered it to be honest.
Iâm not sure that splitting the country would be his first choice. By splitting the country he loses influence over potential Ukrainian governments but thatâs where he is now. Splitting the country is for sure a more rational proposition than trying to take and hold the whole thing but I donât know his mind anymore than you do.
I really wonder what his plans for Kiev are though. I think the slow rumble of huge forces towards Kiev is intended to be performative. I think he wants the people of Kiev to feel terror over a sustained period for their wills to be broken and for them to really understand and feel that NATO and the West donât give a shit about them.
That is an interesting take and plausible, although wonder if that is now a plan B, ie making the best of a bad hand. By letting their enemy organise and dig in, they just make their life a lot harder
Yes quite possibly but what has that got to do with this Russian invasion?
My dad who is the same age as and grew up a few streets away from Putin in Leningrad spent 30 years working a menial role for the NHS (despite having a 5 year degree in industrial economics) and has a tiny pension that barely pays the bills. He does his weekly shopping in one of those supermarkets which are basically one step up from a food bank. My grandmother died last year leaving him a flat in Moscow and he was hoping that once the 6 months of probate was over he would be able to sell it and use the cash to pay off some of his mortgage in the UK. Now heâs stranded in the UK with British people frothing at the mouth calling to strip away his British citizenship. If he is somehow able to arrange the sale of his flat in Russia remotely he wonât be able to extract the cash. He also canât access the meagre Russian pension that he has earned.
My dad can only occasionally afford to shop there anymore but do you think it is only oligarchs that shop in those Natasha shops in Portswood and Shirley?
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Not if the Ukrainian army is encircled. They donât need to do shit. Just kettle them in until negotiations are done.
I suppose what I am getting at is that if the everyone is serious about stopping this economically through sanctions, then going after a few oligarchs who will have already protected enough assets to see them live like royalty for the next hundred years isnât going to do it.
If you sanction all Russians, then you may just start to create a degree of dissent on the home front which might just stop that mad bastard.
As for your fathers situation, I can only speak for my self in that from my POV he is a British citizen and should be treated as such. I appreciate that it doesnât help his financial situation
A Saints related thought
What is Serbiaâs position on this? Are they lining up behind Russia? Ia there a chance that sanctions could head their way?
I would have thought after reading your views on schooling that youâd have thought inheritance as a deeply unfair thing?
China is out.
We will not join such sanctions, and we will keep normal economic, trade and financial exchanges with all the relevant parties.
We disapprove of the financial sanctions, particularly those launched unilaterally, because they donât have much legal basis and will not have good effects.
No only the fascist groups, the reasons are obvious, slav and nationalist and discontented their hold on the region has gone.
Russia is being supported by human rights super nations Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan ,Tajikistan, Cuba, Nicaragua and VenezuelaâŠEven supergroup Iran are keeping quiet, so is China and even North Korea
Putin is out on his own and the newsfeed he is giving the Russian people is a disgrace.
Whoâd have thought that? China remaining to deal with Russia as it gives them money and influence (and Russia losing a lot of it in the process).
China arenât keeping quiet. Theyâre not involved in the sanctions and have criticised the Western sanctions.
I think the point is that Russia isnât going to be sanctioned to death. It has access to the worldâs biggest manufacturer.
So theyâre making money and taking political advantage of the situation, that is hardly surprising (I think I wrote that 7 days ago Pap, you donât have to be a geo-political wizard to know that) but their silence has been huge in the main.
China is very close to Ukraine and you do know the Chinese have always said all borders are sovereign so they canât side with Russia on this, they can mediate and effectively stay silent, theyâre playing the long game.
This war started by Russia will massively weaken them long term and China will be the winner.
Pap if you believe that you really do not know too much about patents, production and globalisation.
The US and China are far far too close in trade for Russia to get in the way, Russia is a fly to be swatted in global terms of money and production, now if China were to go into Taiwan then the gloves are off and its effectively a World War.
See the statement from the Chinese. Normal relations. Are you a more authoritative source on Chinese intentions than the Chinese themselves?