Russian invasion of Ukraine

[invergowrie arab]

10 minutes ago, milhouse said:

In all seriousness though, how do you go about getting Putin and accomplices in an international court for war crimes?

They've managed to do it for Nazis, in the 90s as well for Milosevic etc...

You need to get the successor govt to sign up to the ICC like what happened in Serbia. 

The Nazis is a bit of a red herring as the initial Nuremberg trials were victor's justice (but deserved) and trials like Eichmann didn't meet any test of international criminal law (but also deserved so HGIAF)

[Father Ted]

Polish, Swedish and Czech FA giving back a little faith in humanity tonight regards Ukraine Crisis.

Really heartened by the Polish  response.

Edited February 27, 2022 by Father Ted

[D Angelo Barksdale]

It's happening.

@Detournement

[Guest Jedi]

Sounds like a much better range of sanctions from the EU tonight at least....while Johnson probably stood around saying 'I,I,I,I,I,I er have um I,I,I,I,I closed down a couple of small banks'.

Kicking them out of the Swift system should have more of an impact on their banks moving money around internationally, and being able to trade. They may well have a £650 billion slush fund ready to go, but their financial system should be coming under more pressure now.

UEFA/FIFA et al...ball is in your court now.

Good to see a fair number of countries banning any Russian flights in their airspace as well, and preventing them from landing...should be more though.

Also positive that France, Germany and Holland are continuing to send weapons to the Ukrainians.

There will need to be a massive fund set up for aid to the many thousands fleeing the country as well....good on Moldova and Poland so far.

[Florentine_Pogen]

Russia has become a “global economic and financial pariah”, a senior US administration official told the Guardian’s diplomatic editor Julian Borger.

Speaking after western allies announced new financial measures against Russia, including the removal of some Russian banks from the Swift global payments network, the official said the measures were designed to target the Kremlin and individuals tied to the Russian government.

“We’ll go after their yachts, their luxury apartments their money and their ability to send their kids to fancy colleges in the west. We will also engage other governments, so as to detect and disrupt the movement of ill-gotten gains, and deny these individuals their ability to hide their assets in jurisdictions across the world,” the official said.

They said that all 10 of Russia’s largest financial institutions had now been subjected to sanctions – “holding nearly 80% of the Russian banking sector’s total assets”.

As a result, the official said: “Russia’s government borrowing costs have more than doubled to almost 17%. The S&P credit rating agency has downgraded Russia to junk status. Within 24 hours of our actions the demand for cash in Russia spiked 58 fold, according to reports, and the Russian government scrambled to deplete its own resources to try and shore up its banks and its currency. In short, Russia has become a global economic and financial pariah.”

Russia has been reported to have $630bn in financial reserves stored abroad, in gold and cash, but the new sanctions would render that fund useless, the official said.

“You heard about fortress Russia, the war chest of $630bn of foreign reserves,” they said.

“It’s impressive, but it’s only impressive if Russia can use those reserves. And that means Russia has to be able to sell those reserves and buy rubles to support its currency. And so what we’re committing to do here is to disarm the central bank. And the way we can do that, for example, is by banning US, EU UK, persons from selling rubles to the Central Bank of Russia. That means very simply, the Russian Central Bank can’t support the ruble, full stop, and that means our sanctions will have much greater force.”

The US official said the list of Russia banks to be removed from Swift will ultimately be decided by the EU, but said the US would “work very closely” with European countries “to finalize that list”.

[Guest Jedi]

Sounds good, if that $650 billion fund can be sunk, now we are talking. 

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Johnson's latest round of sanctions are expected to hit Putin hard with the following apparently on the table.

- Rasputin by Boney M to be removed from Spotify with immediate effect.

- Those mad videos of guys hanging off the roof of high buildings to be demonitized on YouTube

 

[SweeperDee]

Makes sense the slush fund is essentially useless if they can’t trade their reserves for more rubles.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

Johnson's latest round of sanctions are expected to hit Putin hard with the following apparently on the table.
- Rasputin by Boney M to be removed from Spotify with immediate effect.
- Those mad videos of guys hanging off the roof of high buildings to be demonitized on YouTube
 

Here is the "Russian Bear" after BoJo's brutal, unprecedented sanctions.

[G_&_T]

 

This video from the 1980s makes interesting viewing. I have shared it with a few of my friends who have suggested us and the Americans join in the conflict. 

Crikey, things were different back then. 

[Guest Jedi]

Just need a serious media expose of where all that Tory oligarch money is coming from now...

Meanwhile Zelinsky is some boi....shows what a proper leader is like.

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

1 minute ago, Jedi said:

Just need a serious media expose of where all that Tory oligarch money is coming from now...

