Russia

[alan.barker]

I don't think i said he was Empire building but more wanting to return to what was the USSR Empire. I hope not too many English people want to go back to the British Empire where the Sun never set.
I've visited many countries that are much more corrupt than i understand Ukraine is.
Sir Winston Churchill was not that clean.
Also China "the sleeping Giant" maybe about to awaken.
It's good to see different ideas and opinions.
Alan

[h20hamelan]

This is a surprisingly good article, not just about Orban but also shaming to the West. Unlike most of the governments we are stuck with, Orban's serves his people. For starters, he doesn't hate them.

Orbán and his administration once more stand alone—a bulwark of rational thought aiming to prevent the suicide of the West.

Besides the Ukrainian people who are being conscripted, shoved into the meat grinder, and sacrificed on the altar of globalism, the liberal, democratic Western order is the biggest loser in this conflict. It has been exposed for its derangement, its hypocrisy, and its extreme repression.

Ironically, it is today’s so-called liberalism that is dooming the world to endless war and mass destitution, while opposition to that movement is the world’s last hope for sanity and peace.


Embracing Hungary’s ‘Illiberalism’ as the Road to Peace › American Greatness (amgreatness.com)

https://amgreatness.com/2023/02/09/embr ... -to-peace/

[nomad]

I've been avoiding this subject everywhere but after reading some of the posts here I lost my temper. Sorry for that but not for my point of view on this mess. Russia is no more the bad guy in this than we are and if you had followed it closely and ignored the western propaganda machine you would agree with me. This war isn't to secure freedom for Ukraine. They were free before the nationalistic extremists took over. This war is for world domination of the same people that have been running the west. The ones we don't get to vote for. The ones that decide who will run for office in our DEMOCRACIES! The ones that hide just how much is being spent on our military. Its all about the "Benjamins"!

You think that Russia has spies all over the world and we don't! You think that Russia carries out assassination's and we don't! I imagine those WMD's that we went into Iraq for made that completely justified. We went after Saddam for crimes against humanity that he had committed with our blessing and our poison gas against Iran!

The fact is that the people of the west have been lied to over and over again and you think we are being told the truth now? The USSR failed when the vast majority stopped believeing there propaganda machine even when it was telling the truth. A recent Gallup poll showed that less than 20% of American's believe their press.

BTW, I did my time in Vietnam, another lie. My dad ran a bulldozer to open the streets of Nagasaki after the bomb. That was after fighting his way through the islands.

Russia has said they won't be the first to use nuclear weapons but our government hasn't taken that option off
the table! This mess just keeps escalating.

[rgh0]

I am sorry to see Oban take Hungary back to iis past as it was under various previous dictatorships and all he really cares about is reataining his own power. My wife and her few remaining family escaped Hungary after the USSR clamped down on any indpendence after 1956. Most had be killed and all disposessed by the Nazis during the second world war or the Communists after the war. They left with nothing and had to start a new life

Europe has been the site of empire building and fighting for thousands of years. One of the aims of the UN after the sceond world war was to stop that by requiring signatories to the UN to accept internationally recognised boundaries, Unfortunately due to security council vetos this has proven to be impractical to enforce. And sham referendums dont change that.

Russias many inconsistent and illogical reasonings dont stand up to any real testing and to demonstrate just a few

i.e. Nato and or Ukraine was thtreatening to invade Russia thus Russia had to take pre-emptive action. However its also says that Nato and Ukraine is so weak and inferior to the Russian army that it could crush them in days if it wanted to. So how were they a threat that warranted an invasion of a soveriegn country. You cant have it both ways

2.Russia does not recognise Uraine as a soveriegn country as Russia does not accept the dissolution of the USSR as reality. Well Ukraine was also a soverieing country under the USSR and had a UN seat. Crimea was tranferred to the Ukraine by the USSR peacefully and fully in accordance with the law of the USSR. You cant have it both ways

3. Ukraine was committing genocide by killing Russian speakers in the East through shelling of the breakway areas thus they had to intervene . The numbers are debatable and how intentional it was also debatable. But it is nothing like the shelling rocket attacks on all of Ukraine that Russia has carried out but if a single inch of Russian soil is attacked Russia threatens Nuclear War. You cant have it both ways

The whole debate is bullshit and just about any country in Europe could claim a right to any other part of Europe if you choose your time in history carefully. So going back in time proves nothing and saying the USA or other countries did this or that in the past proves nothing either in terms of justifying Russias current actions. Two wrongs dont make a right

The reality is that Russia has launched a program f expansion to reinstate the USSR / Russian empire in any way it can since Putin came to power by relying on the Wests collective reluctance to take a stand. The Ukrainians have taken a stand and shown they are prepared to defend their country from invasion and the least the West can do is give them the weapons needed to achieve that. The West can use the weapons now by sending them to Ukraine or use them on the Polish border later. I know whats the smart decision.

