Isnât Kharkiv in the east? I thought a red carpet would have been rolled out for those lovable Russians? Obviously not.
Good.
I think a big part of the problem with that headline is it leading with Zelenskiy says. When this war is long gone and forgotten, âZelenskiy saysâ will be a childâs game akin to Simon SaysâŠ
Whatever Zelenskiy says is :-
a) words that were put in his mouth (it was either that or a gun)
b) bollocks
Heâs in good fucking company on this thread
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Indeed.
Can you believe some people are cheerleading us to nuclear Armageddon?
Itâs regrettable, but understandable, that people treat political parties like football teams. Didnât expect people to so readily do so for an international conflict when they donât have a dog in the fight and could face obliteration if the fight gets any worse.
Why did the Russianâs not go straight into Donbas and fortify if thatâs what they were planning to do all along? Weâve always been told that Donbas loves the Russianâs, so should have been easy. Did they want to lose thousands of troops, military vehicles and ships attacking regions they werenât interested in?
I think you need to acknowledge that there is a big difference between the citizens of Donbas and the armed forces there. Due to the preceding civil war, many of the Ukrainian forces were already tied up there.
I also reckon that Putin would have much preferred to have decapitated Kiev early doors. That said, I think it was always the intent to take on, and letâs be honest destroy, Ukrainian forces in the East.
Which of course, is much easier if Ukrainian forces are tied up protecting the capital.
Check out this map from the El Pais article. Ukrainians are fighting on multiple fronts and are in serious danger of being encircled.
Youâre talking total shite.
Youâre talking your way into a silence.
Pap, even if he destroys the forces in the east how can Russians control the ground when theyâll be fought in the streets all the way.
Thereâll certainly be no puppet Government in there now, Russian speaking kids are now learning or speaking in Ukrainian in defiance, heâs lost the hearts and minds of who he was supposed to be protecting.
Russia are a controlled state with no free press, we know the Ukrainians are also losing heavily (forces) but the Russians donât even know their pointless losses, very sad.
So for fairness Pap, you can insult me and yet I canât call you out when youâre talking crap?
I had an honest go at answering @WorzelScummageâs question.
Your instant and only response was âyouâre talking crapâ, with no qualification.
It has fuck all to do with me being your target. Youâre adding nothing to this thread and I will think nothing of removing nothing from something.
Pap, youâre Chamberlainesque argument of its not our fight isnât really going to wash.
Palestine, Yemen and other conflicts?
Isolationism is what Trump expoused.
Your understanding of Chamberlain is rather limited. People all too readily forget that he began Britainâs re-arming program way before Munich was signed.
Youâre perhaps also forgetting that in terms of status and power, we came out worse from that war than we went in, our gold sent to Fort Knox just to kick lend lease off.
The biggest mistake Chamberlain ever made was thinking that he could save Poland. He couldnât. He didnât. Poland was under Nazi or Soviet rule for the next 40 years and Britain lost its unipolar status.
Thatâs exactly the mistake that those favouring intervention want to make, except this time with added nukes.
Absolutely they wanted to destroy forces in the East - the issue is engaging on the ground across to Kiev. The amount of soldiers and armament they have lost has made taking the East far more difficult. The issue they have is that the Ukranianâs can get access to new vehicles and weapons easier than the Russianâs can. If they had just gone into the East there is a good chance the West wouldnât be helping to prop Ukraine up as much.
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Iâll think youâll find Chamberlain defenders actually say it was the delay that led us to re arm, what they miss out on is many were calling for more affirmative action long before, I think you need to look at the research of Chamberlain, of his privilege and his ties to the royal family.
All knew when we entered the war it was the end of the Empire, why? We could hardly defend western self determination and still hold our Empire against its will, we did it in the previous war and Ireland went. All politicians at the time knew this and yet we still did it.
Chamberlain wanted legacy (he was very ill) and his vanity wanted him to believe Hitler, whilst countries were annexed and swallowed up.
Pap Iâm not selling out on Ukraine due to a fascist bully.
Most of these wars, really, are about resources. Where are most of the natural resources in Ukraine?
Call me cynical, but I think the East is the only bit the West is interested in.
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People are resources Pap, the expansion of the EU is cheap labour, cheap land for multi nationals to base as well.
Same for Russia tbf - may dress it up as protecting their people. Same with Crimea.
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The same could also be said that the East is the only bit the East is interested in, from here
Oil and Gas
Ukraine has the second-biggest known gas reserves in Europe, apart from Russiaâs gas reserves in Asia, although largely unexploited.
In terms of natural gas, the country has around 1.09 trillion cubic meters, which is an incredible amount. Picture this, itâs sufficient to be stretched around the earth several times. This is second only to Norwayâs known resources of 1.53 trillion cubic meters.
However, ironically enough, Ukraine depends on gas imports and it is primarily because the USSR began extracting gas on a large scale in Siberia in the 1970s.
Thus, much of the gas exploration, as well as production, have been transferred to Russia, due to which Ukraineâs resources remain untapped. Presently, Russia supplies 40 per cent to 50 per cent of Europeâs gas consumption via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline as well as the Ukrainian network.
Germany is also a big consumer of Russiaâs natural gas. The country gets 55 per cent of its natural gas from Russia, and the bulk of it goes through Ukraine, which earns a transit fee equivalent to $7 billion.
This is around four per cent of Ukraineâs GDP (Gross Domestic Product). While these colossal gas reserves remain unexploited, the country is still important for gas transport from Russia to Europe.
In 2019, Russia and Ukraine inked a transit agreement that allows easy transfer of Siberian gas to the EU through Ukraineâs huge gas transportation system, regardless of unilateral sanctions by the US.