Meanwhile Zelinsky is some boi....shows what a proper leader is like.

The Tories spent the initial tranche, mission accomplished, that's why the UK is in the state it's in now.

[Florentine_Pogen]

Vasilkov oil terminal , 10km south of Kyiv, has been targetted and is ablaze. Ecological tragedy incoming perhaps...............................

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the the Ministry of Internal Affairs , said on Telegram.

"The missile attack was carried out on the Vasilkovskaya oil depot of the KLO company. Rescuers have already left for the scene of the tragedy. Most likely, there were no casualties. It will burn for a long time. The environmental damage will be colossal.”

Unconfirmed reports are filtering in that a gas pipeline is on fire in Kharkiv after a Russian attack.

Edited February 27, 2022 by Florentine_Pogen

[CaspianChris]

59 minutes ago, TheGoon said:

Russia would’ve wanted Kyiv wrapped up at least by yesterday, so full credit to the army and civillians keeping the c***s out. Looks like a long night ahead though.

God have mercy on the Ukrainians in those  major cities if the Russians end up unleashing Thermobaric weapons on them.

An absolutely horrendous prospect.

[G_&_T]

Anybody else feel like this is seeing a car accident - you don't want to look; you know you shouldn't look; but it's so compelling that you have to look? I feel very guilty, as it's almost like a TV drama. 

A lot of folk don't seem to understand how nasty war is. Anyone old enough remember Iraq/Kuwait when the Iraqi army fled and the Allies bombed them when trapped in their vehicles? 

 

[CaspianChris]

So never a protection mission as that lying b*****d Putin was saying at the start but it's a mission of the extermination of Ukraine. 

The quicker evil dictator Putin expires from this life the better.

Edited February 27, 2022 by CaspianChris

[Florentine_Pogen]

4 minutes ago, G_&_T said:

Anybody else feel like this is seeing a car accident - you don't want to look; you know you shouldn't look; but it's so compelling that you have to look? I feel very guilty, as it's almost like a TV drama. 

A lot of folk don't seem to understand how nasty war is. Anyone old enough remember Iraq/Kuwait when the Iraqi army fled and the Allies bombed them when trapped in their vehicles? 

 

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/dont-photograph-people-like-mom-will-think-war-see-tv-gulf-war-1991/

[Florentine_Pogen]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/26/putin-british-rich-mans-law-avoid-scrutiny-crippling-cost

"Truth is meant to be the first casualty of war, but in Britain the ability to tell the truth about Russia was gunned down before Putin ordered his armies to advance.You need to write about Russian power to understand fully the anger and shame plutocratic censorship brings. Anger because Britain is our country, and claims to be a free country, and yet foreign oligarchs can manipulate the truth here as surely as Putin can in Russia. Shame because we cannot perform the first duty of journalists and speak in plain English without our newspapers accepting the risk of staggering legal costs."

[Left Back]

29 minutes ago, G_&_T said:

Anybody else feel like this is seeing a car accident - you don't want to look; you know you shouldn't look; but it's so compelling that you have to look? I feel very guilty, as it's almost like a TV drama. 

A lot of folk don't seem to understand how nasty war is. Anyone old enough remember Iraq/Kuwait when the Iraqi army fled and the Allies bombed them when trapped in their vehicles? 

 

Could you tell us your experiences of being in a combat zone mate?  Give us your expertise about how nasty war is.

 

[welshbairn]

37 minutes ago, CaspianChris said:

So never a protection mission as that lying b*****d Putin was saying at the start but it's a mission of the extermination of Ukraine. 

The quicker evil dictator Putin expires from this life the better.

Interesting read about the Putin mindset.

Quote

A new world is being born before our eyes. Russia's military operation in Ukraine has ushered in a new era - and in three dimensions at once. And of course, in the fourth, internal Russian. Here begins a new period both in ideology and in the very model of our socio-economic system - but this is worth talking about separately a little later.
Russia is restoring its unity - the tragedy of 1991, this terrible catastrophe in our history, its unnatural dislocation, has been overcome. Yes, at a great cost, yes, through the tragic events of a virtual civil war, because now brothers, separated by belonging to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, are still shooting at each other, but there will be no more Ukraine as anti-Russia. Russia is restoring its historical fullness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together - in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians. If we had abandoned this, if we had allowed the temporary division to take hold for centuries, then we would not only betray the memory of our ancestors, but would also be cursed by our descendants for allowing the disintegration of the Russian land.
Vladimir Putin has assumed, without a drop of exaggeration, a historic responsibility by deciding not to leave the solution of the Ukrainian question to future generations. After all, the need to solve it would always remain the main problem for Russia - for two key reasons. And the issue of national security, that is, the creation of anti-Russia from Ukraine and an outpost for the West to put pressure on us, is only the second most important among them.

