Ukraine

[st albans fox]

5 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

Ditto. 

 

I can't remember where I read it (think BBC live feed), but one of the analysts said Putin's in so deep that he won't back down to save face. If we can get some cast iron "security guarantees" on things that won't happen anyway such as "no nukes in Ukraine" etc. he may take that. Pray something happens soon though. 

Moscow has already mentioned the phrase ‘common ground’ ahead of tomorrows renewed meetings.  everything crossed! 
 

of course this could simply be Russia trying to paint herself as being the reasonable side in this ref a ceasefire 

 

speaking to a guy in China today, he wasn’t particularly irked by the invasion - he likened the wests approach to ukraine as Russia to Cuba in the sixties ref the missile crisis …it was very much ‘what do you expect the Russians to do’?  I wondered how much the Chinese media had been showing of the attacks on civilians. 

[ClaphamFox]

6 minutes ago, LiberalFox said:

I don't believe there has been constant pushing to get Ukraine into NATO. I think Russia (or Putin if you like) is firmly responsible for the current events. I don't believe Russia is being reactive. Ukraine wanted a more European future (by majority in a democracy) and Putin has chosen to resist that using force. 

 

 

There has been no pushing from the west to get Ukraine into NATO - Ukraine has decided it wants admission to NATO to protect itself from Russia (and with good reason, as events of the past few weeks have shown).

 

Putin clearly hates the idea of Ukraine becoming more closely aligned with the west. There are a number of reasons for this, not least among them the fact that he doesn't regard Ukraine as a real country. He regards the break-up of the USSR as a historical injustice that must be corrected and loathes the idea that Ukraine might become a florurisng liberal democracy on Russia's doorstep (thereby giving Russians a glimpse into what life could be like if they didn't live in a brutal autoocracy). As for those who argue that Russia should have the right to determine what freedoms Ukraine is permitted, the historian Timothy Garton Ash recently wrote this:

"Displaying the double standards that have characterised western Europe’s approach to eastern Europe for centuries, people who would be totally outraged by the notion that Poland could have a veto over what alliance Germany should join, or Britain over France, are quite happy to give Russia a veto over Ukraine’s alliance choices. Western Europeans who would scream “Fascism!” at any suggestion that territorial claims could be based on the existence of a Danish minority in northern Germany or a German-speaking minority in northern Italy find it “understandable” that Moscow should make such claims on Ukraine."

 

I think he's right. If Britain invaded the Republic of Ireland tomorrow, arguing that we ruled them for more than 800 years so they effectively belong to us anyway, it would rightly be greeted with horror and disbelief by the rest of the world. Russia does not have any claim on Ukraine any more and has no right to determine what alliances Ukraine is allowed to form. The sooner Putin realises that, the better for everybody.

[Bellend Sebastian]

11 minutes ago, bovril said:

Random EU flag guy on twitter

Hence presented as 'gossip'

[worthosoriginals]

4 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Moscow has already mentioned the phrase ‘common ground’ ahead of tomorrows renewed meetings.  everything crossed! 
 

of course this could simply be Russia trying to paint herself as being the reasonable side in this ref a ceasefire 

 

speaking to a guy in China today, he wasn’t particularly irked by the invasion - he likened the wests approach to ukraine as Russia to Cuba in the sixties ref the missile crisis …it was very much ‘what do you expect the Russians to do’?  I wondered how much the Chinese media had been showing of the attacks on civilians. 

I bet they didn't show much footage of people standing in front of tanks. Ooh painful memories to be ignored. 

[surrifox]

1 hour ago, Parafox said:

Abramovich is to sell Chelsea.

 

What's prompted that I wonder.

Usmanov is cutting ties with Everton too . Mind you he’s probably not going to lose sleep over it - Everton ownership is probably the worst investment and biggest waste of money anyone could make and at least he won’t be wasting any more .

[Guest Col city fan]

1 hour ago, Sampson said:

Dan Carlin has done a great podcast series on the Eastern Front in WW2, he said that Hitler actually got so paranoid and superstitious with Napolean's failure in Russia in the winter that he would doing really stupid things because he thought doing the same as Napolean would curse them. Like he refused to send units in with adequate winter clothing because Napolean did and he thought it would be bad for morale.

There was actually some weird supernatural and superstition stuff in the Nazi belief system like that as well.

Nazi’ism is full of the occult. Hitler was apparently obsessed by it 

 

Edited 2 March 2022 by Col city fan

[Zear0]

3 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

Nazi’ism is full of the occult. Hitler was apparently obsessed by it 

 

Students of the Indiana Jones films can vouch for that. 

[Guest Col city fan]

2 hours ago, Tommy Fresh said:

I don't think it's as simple as "we'd of lost" isn't it well reported they'd of struggled as they didn't control the skies. 

