The Russian Invasion of Ukraine (Part 2)

Away End - General Chat
1809

Frontline:

1 Like
1810

I’ll be away for a week or so… I’ll try to update but it won’t be regular.

3 Likes
1811

Take it easy @MViper. Thanks for all the posts. :+1::nerd_face:

1812

Anytime.

It’s just I’ll have my nieces (9 and 6) on vacation and we’ll probably go to our seaside place for a week or so. They need to be entertained so I’ll be destroyed at the end of the day. :tired_face:

I’ll try to post updates as often as my free time will allow it. :saluting_face: :sweat_smile:

1 Like
1813

watch at own risk, maybe NSFW

I thought land mines were banned…

1 Like
1814

Non combat

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1550552257103527939?s=20&t=qtsKZ0UAU4RyH9rg6wEPaA

1 Like
1815

Agreement to ship grain from Ukraine signed- Check

Odessa agreed as one of three ports to do so - check

Russians being cunts and then bombing the port - fucking check.

Honestly fuck everything to do with Russian. Bastards are just a dirty wankstain on history.

1816

Pathetic from the EU

1 Like
1817

shat it!

What Russia wants Russia gets then…

1818
2 Likes
1819
1 Like
1820

Frontline:

1 Like
1821

I’d like to engage with discussion on this thread but it just seems to be hundreds of daily twitter links. Could these be moved to another thread? Or we can do our own twitter browsing. Allow some discussion here?

1 Like
1822

I’m waiting and hoping for discussions. But since nothing is happening I try to post twitter updates.

I can happily take a pause from ongoing twitter postings and let interesting discussions take place.

2 Likes
1823

I’m not sure I see the difficulty, if I’m being honest. But that’s also another debate on posting/reading styles…

Why not start the discussion then see how it flows?

2 Likes
1824

Ok. I think almost all of the media coverage lacks nuance and context. Yes, Russia are the invaders and aggressors. But it seems politicians and media are scared to speak of any context that led up to the invasion, including Western involvement, for fear of being perceived as ‘Putin sympathisers’. Is like an inversion of the Iraq war where western governments and media invented the context.

Q1- why does NATO even exist, 30 years after the fall of the Soviet Union?

1825

You quite clearly missed the start of this thread’s predecessor, particularly when there was a lot of talk around this, particularly how Russia has legitimate security interests, and “the West” (or pick a favourite bogeyman here) was the main reason poor little Russia had to invade Ukraine. Ignoring of course everything that Putin has said, especially with regards to how Ukraine doesn’t have the right to exist.

Ultimately, if you want to point fingers/look at context, it’s about the failure of all parties to this whole sad sordid affair to ensure a democratic, non-corrupt government in Russia, plain and simple.

It’s a military alliance. What’s the counterfactual story here, it disbands after the Soviet Union collapses, and then what? In all probability, it makes it more likely for an EU military to have been established, or for informal agreements to take its place and then for NATO itself to be reconstituted anyway if/when this threat arose. @Magnus would probably have the better answer for this however.

1 Like
1826

I did.

I didn’t say anything like that and don’t engage with straw man arguments

Because we’re doing so well with that ourselves

There was no need for the military alliance set up to face Soviet threat, when the Soviet Union doesn’t exist.

Ironically Putin’s actions have now strengthened the case for NATO

1827

NATO was meant to be a deterrent. In the sense that a NATO member has not been attacked by a non-NATO member, it’s worked. Would Russia have attacked Ukraine were they to have been in NATO? Doubt it. It’s why Finland and Sweden are now joining what is, essentially, a defensive alliance.

Where NATO will struggle with expansion is with the inclusion of members who are not really aligned in values or politics (ie, Turkey). NATO can only function if its members share a common global view with regard to geopolitical interests and threats.

The bigger issue is not NATO but the UN Security Council. That is a far bigger obstacle to securing international order and security than NATO. In many ways, NATO is doing the hard-lifting here, stepping into the void left by a dysfunctional and ineffective UNSC.

6 Likes
1828

I didn’t say you did, I was talking about the earlier discussion.

I didn’t say otherwise, I merely stated where the failure was.

Military alliances don’t evaporate once the main “enemy” ceases to exist.