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The Kiss Your Arse Goodbye Thread

I don't think I know any firefighters. Probably quite an unfortunate position for me to find myself in, all things considered.
 
The Guardian:

Ukrainian journalist Svitlana Morenets has called today’s attacks “a new phase in the war” in the Spectator’s lunchtime newsletter. She writes:

At any point until now, Putin could have switched to a blitz strategy of destroying cities. But at the beginning of the conflict, he had envisaged an easy conquest and a narrative of somehow “uniting’”the Russian world.
Ukrainians have made efforts to show confidence this morning – there are videos of people singing Ukrainian national songs in Kyiv’s metro. For some time, talk in Kyiv has turned to what to do should the war graduate to missile attacks, even nuclear deployment. With Putin so visibly losing to a far-smaller neighbour, he is a wounded beast. We will see what that beast is capable of.
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zenie said:
I came to see if there was a thread for this kind of thing.

I’ve been putting a go bag together since March. Battery pack, sewing kit, first aid stuff, soap. In my car there’s hats, gloves, spare thermals, water.

My partner thinks I’m mad, I mean he’s not wrong 😀

How is your wind up radio and torch? I want one but keep dithering over which to buy.
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Other than taking some space up in your car or under the bed, I don't see a downside to planning. It might come in handy for very mundane things like a storm, power outtage, or car breakdown if we manage to avoid nuclear war.
 
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Is it just me or is this whole thing continuing to escalate towards Armaggedon? Attacks on civilians, Putin backed into a corner, after already stating he’d fight if he ever was. And one card left to play. His only move. Because he’s losing on the battlefield and they’ve just demanded a step change in Western military aid which will further the UA’s advantage. Russia will likely lose conventionally and they’ll also try to reclaim Crimea. I feel like Arthur Dent letting the barman keep the change from a fiver.
 
Maybe just a little closer to a no-fly zone being implemented in South Western Ukraine?, nobody really wants that as it would surely escalate from that point
How long do you let Putin control the direction of events?
Seems like NATO is prepared to up the supply of Arms in both quantity and quality though Germany will try hold things back
 
Ming said:
Is it just me or is this whole thing continuing to escalate towards Armaggedon? Attacks on civilians, Putin backed into a corner, after already stating he’d fight if he ever was. And one card left to play. His only move. Because he’s losing on the battlefield and they’ve just demanded a step change in Western military aid which will further the UA’s advantage. Russia will likely lose conventionally and they’ll also try to reclaim Crimea. I feel like Arthur Dent letting the barman keep the change from a fiver.
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Whereas I feel that allowing Putin's nuclear threats to dictate strategy would just be giving him a lever he knows he can use.
 

Putin warns risk of nuclear war ‘on the rise’​

President Vladimir Putin warned that the threat of nuclear war is “on the rise” while speaking during a televised annual session of his human rights council.

Putin insisted Russia had not “gone mad” and that it saw its own nuclear arsenal as a purely defensive deterrent. He said:

Russia considers nuclear weapons a response to an attack.
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Russia has “the most advanced weapons, but we do not want to wave it around”, he said.

He claimed Russia “could be the only guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity”, adding:

It’s up to the new leaders of Ukraine.
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The US has made clear to Ukraine its “concerns” about any escalation of the war with Russia, the White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said.

Kirby’s comments to reporters today came after Kyiv appeared to launch a pre-emptive strike on bombers on two Russian airbases far from the frontlines earlier this week.

Kirby said the principle behind the war in Ukraine was one of sovereignty, and “unlike the Russians, we respect Ukrainian sovereignty”.

The US has had conversations with Ukraine about the accountability of weapons systems “but in the end these are Ukrainian decisions that they have to make”, he said.

He added:

When we give them a weapons system, it belongs to them. Where they use it, how they use it, how much ammunition they use to use that system, those are Ukrainian decisions, and we respect that.
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During a press conference with the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, and their Australian counterparts in Washington, the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US had not “encouraged nor enabled” Ukraine to strike inside Russia.

