Salisbury, Skripal, Poison and Russia.

[Countryfox]

7 minutes ago, Webbo said:

There are already sanctions on Russia from when they annexed The Crimea, financial sanctions won't make any difference. I could see taking the World Cup off them affecting Putin's popularity but that'll never happen.

 

Quite mild sanctions that slowly fizzle out and become meaningless ...    we couldn't take the world cup off him without everyone elses agreement ..  and like you said, that will never happen.

[Buce]

22 minutes ago, Countryfox said:

 

We have to be careful though ...  I think things will get worse.   He wants to get back some of the 'lost land' (who does that remind you of) and that will become easier by destabilising the west ...   and for some reason us in particular.   He is going to be president for life so his ego will drive him on ...     I wouldn't be surprised if he will really get his teeth into us ...   I really fear what might happen at the world cup for starters.

 

 

Yeah, he might arrange for England to go out at the group stage...

 

Again.

[Countryfox]

8 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

Yeah, he might arrange for England to go out at the group stage...

 

Again.

 

I think some of our fans will be very badly injured ...  or worse.

[Strokes]

10 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

Yeah, he might arrange for England to go out at the group stage...

 

Again.

It’s the hope that kills you buce.

[Buce]

2 minutes ago, Strokes said:

It’s the hope that kills you buce.

 

That or the nerve agent...

[Bryn]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/live/bbcparliament

Parliament discussing the attack, Theresa May confirms the agent is a military-grade agent developed in Russia.

[Guest Kopfkino]

Will Trump do anything in response to a state-sponsored attack on NATO soil?

[VLC86]

1 minute ago, Kopfkino said:

Will Trump do anything in response to a state-sponsored attack on NATO soil?

Probably call them c unts on Twitter.

[maynefox]

1 minute ago, Costock_Fox said:

Probably call them c unts on Twitter.

*us

[TheUltimateWinner]

Very firm statement put out by the prime minister. Will be interesting to see what comes of it.

[leicsmac]

9 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

Will Trump do anything in response to a state-sponsored attack on NATO soil?

Guess that depends on how much the powers that be want things to escalate.

 

Probably just a diplomatic tit-for-tat coming up, tbh.

[Beechey]

Should be interesting to see Russia's official response come Wesnesday. Sounds a lot like Parliament may demand the expulsion of Russian diplomats, the closure of the Russian embassy and heavy sanctions at the least as a response, with many calling for greater spending on defence as a response.

[Guest Kopfkino]

6 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Guess that depends on how much the powers that be want things to escalate.

 

Probably just a diplomatic tit-for-tat coming up, tbh.

 

May's words were particularly strong and forceful, leading some to suggest she might invoke article 5. Can't see it going that far myself, but I think we're going to be much stronger than on Litvinenko (be hard not to be tbf) and that will require good support from NATO allies. 

[maynefox]

2 hours ago, Webbo said:

There are already sanctions on Russia from when they annexed The Crimea, financial sanctions won't make any difference. I could see taking the World Cup off them affecting Putin's popularity but that'll never happen.

 

I think sanctions do make a difference. They just have not been implemented on the scale that would cause damage to the Russian economy from the EU. Europe, naturally, relies heavily on gas from Russia. There is a reason when Obama enacted tougher sanctions against Russia (I think after Syrian chemical weapons) the EU issued a statement that it was concerned of retaliation. Hence we did not impose tougher sanctions due to EU's geopolitical reliance on Russia.

 

Sanctions do work, especially the targeting of Putin's mafia-oligarchs, from the U.S. Why is it that when Donald Trump Jr's Trump Tower meeting with Veselnitskaya (lawyer with ties with Russian state-owned companies; whose efforts as a lawyer, lobbies on overturning the Magnitsky Act) they discussed "adoptions"?

 

Kremlin's response to the Magnitsky Act was to ban Americans from adopting Russian babies.

 

Adoptions = U.S. sanctions - which was discussed with Trump Jr. & Veselnitskaya (and with Sergey Kislyak a Russian diplomat) in December 2016, at Trump Tower.

 

Putin wants to overturn U.S. sanctions. Him and his band of merry-men are losing millions every day.

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

 

May's words were particularly strong and forceful, leading some to suggest she might invoke article 5. Can't see it going that far myself, but I think we're going to be much stronger than on Litvinenko (be hard not to be tbf) and that will require good support from NATO allies. 

Question is though, how far can you go down that road before you get to a point of no return?

[maynefox]

15 minutes ago, TheUltimateWinner said:

Very firm statement put out by the prime minister. Will be interesting to see what comes of it.

Most likely nothing.