Finally you have to remember that Russias GDP is the same as Canadas ! Do you think Canada could defeat Russia and Nato in a prolonged conventional war ? Especially if half the defence budget was spent on a nuclear arsenal as is Russias and much of the total budget is actually lost in corruption. Whether the collective West has the guts for supplying Ukraine in a long war is really the only question, as Ukraine clearly has the guts to keep fighting for as long as it takes.

You can let you political beliefs take you where you want but in the end reality and logic will prevail

[nomad]

Rohan, I see and respect your point and where you are coming from. For you and your family this war is far more personal than for me. And, you are right, this area of the world has been fighting and dying over territory for a very long time.

Perhaps you and others are right that all Putin is interested in is more territory. If you look at the map it is obvious that a strong presence on the Black Sea for Russia only makes sense. It also should have been obvious for those who gave him an excuse to go after it.

I'm going to link a video by a intelligent retired Colonel that sums up a lot of information that is not likely propaganda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5VGc4p3IiY

Kurt

[alan.barker]

Many thanks Rohan
for that.
Written much better than i can.
Thanks also to the Anzacs who fought for Liberty
Alan

[rgh0]

Rohan, I see and respect your point and where you are coming from. For you and your family this war is far more personal than for me. And, you are right, this area of the world has been fighting and dying over territory for a very long time.

Perhaps you and others are right that all Putin is interested in is more territory. If you look at the map it is obvious that a strong presence on the Black Sea for Russia only makes sense. It also should have been obvious for those who gave him an excuse to go after it.

I'm going to link a video by a intelligent retired Colonel that sums up a lot of information that is not likely propaganda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5VGc4p3IiY

Kurt

Hi Kurt

I watch both Douglas Macgregor and Scott Ritter consistently just as i watch pro Ukrainian channels and more neutral channels such as Perun that I suggested. Macgregor has contradicted himself so often in the last year it is hilarious to see how he ignores his last prediction that failed and just makes a new one. He originally said the war would end in days. Russia being pushed out of Kyiv was "Russia being nice". He claims at the same time that Russia was not serious at trying to take Kyiv and that they could have taken it if they wished and that they did not send in the troops to do it, despite sending in their DVD airborne forces that were decimated in the battle Same when it was pushed out of Karkhiv and Kherson regions. He repeats Russian propoganda that claims Russia has detroyed to Ukraininan army and airforce (many times over based on the "data" Russia uses)... but ignores the fact that somehow Russia cant seem to advance the front line signficantly in the last 5 months Like i say you cant have it both ways and Macgregor is a classic example of the pro Russian side trying to do thatt

I dont know Putins mind but I see his actions. I see him assasinating political opponents, Both in Russia and overseas I see him invade vassal states such Chechnya. and Georgia if they dare try to be independent of the Kremlin line. The Belarus tried to vote out their current goverment but with Russian support he stayed in power and is happy to claim he is Europes last Dictator, but he also knows his people and army will rebel if he trys to provide army support to Putin in Ukraine. Now I see Putin doing the same with Ukraine. Maybe he would stop at the Polish, Estonian, Lithuamian and Finish borders and maybe not. They all know what Russian invasion is like and they clealry fear it happening again and believe it needs to be stopped in the Ukraine.

[AshleyPark]

Rohan

To respond to some of your points.

1. Indeed, Nato and Ukraine were not threatening to invade Russia. Putin didn’t claim they were. The issue for him was the threat of US/Nato military installations on their doorstep and having nuclear armed cruise missiles capable of being launched at short notice towards Moscow.

That, together with the fact that the in 2019 the US withdrew from the 1987 Treaty on Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces leaving the US the authority to launch a first strike on Russia, using missiles stationed in newly admitted Nato member countries.

That is clearly an existential threat to Russia, that understandably, they cannot tolerate.

