Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Billy Jean King]

This is a great photo from BBC News. 
And just in case things get dramatically worse and the Forth Valley WI end up smashup up ceiling tiles outside the Thistle Centre to support AR BRAIV LADZ, this is entirely the wrong technique for launching your petrol bomb. 
You must keep the neck of the bottle pointed to the sky when throwing (straight arm technique) or you will pour the contents down your back and set fire to your arse, like this brave chap is doing.
Thank you.

What's Danny Dyer doing there ?

[Sergeant Wilson]

3 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

7 minutes ago, williemillersmoustache said:

This is a great photo from BBC News. 
And just in case things get dramatically worse and the Forth Valley WI end up smashup up ceiling tiles outside the Thistle Centre to support AR BRAIV LADZ, this is entirely the wrong technique for launching your petrol bomb. 
You must keep the neck of the bottle pointed to the sky when throwing (straight arm technique) or you will pour the contents down your back and set fire to your arse, like this brave chap is doing.
Thank you.

What's Danny Dyer doing there ?

Setting his head on fire by the look of things.

Not before time!

[Lofarl]

Was wondering what sort of anti nuclear missile technology we possess.  Nice big rockets to shoot down incoming icbms.

 

None.

[DiegoDiego]

Here and in many similar countries, I really don’t see how society is in better shape than in the few decades before it. 

I know society has a great many aspects to it, but I can tell from that post that you're not homosexual.

[Bairnardo]

Was wondering what sort of anti nuclear missile technology we possess.  Nice big rockets to shoot down incoming icbms.
 
None.

We rely on the Americans on that score do we not?

Anyway, they only need to get lucky with a few out of several thousand.

[Caledonian1]

22 minutes ago, williemillersmoustache said:

This is a great photo from BBC News. 

And just in case things get dramatically worse and the Forth Valley WI end up smashing up ceiling tiles outside the Thistle Centre to support AR BRAIV LADZ, this is entirely the wrong technique for launching your petrol bomb. 

You must keep the neck of the bottle pointed to the sky when throwing (straight arm technique) or you will pour the contents down your back and set fire to your arse, like this brave chap is doing.

Thank you.

Fake news.....that photo has been doing ot the rounds on social media since 2008.  It is a Rangers fan rioting in Manchester (although many have since claimed it was a Chelsea fan)  You can make out the Piccadily Radio building in the background.

[Bairnardo]

Fake news.....that photo has been doing ot the rounds on social media since 2008.  It is a Rangers fan rioting in Manchester (although many have since claimed it was a Chelsea fan)  You can make out the Piccadily Radio building in the background.

Looks like a bottle of Deluxe Lidl salad dressing, so it can't be a Rangers fan.

[vikingTON]

11 hours ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

Putin is using NATO as an excuse.

Ultimately this about a Greater Russia taking back territory lost when the Soviet Union disintegrated.

It's simplistic pish to think that if there were no NATO expansion then this wouldn't have happened.

There's certainly some simplistic pish in the above post, I agree. 

[101]

12 hours ago, Dunning1874 said:

Good to see frivolous accusations of apologism for Putin aren't getting out of hand.

British workers striking in any context for any reason = fifth columnists doing Putin's bidding who might as well be dropping bombs on Ukraine themselves.

That there from the Telegraph, owned by a group of people with rather interesting links to those overtly friendly with Putin and some who were accused of being a Russian puppet influencing UK politics.

Naturally it's workers who are doing the bidding of Putin.

[Jambomo]

57 minutes ago, Donathan said:

So basically NATO is stuck between a rock and a hard place now?

 

Enforcing a NFZ would be tantamount to declaring war on Russia, likely leading to nuclear weapons being fired at western targets and hundreds of millions of us would die.

 

Not enforcing a NFZ would be tantamount to giving Putin a free pass to either annexe Ukraine or to overthrow their government and install a pro-Russian puppet, and the he just moves on to the next target (Moldova?) and before you know it we have a full blown Soviet Union again.

 

The current fudge from western powers is to arm Ukraine to better defend itself whilst choking the Russian economy with the biggest package of economic sanctions in living memory in the hope that it will ramp up internal pressure on Putin to either pull back, or resign. There’s a danger in there that if Putin thinks he’s losing this war then he might say f**k it and nuke everyone anyway.

 

I really fail to see what the way out is here. 

I don’t think the sanctions are just to put pressure on internally. Once the money essentially runs out, the ability to either continue this war or move on to other countries is reduced to probably none. Can’t buy guns/ammo/soldiers without money.
 

I was speaking to someone who works in finance and he was saying that they had been able to see Putin build up a reserve of c 600m, however he said that the one sanction he doesn’t seem to have foreseen was the freezing of the Russian Central Bank as about 75% of that fund was gone and the longer this goes on, they will be broke.

[vikingTON]

9 hours ago, Detective Jimmy McNulty said:

This is the thing, once the decision was made to invade, the optimal outcome for minimising loss of life was a swift Russian victory/Ukrainian capitulation. Sounds terrible, but it's the reality of the situation.

Of course the resistance is brave and understandable, but if you're at the stage of emptying prisons, getting grannies to make molotov cocktails and inviting every wingnut on the planet to join your foreign legion, then maybe it's time to sit down and have a think about the best way to get out of this.

