Iâve heard that too. If you want to be educated and entertained, you should check out Rob Newmanâs âA History of Oilâ.
Proof positive that itâs a murky business, even back in WWI, and that David Baddiel has no talent.
Sorry to hear that. Hope you arenât too ill?
Clearly not - Silly question 
Get well soon though.
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The Russian demands fall into two categories.
The first four demands are, according to Mr Kalin, not too difficult for Ukraine to meet.
Chief among them is an acceptance by Ukraine that it should be neutral and should not apply to join Nato. Ukraineâs President Volodymyr Zelensky has already conceded this.
There are other demands in this category which mostly seem to be face-saving elements for the Russian side.
Ukraine would have to undergo a disarmament process to ensure it wasnât a threat to Russia. There would have to be protection for the Russian language in Ukraine. And there is something called de-Nazification.
This is deeply offensive to Mr Zelensky, who is himself Jewish and some of whose relatives died in the Holocaust, but the Turkish side believes it will be easy enough for Mr Zelensky to accept. Perhaps it will be enough for Ukraine to condemn all forms of neo-Nazism and promise to clamp down on them.
The second category is where the difficulty will lie, and in his phone call, Mr Putin said that it would need face-to-face negotiations between him and President Zelensky before agreement could be reached on these points. Mr Zelensky has already said heâs prepared to meet the Russian president and negotiate with him one-to-one.
Mr Kalin was much less specific about these issues, saying simply that they involved the status of Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, parts of which have already broken away from Ukraine and stressed their Russianness, and the status of Crimea.
Although Mr Kalin didnât go into detail, the assumption is that Russia will demand that the Ukrainian government should give up territory in eastern Ukraine. That will be deeply contentious.
The other assumption is that Russia will demand that Ukraine should formally accept that Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, does indeed now belong to Russia. If this is the case, it will be a bitter pill for Ukraine to swallow.
Nevertheless, it is a fait accompli, even though Russia has no legal right to own Crimea and actually signed an international treaty, after the fall of Communism but before Vladimir Putin came to power, accepting that Crimea was part of Ukraine.
This is where you always get confused, it was turned down after initially being agreed and after Russian persuasion and interference, a popular uprising began and since then they been democratic, they wanted before 2013 to become closer to the west, this is reality Pap.
Openly hostile? Yes in some parts after Ukrainians decided to side with Russians after their Country was illegally split and annexed also.
Putin has pushed Ukraine further out of Russiaâs orbit and into the Westâs as a result.
The facts are Pap,
Ukraine resists Russia.
Ukraine has full sovereignty.
Russia will not control Ukraine.
The above are facts and not opinion pieces.
This is about spheres of influence, dying Empires and an emerging nation from it.
Not NATO or NATO encroaching, nothing of the sort.
Not quite Nazi level events but toe-curlingly similar.
Does the bloke have any self-awareness especially about his claims about de-nazification l?
And do you know what? I might normally take that at face value. Given the involvement of the US intelligence community and their collusion with neo-Nazi elements, I canât.
Popular revolts can be manufactured just as easily as consent, and it was a peaceful protest tolerated by the authorities until the agent provocateurs got involved.
Since then, its behaviour has been bizarre. Who puts membership of NATO and the EU into their fucking constitution, FFS?
How and why does Zelensky have $1.6 billion stashed? Did he have it before? Did he get it since?
You donât just get a coup because people say âletâs have a coupâ. You need a âpopular revoltâ and the people behind the coup will usually ensure it happens.
Itâs straight from the regime change playbook of the 1970s and 80s.
Iâm fine thanks, much milder than the first time round.
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As Barry noted previously Ritterâs name is tainted. Nevertheless he does have professional expertise.
From wiki:
Ritter was targeted in two law enforcement sting operations in 2001. He was charged in June 2001 with trying to set up a meeting with an undercover police officer posing as a 16-year-old girl. He was charged with a misdemeanor crime of âattempted endangerment of the welfare of a childâ. The charge was dismissed and the record was sealed after he completed six months of probation. After this information was made public in early 2003, Ritter said that the timing of the leak was politically motivated in order to silence his opposition to the Bush administrationâs push toward war with Iraq.