Austin, however, said the US was not stopping Ukraine from developing its own long-range strike capability.
 
RD2003 said:

Putin warns risk of nuclear war ‘on the rise’​

President Vladimir Putin warned that the threat of nuclear war is “on the rise” while speaking during a televised annual session of his human rights council.

Putin insisted Russia had not “gone mad” and that it saw its own nuclear arsenal as a purely defensive deterrent. He said:


Russia has “the most advanced weapons, but we do not want to wave it around”, he said.

He claimed Russia “could be the only guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity”, adding:
Click to expand...
What 'new' leaders?
 
His nuclear sabre rattling has become a bit ‘boy who cried wolf’. Shit or get off the pot Vlad.
 
It could still easily come to it, however, although probably not until next spring or thereabouts, if the US/UK defence departments speculations on an attempted 'freeze' of the conflict prove accurate, and depending on Ukrainian advances and the state of the Russian troops. Although nobody can really predict anything. One nuclear device detonated changes everything forever.

And this in a conflict that could easily have been avoided if western hubris hadn't prevailed after 1989...
 
RD2003 said:
It could still easily come to it, however, although probably not until next spring or thereabouts, if the US/UK defence departments speculations on an attempted 'freeze' of the conflict prove accurate, and depending on Ukrainian advances and the state of the Russian troops. Although nobody can really predict anything. One nuclear device detonated changes everything forever.

And this in a conflict that could easily have been avoided if western hubris hadn't prevailed after 1989...
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Thing is he’s going to lose militarily (conventionally). It’ll get interesting if they can cross that that river successfully and then threaten Crimea. Which self identifies as 60% Russian. Shit gets real at that point.
 
Ming said:
Thing is he’s going to lose militarily (conventionally). It’ll get interesting if they can cross that that river successfully and then threaten Crimea. Which self identifies as 60% Russian. Shit gets real at that point.
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That 60% is probably subject to the viability of the Kursk bridge at the relevant time and also the reliability of Russian polling in the first place.
 
Raheem said:
That 60% is probably subject to the viability of the Kursk bridge at the relevant time and also the reliability of Russian polling in the first place.
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The reliability of polling has never had anything to do with it. It isn't how Russia works, and quite likely never will be.
 
Ming said:
Thing is he’s going to lose militarily (conventionally). It’ll get interesting if they can cross that that river successfully and then threaten Crimea. Which self identifies as 60% Russian. Shit gets real at that point.
Click to expand...
The point that most people seem to miss is that while Russia might have let other historically Russian-dominated territories go, Ukraine means a lot more to the Russian nationalist mind. It is, to them, the birthplace of the first Russian state. Ukraine in Russian means 'frontier', which is why nationalistic Russians regard it as the limit for those who, as they see it (see Putin's statements only today) try to humiliate Russia. It doesn't matter if the humiliation is real or counts for anything in practice-it is what it means symbolically and historically. While the Putin regime might have started off as pragmatic, it always had nationalism lurking behind it, ready to be unleashed.

The danger we face is that Russia will never accept defeat in Ukraine, no matter what happens to its troops, and quite likely no matter what happens to the Putin regime-which apparently survives comfortably at the moment. This could, in the absence of a settlement accecptable, however reluctantly, to both parties, result in the near-destruction of Ukraine as a viable state long-term (especially if the Putin regime is on the verge of falling), with all the knock-on effects across the world.

2023 beckons-hold on to your fucking hats. The naive hopes, of left and right, of 1989, are in absolute tatters.
 
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RD2003 said:
The point that most people seem to miss is that while Russia might have let other historically Russian-dominated territories go, Ukraine means a lot more to the Russian nationalist mind. It is, to them, the birthplace of the first Russian state. Ukraine in Russian means 'frontier', which is why nationalistic Russians regard it as the limit for those who, as they see it (see Putin's statements only today) try to humiliate Russia. It doesn't matter if the humiliation is real or counts for anything in practice-it is what it means symbolically and historically. While the Putin regime might have started off as pragmatic, it always had nationalism lurking behind it, ready to be unleashed.