We were on the verge of signing terms with Hitler to essentially concede to his demands.

Chuchill became PM, the Americans joined the war and the rest, as they say, is history.

We were losing the war. Particularly in the channel. Nazi u-boats we’re literally starving Britain of food and supplies. That was Hitler’s plan actually. To starve us into submission. You are rights about the skies. We were holding our own due mainly to the fantastic spitfire. But we were losing the war overall, hence becoming very very close to conceding.

[bovril]

Just now, Zear0 said:

Students of the Indiana Jones films can vouch for that. 

 this is exactly what I thought about first... "Hitler's a nut on the subject"

[LiberalFox]

46 minutes ago, String fellow said:

Why was Putin so sensitive to the Liz Truss comment about allowing volunteers to go to fight in Ukraine that he threatened to nuke the UK, but he seems utterly insensitive to all the terrible suffering and anguish he is causing to many thousands of innocent Ukrainians? Is he a criminal psychopath?

I wonder if he took it as her being okay with sending British troops into Ukraine considering Vlad's idea of "volunteers" are Russian army units with the markings scrubbed off. 

[Tommy Fresh]

2 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

We were on the verge of signing terms with Hitler to essentially concede to his demands.

Chuchill became PM, the Americans joined the war and the rest, as they say, is history.

We were losing the war. Particularly in the channel. Nazi u-boats we’re literally starving Britain of food and supplies. That was Hitler’s plan actually. To starve us into submission. You are rights about the skies. We were holding our own due mainly to the fantastic spitfire. But we were losing the war overall, hence becoming very very close to conceding.

Oh yeah I'm not saying they wouldn't have done it but a lot of historians have said Sealion would have probably failed. It was planned prior to the US joining the war, having rejected his final terms, however they never had the conditions to carry it out. We had aerial dominance and despite the presence of u-boats their Navy would have struggled against ours in attempting to invade.

[MPH]

12 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

We were on the verge of signing terms with Hitler to essentially concede to his demands.

Chuchill became PM, the Americans joined the war and the rest, as they say, is history.

We were losing the war. Particularly in the channel. Nazi u-boats we’re literally starving Britain of food and supplies. That was Hitler’s plan actually. To starve us into submission. You are rights about the skies. We were holding our own due mainly to the fantastic spitfire. But we were losing the war overall, hence becoming very very close to conceding.

   
 

depends which accounts you need..

 

 from what I can tell there were factions outside of the cabinet and NOT  Supported byany of our PMs who had entered into negotiations with the Nazis  for a ceasefire but even then not wholly on their terms..

Edited 2 March 2022 by MPH

[surrifox]

A friend who is employed by a “Russian” bank in London ( not sure if it’s on the hit list) has been advised that the business has been transferred to a Cyprus owned operation which will preserve their employment rights and no change is envisaged to employment terms and conditions or their  working arrangements. In other words business as normal .

Russia has bought and paid for Cyprus ( the EU part) and had this already to roll out for years . Cyprus’newly acquired “banking sector” is just a front for looted state assets and money laundering .It makes a mockery of sanctions if the UK and EU don’t act on this and allow these operations to hide behind sham corporations which the high minded European Commission has chosen to ignore but criticised the UK for ( quite rightly)

[whoareyaaa]

If he does get control of Ukraine then starts moving into another country it is most defiantly a replay of what Hitler done, I don't see how he gets control and is allowed to return to normal.. surely this is only heading one way? they are blowing the country to bits what is he going to do build a whole new city? unlikely .. just doesn't make sense.

Edited 2 March 2022 by whoareyaaa

[Leicesterpool]

I tell you what would be good for the FA to organise. When the war is over, arrange a friendly at Wembley England v Ukraine, with all the ticket money going towards the aid of Ukraine's families who have been affected by the war. 

Edited 2 March 2022 by Leicesterpool

[st albans fox]

13 minutes ago, surrifox said:

A friend who is employed by a “Russian” bank in London ( not sure if it’s on the hit list) has been advised that the business has been transferred to a Cyprus owned operation which will preserve their employment rights and no change is envisaged to employment terms and conditions or their  working arrangements. In other words business as normal .

Russia has bought and paid for Cyprus ( the EU part) and had this already to roll out for years . Cyprus’newly acquired “banking sector” is just a front for looted state assets and money laundering .It makes a mockery of sanctions if the UK and EU don’t act on this and allow these operations to hide behind sham corporations which the high minded European Commission has chosen to ignore but criticised the UK for ( quite rightly)

if it’s not Cyprus it will be somewhere else - it makes things a lot more difficult for Russian banks. You can’t turn them off in a global industry where there are huge areas of it are not imposing sanctions 

[surrifox]

26 minutes ago, MPH said:

   
 

depends which accounts you need..

