UK reaction / response to the invasion

[RD2003]

For once I find myself broadly in agreement with Govt on this. It is way too early to start talking now about rebuilding Ukraine and forcing Russia to pay for it. The fighting needs to have stopped and the dust settled first.
What happens if it turns out the reason the fighting is over is because Mad Bad Vlad has fallen out of an upstairs window? The last thing we want to do is to heap all the blame and cost on the people that have replaced him, at least at first.

If Putin falls out of a window (highly unlikely), he will almost certainly have been pushed by hardline nationalists likely to be only too willing to shoulder that blame and, however weakened Russia may be, continue to give the finger to the west.

 

[Chilli.s]

We do need to exert economic pressure though, if mad vlad goes nuclear the cleanup is gonna cost, best to take any cash and hold it till the dust settles

 

[The39thStep]

For once I find myself broadly in agreement with Govt on this. It is way too early to start talking now about rebuilding Ukraine and forcing Russia to pay for it. The fighting needs to have stopped and the dust settled first.
What happens if it turns out the reason the fighting is over is because Mad Bad Vlad has fallen out of an upstairs window? The last thing we want to do is to heap all the blame and cost on the people that have replaced him, at least at first.

It's actually the policy of the UN General Assembly , which the UK supported. Also, policy of the EU "Russia and its oligarchs have to compensate Ukraine for the damage and cover the costs for rebuilding the country," EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. "We have the means to make Russia pay."

However, as no law currently exists in the EU that would allow authorities to seize frozen Russian assets the EU have set up a working group. i suspect that the UK might not have legislation that enables this as well.

 

[Dogsauce]

There’s about three hundred billion (yes billion) held in the west at present. That ought to pay for a fair bit of reconstruction, depending on whether it’s entrusted to local companies or if it has to be spent in the ‘company shop’ as in Iraq, which means most of it will be trousered by Halliburton etc.

 

[RD2003]

Interesting article, from a pro-Ukraine viewpoint, focussing on Ukrainian casualties, but also containing one notable passage:

The Centre for Defence Strategies, the Ukrainian security thinktank, believes that despite last month’s Wagner Group rebellion, Putin will stay in power until at least March’s elections. The thinktank also argues that if Ukraine doesn’t get enough western kit to win decisively this year, Russian forces will have time to learn from their mistakes and stage a comeback. ‘We should have been building new ammunition factories to supply Ukraine from the very moment the war broke out,’ says Glen Grant, a former UK defence attaché to the Baltics. ‘Instead it’s been a little here and a little there. The advice to ministers has been awful.’

So apparently British factories should have been put on a war footing despite not being at war according to at least some higher level British thinking. Nice to see the neo-liberal right talking about new factories for employing British workers, instead of fucking call centres and Amazon depots, though...

Will mounting casualties change the debate in Ukraine?

At a small army field clinic outside Bakhmut, I watched as the body of a dead soldier was carried in. Two more soldiers followed, this time seriously injured – and this was what troops described as a ‘quiet day’. Ukraine doesn’t talk about its military deaths much and refuses to reveal any...

www.spectator.co.uk

 

[RD2003]

The Guardian dropped its 'Ukraine blog' around midday today, after two years or so of regurgitating Ukraine government propaganda deep into teatime or beyond. Presmably they need more hands on the more pressing issue of what Israel is up to. Which, of course, is an indication of the, as yet unstated, acceptance that this needless war in Ukraine is going nowhere fast.

 

[krtek a houby]

The Guardian dropped its 'Ukraine blog' around midday today, after two years or so of regurgitating Ukraine government propaganda deep into teatime or beyond. Presmably they need more hands on the more pressing issue of what Israel is up to. Which, of course, is an indication of the, as yet unstated, acceptance that this needless war in Ukraine is going nowhere fast.

If only Ukraine would just shut up and accept its fate

 

[teqniq]

Bellingcat investigation uncovers:

How a Scottish legal loophole is being used to fuel the Russian war machine

Russians are using Scotland’s ‘ghost’ firms to import supplies that could aid Putin’s war machine, a major new probe has revealed.

www.heraldscotland.com

 

[teqniq]

Ukraine war: Welsh miners in country to repay 1984 help

 

[phildwyer]

Ukraine war: Welsh miners in country to repay 1984 help

My God they're at the bottom of the propaganda barrel now.