The danger we face is that Russia will never accept defeat in Ukraine, no matter what happens to its troops, and quite likely no matter what happens to the Putin regime-which apparently survives comfortably at the moment. This could, in the absence of a settlement accecptable, however reluctantly, to both parties, result in the near-destruction of Ukraine as a viable state long-term (especially if the Putin regime is on the verge of falling), with all the knock-on effects across the world.

2023 beckons-hold on to your fucking hats. The naive hopes, of left and right, of 1989, are in absolute tatters.
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True.

I personally hate nationalism but it does exist and i guess if you were Russian it would be easy to see the end of the Cold War as a national humiliation. Not just of the country but its unifying ideology (with regards to the USSR). So i understand how Putin channeling Peter the Great would resonate with the people in Russia.

I do wonder though if Putin has drunk the cool aid. As a career KGB agent i suspect he probably has which make’s thins more dangerous and also his age. Older people can develop nihilistic tendencies (talking from personal experience lol).
 
RD2003 said:
The point that most people seem to miss is that while Russia might have let other historically Russian-dominated territories go, Ukraine means a lot more to the Russian nationalist mind. It is, to them, the birthplace of the first Russian state. Ukraine in Russian means 'frontier', which is why nationalistic Russians regard it as the limit for those who, as they see it (see Putin's statements only today) try to humiliate Russia. It doesn't matter if the humiliation is real or counts for anything in practice-it is what it means symbolically and historically. While the Putin regime might have started off as pragmatic, it always had nationalism lurking behind it, ready to be unleashed.

The danger we face is that Russia will never accept defeat in Ukraine, no matter what happens to its troops, and quite likely no matter what happens to the Putin regime-which apparently survives comfortably at the moment. This could, in the absence of a settlement accecptable, however reluctantly, to both parties, result in the near-destruction of Ukraine as a viable state long-term (especially if the Putin regime is on the verge of falling), with all the knock-on effects across the world.

2023 beckons-hold on to your fucking hats. The naive hopes, of left and right, of 1989, are in absolute tatters.
Click to expand...


You know I am sick of that whole "Ukraine motherland of the Rus" excuse to invade a sovereign country.

It's a disingenuous lie that Putin uses to land grab. I suspect the Bread Basket of Europe has plenty natural resources that Putin wants for Russia.

This invasion has everything to do with Ukraine wanting to join the EU and Russian spidey senses getting freaked by an imagined threat from the EU that suits Putin's paranoia.
 
Aladdin said:
This invasion has everything to do with Ukraine wanting to join the EU
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Screenshot 2022-12-09 at 17.21.46.jpg

List of sovereign states in Europe by GDP (PPP) per capita - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
This is Europe by GDP/PPP,
The former Soviet republics and many former Warsaw Pact countries made it into the EU. The difference between those who did and did not can be double to triple the economic activity per person. It is unlikely to have been formulated as "we need to keep them poor", but that is the intent. Ukraine had something like 1/4 of the USSRs aerospace industry. It was a space faring nation with its own launch vehicle (Dnepr rocket) till recently. They could easily have been competing with Russia in tanks and aircraft as they had much of the same tooling. Their current wages mean they could compete with China on cost and on education levels. And off course like Taiwan it could be an uncomfortable counter example of what could be for Russians or Chinese.
And an economically growing Ukraine would be a magnetic to anyone with an education and any Ukrainian connection, a major source of brain drain.
Russia has had 22 years of back itself into a geopolitical and economic corner. Ukraine in the EU would be a multilevel threat to Russia in terms of arms industry, space industry, brain drain etc.
 
Once again, John Gray provides a thoughtful take on the current situation. The delusions that bind communism and liberalism (You can register for about 3 free articles, and the just re-register.)

'Liberals babble deliriously of Russian national self-determination and rolling back the Russian empire, but they have not asked what this would mean in practice. A lengthy time of troubles, in which a radical authoritarian Muscovite regime struggled to suppress insurgent and conflicting nationalities, is far more likely than any quick or peaceful transition to democracy. This is a disquieting prospect for a nuclear-armed state, and it is hard to believe there are not behind-the-scenes discussions under way between the US, European governments and China with the aim of pressuring Putin and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky into a compromise peace.'