 

 from what I can tell there were factions outside of the cabinet and NOT  Supported byany of our PMs who had entered into negotiations with the Nazis  for a ceasefire but even then not wholly on their terms..

You mean like HRH Edward viii ?

[goody2028]

15 minutes ago, whoareyaaa said:

If he does get control of Ukraine then starts moving into another country it is most defiantly a replay of what Hitler done, I don't see how he gets control and is allowed to return to normal.. surely this is only heading one way? they are blowing the country to bits what is he going to do build a whole new city? unlikely .. just doesn't make sense.

Can’t see him going for another country after Ukraine. As mad as he is… surely this is for what he thinks is re taking history and “protecting Russia”  and not domination. But who knows it could turn to that I suppose and if it does then everyone will be forced to get involved anyway as they’ll more than likely be a NATO member somewhere down the line. Like you say no matter what happens surely we don’t just carry on like nothings happened

[Foxdiamond]

36 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

We were on the verge of signing terms with Hitler to essentially concede to his demands.

Chuchill became PM, the Americans joined the war and the rest, as they say, is history.

We were losing the war. Particularly in the channel. Nazi u-boats we’re literally starving Britain of food and supplies. That was Hitler’s plan actually. To starve us into submission. You are rights about the skies. We were holding our own due mainly to the fantastic spitfire. But we were losing the war overall, hence becoming very very close to conceding.

We were not conceding even after The Battle Of France . We stayed in the fight after winning The Battle of Britain. No way could Nazis have invaded after this. The Battle of The Atlantic was a close run thing but won in 1943. The Americans of course helped with supplies and arms but did not join war till December 1941 after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. With the help of the Commonwealth we were not going to fold at any stage once we decided to fight on after France fell. 

[surrifox]

I could definitely see him having a nibble at Moldova . Former Soviet republic closely historically linked to Rumania with a part of the country ( Transnistria) not recognised as belonging to anyone ?!

gained independence from Soviet Union in the early 90s . I’m surprised that Putin hasn’t already swallowed it ; it’s lowest of the low hanging fruit 

[String fellow]

Having seen plenty of blue and yellow flags on TV got me thinking about what other things have used that colour combination. The only ones that sprang to mind were a real mixed bag:- Lufthansa, WD40, the EU flag, the Swedish flag, Everton's old away strip and Meccano in the 70s. I'd like to see the word Google temporarily changed to just those two colours to show support for Ukraine.    

[surrifox]

3 minutes ago, String fellow said:

Having seen plenty of blue and yellow flags on TV got me thinking about what other things have used that colour combination. The only ones that sprang to mind were a real mixed bag:- Lufthansa, WD40, the EU flag, the Swedish flag, Everton's old away strip and Meccano in the 70s. I'd like to see the word Google temporarily changed to just those two colours to show support for Ukraine.    

IKEA ?

[ClaphamFox]

6 minutes ago, goody2028 said:

Can’t see him going for another country after Ukraine. As mad as he is… surely this is for what he thinks is re taking history and “protecting Russia”  and not domination. But who knows it could turn to that I suppose and if it does then everyone will be forced to get involved anyway as they’ll more than likely be a NATO member somewhere down the line. Like you say no matter what happens surely we don’t just carry on like nothings happened

I think he may have originally harboured ideas of reclaiming other former USSR countries, but he's probably rethinking that now. I honestly don't think he was prepared for the fierce resistance Russia has faced in Ukraine, nor for the immediate imposition of harsh sanctions from other countries. His dream of re-establishing the Soviet Union has surely been exposed for the ridiculous fantasy that it always was. His main concern now (or if not his, then at least that of of those around him) will probably be how Russia can extricate itself from this ugly situation without being completely humiliated. There isn't an obvious answer to this yet, which is why the situation remains so dangerous.

[Foxdiamond]

59 minutes ago, LiberalFox said:

I wonder if he took it as her being okay with sending British troops into Ukraine considering Vlad's idea of "volunteers" are Russian army units with the markings scrubbed off. 

This is why Truss was stupid to even give a faint impression 

[MPH]

1 hour ago, st albans fox said:

Has anyone mentioned this from lavrov ?

 

Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier on Wednesday that Moscow remains committed to the "demilitarisation" of Ukraine and added there should be a list of specified weapons that can never be deployed on Ukrainian territory.

But he said that Vladimir Putin's regime recognised the Ukrainian people's right to chose their own leader and that Russia accepts Volodymyr Zelensky as the legitimate president.

 

as a basis for negotiations, that surely has legs …….

 

im not sure trusting anything coming out of the Russian government is the best course of action. Especially when the Ukrainian government Is claiming they thwarted assasination attempts on Zelensky yesterday by ‘death squads’