And some of the Ukrainian politicians want to have this both ways. On the one hand, they say that crushing Russian air superiority means that a no-fly zone (imposed by NATO at the cost of potential World War 3) is essential; but on the other hand, Ukrainian resistance will never be defeated and they're like Britain in 1940. 

Those are two mutually exclusive positions. If the military situation is serious enough then it's time for both sides to make serious compromises at the negotiating table, shut this very serious violence down and for Western states to provide economic assistance and other incentives to do so (the military aid will keep flowing for some time to come). 

[vikingTON]

1 hour ago, Donathan said:

Enforcing a NFZ would be tantamount to declaring war on Russia, likely leading to nuclear weapons being fired at western targets and hundreds of millions of us would die.

Not enforcing a NFZ would be tantamount to giving Putin a free pass to either annexe Ukraine or to overthrow their government and install a pro-Russian puppet, and the he just moves on to the next target (Moldova?) and before you know it we have a full blown Soviet Union again.

The current fudge from western powers is to arm Ukraine to better defend itself whilst choking the Russian economy with the biggest package of economic sanctions in living memory in the hope that it will ramp up internal pressure on Putin to either pull back, or resign. There’s a danger in there that if Putin thinks he’s losing this war then he might say f**k it and nuke everyone anyway.

Arming Ukraine does not give Russia a free pass to do anything like conquer the country and move on to Moldova. The struggles that the Russian military has already faced points to the costs to their side of ongoing violence and the lack of effective preparation. This is not a blitzkrieg offensive that will let them waltz straight through into Chisinau - and quite how the supply lines would be protected is anyone's guess. So far, this has been a good case study for the weakness of aggressive military action as a solution. 

Having played a major role in setting up the crisis, the response of the West has IMO actually been surprisingly effective and largely rational. A strong and collective set of sanctions are in place that is hurting Russia's economy - and there remains the final economic sanction of switching off energy exports as well should the conflict escalate further. 

The West's objective should be to force both sides to the negotiating table by showing them the excessively high costs of further warfare. But that requires Western sticks as well as carrots given to Ukraine's government too, if a ceasefire is to be durable. 

[DiegoDiego]

A friend of mine took this photo in Kharkiv five months ago, a mock up reminding people that Russia could fire rockets at their city.

[itzdrk]

Russian troop deaths seem to be really slowing up now on the Ukranian Data.  

Was about 1000 a day early on and about 500 in 3 days now.  

Still unsure how reliable this data is mind you. 

[renton]

1 hour ago, Lofarl said:

Was wondering what sort of anti nuclear missile technology we possess.  Nice big rockets to shoot down incoming icbms.

 

None.

Well, the US has some anti ballistic missile tech but it's not known to be reliable.

In point of fact, development of anti-ballistic missile tech was felt to be destabilising during the cold War since it raised the possibility one side might perfect a shield and consider that it was capable of winning a Nuclear exchange instead of mutually assured destruction. Thus that tech was more or less banned beyond some very early stage defences until Bush 43 started pushing the missile shield again.

The type 45 destroyer can certainly detect incoming ballistic missiles, and there is an upgrade to the missile booster to allow it to get up there, but wouldn't bet on it being able to reliably get the kind of city killer missiles we'd be worried about, rather than the long range ship killer irbms.

[Rugster]

1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

1 hour ago, williemillersmoustache said:

This is a great photo from BBC News. 
And just in case things get dramatically worse and the Forth Valley WI end up smashup up ceiling tiles outside the Thistle Centre to support AR BRAIV LADZ, this is entirely the wrong technique for launching your petrol bomb. 
You must keep the neck of the bottle pointed to the sky when throwing (straight arm technique) or you will pour the contents down your back and set fire to your arse, like this brave chap is doing.
Thank you.

What's Danny Dyer doing there ?

He still can’t believe it’s been twenty years since them slags flew into the twin towers. 

[Gaz]

1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

1 hour ago, williemillersmoustache said:

This is a great photo from BBC News. 
And just in case things get dramatically worse and the Forth Valley WI end up smashup up ceiling tiles outside the Thistle Centre to support AR BRAIV LADZ, this is entirely the wrong technique for launching your petrol bomb. 
You must keep the neck of the bottle pointed to the sky when throwing (straight arm technique) or you will pour the contents down your back and set fire to your arse, like this brave chap is doing.
Thank you.

What's Danny Dyer doing there ?

You slaaaaaaggg!!!

[djchapsticks]

1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

1 hour ago, williemillersmoustache said:

This is a great photo from BBC News. 
And just in case things get dramatically worse and the Forth Valley WI end up smashup up ceiling tiles outside the Thistle Centre to support AR BRAIV LADZ, this is entirely the wrong technique for launching your petrol bomb. 
You must keep the neck of the bottle pointed to the sky when throwing (straight arm technique) or you will pour the contents down your back and set fire to your arse, like this brave chap is doing.
Thank you.

What's Danny Dyer doing there ?

Being fackin' proppa nawty by looks of fings.

[101]

17 minutes ago, itzdrk said:

Russian troop deaths seem to be really slowing up now on the Ukranian Data.  

Was about 1000 a day early on and about 500 in 3 days now.  

Still unsure how reliable this data is mind you. 

They haven't bothered taking out any more fuel tanks or drones in 2 days. Very lazy indeed.

[ICTChris]