The first would always be the complex of a divided people, the complex of national humiliation - when the Russian house first lost part of its foundation (Kiev), and then was forced to come to terms with the existence of two states, not one, but two peoples. That is, either to abandon their history, agreeing with the insane versions that "only Ukraine is the real Russia," or to gnash one's teeth helplessly, remembering the times when "we lost Ukraine." Returning Ukraine, that is, turning it back to Russia, would be more and more difficult with every decade - recoding, de-Russification of Russians and inciting Ukrainian Little Russians against Russians would gain momentum.
Now this problem is gone - Ukraine has returned to Russia. This does not mean that its statehood will be liquidated, but it will be reorganized, re-established and returned to its natural state of part of the Russian world. In what borders, in what form will the alliance with Russia be fixed (through the CSTO and the Eurasian Union or the Union State of Russia and Belarus )? This will be decided after the end is put in the history of Ukraine as anti-Russia. In any case, the period of the split of the Russian people is coming to an end.
And here begins the second dimension of the coming new era - it concerns Russia's relations with the West. Not even Russia, but the Russian world, that is, three states, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, acting in geopolitical terms as a single whole. These relations have entered a new stage - the West sees the return of Russia to its historical borders in Europe . And he is loudly indignant at this, although in the depths of his soul he must admit to himself that it could not be otherwise.
Did someone in the old European capitals, in Paris and Berlin , seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kiev ? That the Russians will forever be a divided people? And at the same time when Europe is uniting, when the German and French elites are trying to seize control of European integration from the Anglo-Saxons and assemble a united Europe? Forgetting that the unification of Europe became possible only thanks to the unification of Germany, which happened according to the good Russian (albeit not very smart) will. To swipe after that also on Russian lands is not even the height of ingratitude, but of geopolitical stupidity. The West as a whole, and even more so Europe in particular, did not have the strength to keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence, and even more so to take Ukraine for itself. In order not to understand this, one had to be just geopolitical fools.

More precisely, there was only one option: to bet on the further collapse of Russia, that is, the Russian Federation. But the fact that it did not work should have been clear twenty years ago. And already fifteen years ago, after Putin's Munich speech, even the deaf could hear - Russia is returning.

Now the West is trying to punish Russia for the fact that it returned, for not justifying its plans to profit at its expense, for not allowing the expansion of the western space to the east. Seeking to punish us, the West thinks that relations with it are of vital importance to us. But this has not been the case for a long time - the world has changed, and this is well understood not only by Europeans, but also by the Anglo-Saxons who rule the West. No amount of Western pressure on Russia will lead to anything. There will be losses from the sublimation of confrontation on both sides, but Russia is ready for them morally and geopolitically. But for the West itself, an increase in the degree of confrontation incurs huge costs - and the main ones are not at all economic.
Europe, as part of the West, wanted autonomy - the German project of European integration does not make strategic sense while maintaining the Anglo-Saxon ideological, military and geopolitical control over the Old World. Yes, and it cannot be successful, because the Anglo-Saxons need a controlled Europe. But Europe needs autonomy for another reason as well — in case the States go into self-isolation (as a result of growing internal conflicts and contradictions) or focus on the Pacific region, where the geopolitical center of gravity is moving.

But the confrontation with Russia, into which the Anglo-Saxons are dragging Europe, deprives the Europeans of even the chance of independence - not to mention the fact that in the same way Europe is trying to impose a break with China . If now the Atlanticists are happy that the "Russian threat" will unite the Western bloc, then in Berlin and Paris they cannot fail to understand that, having lost hope for autonomy, the European project will simply collapse in the medium term. That is why independent-minded Europeans are now completely uninterested in building a new iron curtain on their eastern borders - realizing that it will turn into a corral for Europe. Whose century (more precisely, half a millennium) of global leadership is over in any case - but various options for its future are still possible.
Because the construction of a new world order - and this is the third dimension of current events - is accelerating, and its contours are more and more clearly visible through the spreading cover of Anglo-Saxon globalization. A multipolar world has finally become a reality - the operation in Ukraine is not capable of rallying anyone but the West against Russia. Because the rest of the world sees and understands perfectly well - this is a conflict between Russia and the West, this is a response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlanticists, this is Russia's return of its historical space and its place in the world.

China and India , Latin America and Africa , the Islamic world and Southeast Asia - no one believes that the West leads the world order, much less sets the rules of the game. Russia has not only challenged the West, it has shown that the era of Western global domination can be considered completely and finally over. The new world will be built by all civilizations and centers of power, naturally, together with the West (united or not) - but not on its terms and not according to its rules.