'Though liberals failed to recognise this fact, the Soviet collapse was the end of an era of political faith. The international system will be shaped not by universal political projects, but by the tragic choices of realpolitik in a world of contending great powers.

It would be wise to admit, as Koestler did with regard to communism, that the post-Cold War order was an illusion. But for most liberals this is a psychological impossibility. Without the mirage of a new world, they face – like Bukharin – an “absolutely black vacuity”. If liberalism has a future, it is as therapy against the fear of the dark.'
 
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Nato chief warns against conflict spiralling into Russia-Nato war​

The head of Nato has expressed worry that the fighting in Ukraine could spin out of control and become a war between Russia and Nato, according to an interview released Friday.

“If things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong,” Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said in remarks to Norwegian broadcaster NRK.

It is a terrible war in Ukraine. It is also a war that can become a full-fledged war that spreads into a major war between Nato and Russia. We are working on that every day to avoid that.
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Associated Press also reported that the Stoltenberg said in the interview that “there is no doubt that a full-fledged war is a possibility”.

Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, added that it was important to avoid a conflict “that involves more countries in Europe and becomes a full-fledged war in Europe”.

Moscow has repeatedly accused Nato allies of effectively becoming a party to the conflict by providing Ukraine with weapons, training its troops and feeding military intelligence to attack Russian forces.

In comments that reflected soaring tensions between Russia and the west, President Vladimir Putin suggested Moscow might think about using what he described as the US concept of a preemptive strike.

Speaking about a disarming strike, maybe it’s worth thinking about adopting the ideas developed by our U.S. counterparts, their ideas of ensuring their security.
Click to expand...
 
RD2003 said:
Once again, John Gray provides a thoughtful take on the current situation. The delusions that bind communism and liberalism (You can register for about 3 free articles, and the just re-register.)

'Liberals babble deliriously of Russian national self-determination and rolling back the Russian empire, but they have not asked what this would mean in practice. A lengthy time of troubles, in which a radical authoritarian Muscovite regime struggled to suppress insurgent and conflicting nationalities, is far more likely than any quick or peaceful transition to democracy. This is a disquieting prospect for a nuclear-armed state, and it is hard to believe there are not behind-the-scenes discussions under way between the US, European governments and China with the aim of pressuring Putin and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky into a compromise peace.'



'Though liberals failed to recognise this fact, the Soviet collapse was the end of an era of political faith. The international system will be shaped not by universal political projects, but by the tragic choices of realpolitik in a world of contending great powers.

It would be wise to admit, as Koestler did with regard to communism, that the post-Cold War order was an illusion. But for most liberals this is a psychological impossibility. Without the mirage of a new world, they face – like Bukharin – an “absolutely black vacuity”. If liberalism has a future, it is as therapy against the fear of the dark.'
Click to expand...

RD2003 said:

Nato chief warns against conflict spiralling into Russia-Nato war​

The head of Nato has expressed worry that the fighting in Ukraine could spin out of control and become a war between Russia and Nato, according to an interview released Friday.

“If things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong,” Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said in remarks to Norwegian broadcaster NRK.


Associated Press also reported that the Stoltenberg said in the interview that “there is no doubt that a full-fledged war is a possibility”.

Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, added that it was important to avoid a conflict “that involves more countries in Europe and becomes a full-fledged war in Europe”.

Moscow has repeatedly accused Nato allies of effectively becoming a party to the conflict by providing Ukraine with weapons, training its troops and feeding military intelligence to attack Russian forces.

In comments that reflected soaring tensions between Russia and the west, President Vladimir Putin suggested Moscow might think about using what he described as the US concept of a preemptive strike.
Click to expand...
Yeh but what do you think?
 
does this hint at Putin using nukes

look I'm bored all ready


do it or get off the pot

ya prick


*shakes fist at Putin

:mad:
 
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