Ritter was arrested again in November 2009 over communications with a police decoy he met on an Internet chat site. Police said that he exposed himself, via a web camera, after the officer said she was a 15-year-old girl. Ritter said in his own testimony during the trial that he believed the other party was an adult acting out her fantasy. The next month, Ritter waived his right to a preliminary hearing and was released on a $25,000 unsecured bail. Charges included âunlawful contact with a minor, criminal use of a communications facility, corruption of minors, indecent exposure, possessing instruments of crime, criminal attempt and criminal solicitationâ. Ritter rejected a plea bargain and was found guilty of all but the criminal attempt count in a Monroe County, Pennsylvania courtroom on April 14, 2011. In October 2011, he received a sentence of 1Âœ to 5Âœ years in prison. He was sent to Laurel Highlands state prison in Somerset County, Pennsylvania in March 2012 and paroled in September 2014.
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That was THE strangest flight Iâve ever been on.
As mentioned 90% young mothers & kids
Seems their tickets were issued by one of the charities/ resettlement programmes all had Non Priority 1 small cabin bag & 1 suitcase.
All well dressed, not stressed in anyway, just catching a Ryanair bus.
On arrival there was a reception area for them, lots of friends/relatives.
Just hit me the sheer scale of what is being done for them.
Immense.
All those kids/babies and not one of them doing that kid on a plane screaming thing. Most unusual.
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Where are Ukraineâs WMD and where did NATO kill one million people?
I think the answer is in your own statement there Pap, are Ukrainians different from Latvians or Estonians?
Iâll help you, no theyâre not.
Try and give whataboutery, equivalence or palm the devastation caused by Putin and Russian soldiers here off as others fault.
Say its spin, say its lies but youâre lying to yourself and others.
The page you linked doesnât make any mention of 3000 members of Azov Batallion embedded within Mariupol, (maybe it says it in the video, I donât have a BBC account to check). Why is that? Is that the BBC lying by omission?
I donât know for sure whether there are neo-nazi forces embedded in Mariupol but then I have to ask why the Russians, who we have already established earlier in the discussion have been relatively restrained (tragic though it still has been) with regards to meting out civilian deaths have suddenly decided itâs complete open season on civilian destruction. Does that seem likely to you?
You know that Azov Batallion exists, and you know the Russian military have orders to destroy them.
On the balance of probability, what seems more likely to you?
A) the Russians surrounding Mariupol have decided to abandon the doctrine theyâve been following and have started indiscriminately shooting the shit out of civilians just for the heck of it.
Or
B) Theyâre engaged in a siege with significant numbers of the very forces theyâve been ordered to destroy?
You seem very sure about your sources - the BBC ffs.
Barry - you pick and chose your news sources to fit whatever your latest post is wittering on about. 
Fascists defending their homeland against fascist invaders.
You seem to concentrate on 2500 fascists to justify an invasion thats illegal and killed far more.
Turn around, stand in the corner and think hard about your bias, deflective and eventually self defeating opinions.
If the Azov Battalion is all you have then Iâd adjust your view of your position.
Western sources, canât get many other that that, the only people I know who lived in Russia have left in the last month.
Donât even insult your own intelligence with this let alone mine. If they could have destroyed them they would, Maj. Gen. Oleg Mityaev will testify or would have.
Western sources can get much more than the BBC and you know it.
So, whatâs this youâre throwing in about people you now know in Russia?
Unless Iâve missed this before this is new information from youâŠor are have we been reading posts from Walter Mitty? #busted
No, I know a few people whoâve left Russia, they work for western companies. Walter Mitty#busted , the fuck you on about Willis.
Bluster? Iâll let you decide but to me this sounds like a man who has a good hand,
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Saturday for meaningful peace and security talks âwithout delayâ with Moscow.
He said it was Russiaâs only chance to limit the damage from its âmistakesâ in the wake of its invasion.
"This is the only chance for Russia to reduce the damage from its own mistakes," Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
"Itâs time to meet, itâs time to talk, itâs time to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine.
"Otherwise, Russiaâs losses will be such that you will need several generations to recover."