 

This is the third obvious attempted or actual assassination conducted by Kremlin agents on our soil; most likely ordered by Putin.

 

Took ten years just for Litvinenko's widow to get an inquiry into her husband's death, so I doubt we will see much action from all the talk.

 

Government should expel 3/4 of the embassy staff after they hear the mendacious denial made by the Russian ambassador. Should lobby for tougher sanctions on the EU (not that they would care).

[Finnegan]

4 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Yeah, they definitely wanted people to know it was them but be able to hold up just a little figleaf of deniability IMO.

 

I suppose the way that it seemingly went tits-up could just be down to incompetence, but the guys doing this are the last guys I would expect to be incompetent tbh - my guess is that incompetent wetwork guys wouldn't last long enough in the Russian system to be given a job like this.

 

But all of that is just, I hope at least, literally guess work. None of us know anything about spies other than what we've gleaned from movies and TV. 

 

Realistically we have no idea how these things are meant to happen or how much can go wrong, especially when you throw in the target as a curve ball in himself. 

[leicsmac]

1 minute ago, Finnegan said:

 

But all of that is just, I hope at least, literally guess work. None of us know anything about spies other than what we've gleaned from movies and TV. 

 

Realistically we have no idea how these things are meant to happen or how much can go wrong, especially when you throw in the target as a curve ball in himself. 

Yeah, this is all serious conjecture based on second- or third-hand information, so just guessing.

[Buce]

 

We will do nothing of any consequence - the days of sending a gunboat up the Yangtze river are long gone.

 

We are just an insignificant little island off the coast of Europe, soon to become even more so.

[Beechey]

2 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

We will do nothing of any consequence - the days of sending a gunboat up the Yangtze river are long gone.

 

We are just an insignificant little island off the coast of Europe, soon to become even more so.

Is Russia also insignificant? Because our economy is almost 200% the size of theirs. Economic consequences for them could be severe. Your knowledge of geopolitics seems to be quite limited just judging from that post.

[Buce]

1 minute ago, Beechey said:

Is Russia also insignificant? Because our economy is almost 200% the size of theirs. Economic consequences for them could be severe. Your knowledge of geopolitics seems to be quite limited just judging from that post.

 

The West has been applying economic sanctions since Russia annexed Crimea - how's that going?

 

I guess you're just another one who pines for the days of Empire.

[Beechey]

5 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

The West has been applying economic sanctions since Russia annexed Crimea - how's that going?

 

I guess you're just another one who pines for the days of Empire.

Western sanctions on Russia are limited, and are ignored by many countries. Russians heavily invest in the UK, including a massive proportion of Putin's allies, sanctioning them will pile pressure on Vlad. Because I point out the facts I must want the empire back? Genius, that one. I was born in 1994, so no pining for Empire here, mate. I just acknowledge the UK is not as feeble and useless as you want to believe. For the record, the UK government spends almost as much per year as the entire economic output of Russia. So no, we're not just some insigificant island (assuming Russia is signficant).

 

Maybe we'd be better off doing nothing as you seem to suggest, so Russia knows how seriously we take them deploying internationally banned chemical weapons on the streets of our country.

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, Beechey said:

Western sanctions on Russia are limited, and are ignored by many countries. Russians heavily invest in the UK, including a massive proportion of Putin's allies, sanctioning them will pile pressure on Vlad. Because I point out the facts I must want the empire back? Genius, that one.

 

Maybe we'd be better off doing nothing as you seem to suggest, so Russia knows how seriously we take them deploying internationally illegal weapons on the streets of our country.

I might repeat the same question as above, though - just how far do you let things go?

[Buce]

1 minute ago, Beechey said:

Western sanctions on Russia are limited, and are ignored by many countries. Russians heavily invest in the UK, including a massive proportion of Putin's allies, sanctioning them will pile pressure on Vlad. Because I point out the facts I must want the empire back? Genius, that one.

 

Maybe we'd be better off doing nothing as you seem to suggest, so Russia knows how seriously we take them deploying internationally illegal weapons on the streets of our country.

 

I'm suggesting no such thing.

 

I'm telling you we will just bluster and then do nothing of consequence because we have no such leverage.

[Beechey]

4 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I might repeat the same question as above, though - just how far do you let things go?

Of course short of any kind of military action. But if Russia cannot give a good reason for why they've deployed banned chemical weaponry against the UK, at the very least there needs to be a closing of their embassy, expulsion of the staff, a withdrawal of our staff from Russia and further economic sanctions. Possibly targeting high-profile Russians that ally themselves to Putin that have a lot of assets in the UK (of which there are a good number).