Jimmy_D

This Leeds game lets you appreciate just how good Saints are in retaining possession at the moment.

That’s still ‘this run’, I worded it very carefully

That was funny, although to be fair I think he was trying to make the point the player would have slid in if it hadn’t been right on the post.

Utterly phenomenal first half won that for us. It’s an absolutely incredible record for this team to break, I’d be amazed if I see this run surpassed in my lifetime.

The same Russian Navy that’s been forced to withdraw from Sevastapol by a country with no navy? The same strategic reserves that haven’t had enough tritium produced in Russia to service more that a fraction of? And that require being destructively opened to service? Not to mention of course those strategic reserves are completely immune to the same corruption and false claims of capability that been seen in every single other aspect of Russia’s military. On top of that, Ukraine have already struck within Russia itself, even targeting aircraft that would be used to deliver nuclear missiles, without triggering a nuclear response. You really think Russia are sitting there for two years, now throwing thousands of Russians with minimal training every week into just maintaining the front in Ukraine where it is, just waiting for NATO to get involved so they can suddenly reveal that they’re actually secretly overwhelmingly powerful?

Indeed, it’s as close to impossible as anyone can reasonably expect, which is the exact point I was making. While of course it would be orders of magnitude stronger with China onside, Ukraine’s peace formula doesn’t need China and Russia to agree for Ukraine to achieve lasting security.

Vanishingly unlikely in the short to medium term. I can see there being a very very small possibility there could be some crossover between Ukraine joining at some point in the future, and Russia testing how strong their membership is with some sort of deniable attack.

Do you see Russia attacking NATO countries?

Ukraine claiming to have shot down a Russian A-50. This would mark the first time in history an AEW&C aircraft has been shot down. The number of these is extremely limited, especially in light of the issues with maintenance Russia likely have, and experienced crew for them even more limited. Ukraine having the capability to shoot them down is unbelievably significant. It’s unlikely but possible that despite generally being crewed by the most experienced pilots and crew available, one strayed into range of something that it should never have been in range of. It’s also extremely unlikely, but possible it was friendly fire by a Russian AA system. If it wasn’t that, and Ukraine have gained a repeatable capability to shoot them down, then a combination of that kind of AA capabilty, Russia losing AEW&C capability, Ukraine repeatedly being able to target Russian AA systems in recent weeks, and Ukraine gaining F16s in the next few months, that’s what the beginning of Ukraine gaining air superiority looks like.

What’s nonsense about it? It’s just the set of conditions that Ukraine think will most likely result in long term security for Ukraine, in light of how aggressive and untrustworthy Russia have been. It’s working too, more and more countries are getting on board with it.

That wasn’t the most convincing of wins for Ipswich. Grinding out wins when not playing well is its own quality of course, but even so, feels more like a stay of execution for them to me, rather than a turning point.

Brilliant way to equal a century old record! We were awesome today.

New military assistance package announced by the UK today, along with a signing a Security Co-Operation agreement https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65a14a6ae96df50014f845d2/UK-Ukraine_Agreement_on_Security_Co-operation.pdf Looks like it’s partly building a foundation to assist Ukraine eventually joining NATO, similar to the ones signed with Sweden and Finland, and partly an escalation towards continued Russian aggression being more likely to trigger a UK military response in Ukraine. While direct military intervention by the UK still doesn’t seem immediately likely, and it’s not clear exactly what would be enough to trigger a response (likely intentionally so), it’s certainly not an insignificant development. In the other direction, no other country in the world has as much experience as Ukraine in both Soviet and NATO materiel, especially in making them interoperable, as well as drone warfare. That experience will likely be invaluable to the UK’s military going forward.

Decent day that!

With the fixture congestion and a bit of a bogey ground not the worst result. The unbeaten run continues!

That’s a planishing hammer, the striking face needs to stay flat as it’s used to shape jewellery. He was striking with the side as instructed to avoid damaging the flat surface. Him or his advisers not realising it was still going to look terrible is still questionable though.

Almost any other season we’d be comfortably top two with the results we’ve had.

Automatic promotion is (just about) in our own hands again now! What a set of festive results!

Almost completely dominated the match, albeit with a bit of luck needed to avert it being one of those days. I’m not going to complain about the three points!

Tiny bit of disappointment that Ipswich rescued a point and got a bit of a morale boost but the Christmas fixtures have been awesome for us on the whole.

Good finish for Leicester there! Hirst injured for Ipswich just before, looked a nasty one, went down with what looked a hamstring injury, got some treatment, probably would have been dragged off in a less important match, and then seemed to finish it off with his first few steps coming back on.

Brilliant performance today! Edoze absolutely terrorised them, especially first half, and a brilliant finish for his goal. Fraser’s two goals were pretty special too!

Merry Christmas All

Could have made that comfortable far earlier but a win, clean sheet, keeping the unbeaten run going and making ground on the top two is a very nice weekend.

The EU has clauses similar to NATO’s Article 5 regarding mutual defence. For Ukraine to join while this war is still ongoing those would have to be addressed. Four possibilities I can think of; The EU in effect agrees to declare war to allow Ukraine to join. Extremely unlikely. The EU allows Ukraine to join with agreements to intervene militarily after a set date if Russia haven’t withdrawn. The EU suspends the mutual defence clauses for the war with Russia for Ukraine to join, with indefinite future plans on reinstating them. The EU provisionally allows Ukraine to join, but only once the war is resolved. There could also be some sort of compromise which involves some mix of all or some of the above applying to different member states. It’s likely though, that any ascension would be indefinitely delayed by the ongoing war. More important at the moment is the message it sends to Russia that Ukraine won’t be abandoned by the EU.