You say that Russia claims it could ‘crush’ Nato/Ukraine in a matter of days but at the same time state that Russia’s GDP is equivalent to that of Canada’s. Revealing, obviously, that the claim is rather absurd, I mean, 1 country vs 30. You can’t have it both ways!


2. Along with Canada and Poland, Russia was one of the first countries to recognise the independence of Ukraine. That recognition, by another state, is very definition of a sovereign state! Sure, many Russians probably believe the dissolution of the USSR was a bad thing but so do many people think Brexit was a bad thing. So what!

Just as Ukraine voted to become independent in 1991 so did Crimea and the autonomous regions of the Donbas. The former was recognised as fair and legal, the latter, the West and its media decided, was fraudulent! You can’t have it both ways!


3. How is firing artillery shells and killing civilians at all debatable?? Perhaps you believe the targets were rather military ones, and if you do, then equally, the Russian missile targets are most likely non civilian ones. You can’t have it both ways!

“Ukraine has the guts to keep fighting to the end” - Surely you can see the naivety of this statement? Or maybe not, it seems to be the only way of thinking of our leaders and media that more and more weapons and deaths are the only answer. It is not. There are only two ways this will end, one is keeping on escalating until nuclear war is inevitable and, by the way, the death toll will exceed 4 billion just from starvation! Or negotiate a settlement, even if that means ceding some of Ukraine's territory.

I know what I want - Peace!

[AshleyPark]

Nomad

Well done for raising your head above the parapet, especially being from the US, where, like in the UK, you risk being accused of being a ‘Putin apologist’ or even in some quarters, an antisemite, despite parts of Ukraine being known for their Nazi sympathies!

What kind of world have we sleepwalked into where arguing for an immediate negotiated peace and having a viewpoint opposing the mainstream narrative is not tolerated?!

You are quite right that Ukraine is nothing more than a pawn in this global superpower game! Sadly, the biggest losers are the ordinary Ukrainians (and Russians) dying in their thousands for our psychopathic world leaders!!

[nomad]

Well, it is obvious that opinions have been formed and are pretty well established. Again, I apologize for bringing this subject back up. I will not go on but wish to point out that no one can be faulted for thinking this foolishness would have ended days after it began. There have been several times it should have ended when the west stopped it from doing so. The Minx agreement that should have stopped it from starting for one. Right now simple logic and seeing who has to gain from this on both sides ought to be the subject.

There is a real bonanza for mainly our weapons manufacturers. Not only will all the weapons that have been used up need to be replaced but there will have to be a great increase of sales in that part of the world to counter what will be perceived as an increased threat. When Sweden was asked why they wanted to be in NATO, they replied that they could cut their military budget in half. Hmmmm, to me that seems to mean that the US is standing most of the share of the cost of NATO. We can't afford health care or relieving bogus student debt but there is no limit to what we can spend on a military to bully the world with.

Then there are our bankers standing on the borders wringing their hands in anticipation of all the loans they can make to rebuild after this tragedy. MacGregor is right on the money when he mentions New York bankers. Wars are seldom fought about anything other than money. Unfortunately the combatants never recognize it.

It is far past time to end this thing and those that can be heard need to get out in the streets and demand it! We did during Vietnam but of course our leaders have determined that if someone else is doing the dying they can get away with far more.

Kurt

[john.p.clegg]

" It is far past time to end this thing and those that can be heard need to get out in the streets and demand it! "

I think I saw that on TV.....What is a Gulag?

And where is Siberia?

John

[nomad]

" It is far past time to end this thing and those that can be heard need to get out in the streets and demand it! "

I think I saw that on TV.....What is a Gulag?

And where is Siberia?

John

Well, this is relevant, not that it will make a difference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV69ac_AZww

[nomad]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjQKwhjWLOI

[mark030358]

I posted on the 8th October after starting to read this thread, the comments I made then still stand.

It’s politicians, and I’d go so far as to say expansion of the EU and NATO kicked it off, or perhaps-a gave reason to kick it off. And as rightly stated earlier -there is really only one outcome, a negotiated settlement.

Cheers

[rgh0]

What actually started it was Ukraine giving up its Nuclear weapons ( the only country to ever do so) and believing the security guarrantees given to it by the USA, UK and Russia when it did that. Once that was done Russia beleived it could treat Ukraine as it wanted and the West would ignore it.

I know others have other timelines and beliefs which just demonstrates you can cherry pick want you want in history to justify anything