The War in Ukraine

funky said:
Can someone explain why the west are being so SLOW when it comes to sanctions? Surely this is a win win for Europe and the US as they actually have a legitimate excuse to weaken the Russian economy, which plays into their hands?
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Western democracies are always a few steps behind in circumstances like this because it takes time to consider all the options and to get everyone on board.
Thuggish authoritarian regimes have less domestic issues to consider because they usually already control everything and therefore can act more freely. In the long run they almost always fail though, so here’s hoping for the beginning of the end to the Putin regime.
 
If Putin goes near poor Esthonia we really are in the proverbial - then we do have a to go to war. His rhetoric about all former Soviet states being aberrations was very dark.
 
Speaking of the Baltics, here’s a cute little gap to worry about:

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Give East Prussia back to the Germans etc…
 
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Kratz said:
If Putin goes near poor Esthonia we really are in the proverbial - then we do have a to go to war. His rhetoric about all former Soviet states being aberrations was very dark.
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I missed that part in the live translation. I only picked up on the Ukrainian bits.
 
The best thing to happen now would be for the US to blow up Nord Stream 2. That'll learn him, at least temporarily.
 
You do have to wonder how all this would be playing out if Trump was still in power.

In fact part of me wonders if Putin is banking on him being back in three years...
 
Let's not even get onto Trump. Cue the rhetoric of Russia taking over the world and America going soft and he wins re-election on the back of it...
 
Indie said:
I see Boris has announced "some" sanctions with "more to come" if Russia go further.

Absolute chickenshit. I'm sure Putin is quaking in his booties.
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Have any specific sanctions being announced yet? I would have thought the US, UK, EU, NATO and Australia will first need to try and align on what those are.

The UK is in a strong position here, so it would a disappointment if it was anything less than the kitchen sink. We import just 3% of our gas from Russia. That's easily replaced by our own resources, if nothing less.
 
funky said:
Let's not even get onto Trump. Cue the rhetoric of Russia taking over the world and America going soft and he wins re-election on the back of it...
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Not that he's in any way averse to rank hypocrisy, but you'd be hard pushed to find a US President who was softer on Russia than Trump!
 
VoR said:
Not that he's in any way averse to rank hypocrisy, but you'd be hard pushed to find a US President who was softer on Russia than Trump!
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Yeah. He was hard to call on instances like this, but if the rhetoric was reflective of where Fox News is right now, he would be stating it is nothing to do with the US.
 
Kratz said:
Have any specific sanctions being announced yet? I would have thought the US, UK, EU, NATO and Australia will first need to try and align on what those are.

The UK is in a strong position here, so it would a disappointment if it was anything less than the kitchen sink. We import just 3% of our gas from Russia. That's easily replaced by our own resources, if nothing less.
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I've not seen any firm commitments. One suspects Boris may never spell out what the 'sanctions' actually are.

I agree we're in a strong position re: gas, but much less so on financial institutions and property. If he really meant business, he'd freeze every single Russian asset in this country, but that's never going to happen.
 
Indie said:
I've not seen any firm commitments. One suspects Boris may never spell out what the 'sanctions' actually are.

I agree we're in a strong position re: gas, but much less so on financial institutions and property. If he really meant business, he'd freeze every single Russian asset in this country, but that's never going to happen.
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This. You just know a bunch of his Russian oligarch mates/sponsors are leaning heavily on him to look the other way on all this.
 
Indie said:
I've not seen any firm commitments. One suspects Boris may never spell out what the 'sanctions' actually are.

I agree we're in a strong position re: gas, but much less so on financial institutions and property. If he really meant business, he'd freeze every single Russian asset in this country, but that's never going to happen.
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Agreed - he should absolutely be freezing assets, it's not difficult and has little to no impact on the country as a whole. But yes, i'll believe it when I see it.
 
Kratz said:
Agreed - he should absolutely be freezing assets, it's not difficult and has little to no impact on the country as a whole. But yes, i'll believe it when I see it.
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There might be a little difficulty in tracing it all, because a large proportion is diverted via offshore/low tax territories. Either way, just fucking do it.
 
Johnson's a jelly - he's too far in hock to oligarchs to do anything of value and, certainly, no-one in Europe cares what he thinks.
 
He'll end up cheesing of Europe, US and Russia in equal measure for different reasons. Splendid isolation here we come...
 
RaspberrySwirl said:
I do think that the EU and US seem to be more determined to act than they were in 2014.
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I sincerely doubt it. Maybe France, cause it's the only country that consistently appears to actually value the moral principles in situations like this but it's impossible for them to lead the rest of the union effectively, not with Germany sitting with its calculator in the corner running and rerunning the costs and being too scared how it's voters will take any action it takes, so that no action is always the safest option. And Brussels will do what it always does, hold summits, have extensive talks, warn for sanctions and issue lukewarm announcements of strong phrasing.
 
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Madison said:
Don’t give Germany too much credit for this. They’ve undermined EU-Russia policy for years by building it in the first place. Merkel was useless with Russia and energy policy.
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Too right. It should be incapacitated, not just delayed.
 
Who wants to see Layla Moran read 35 Russian names whilst dressed like the 1980s?

 
I listened to the end in case she mentioned Alsou.

Imagine if it was a list of Eurovision stars:

‘and last, but by no means least Madam Deputy Speaker, the Tolmachevy Sisters’
 
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