Jimmy_D

No matter how many times you try to diminish it as being a ‘narrative’, it won’t change the fact that Russia has illegally invaded another country, and has deliberately targeted civilians, murdering, torturing, and raping them. It won’t change the fact that Russia is willing to commit any war crime in their pursuit of making it a successful invasion. There’s no way that any amount of spin has changed that. The cost of not stopping that is far higher than any cost of stopping it. You ask what sort of Ukraine would be in NATO, when right in front of us we’re seeing what Ukraine would be if forced to be in Russia.

Your evidence for ‘equally possible’? Because there’s a lot more than ‘someone coming up with a plausible theory’ for what Russia are doing.

Remind me again what it is that makes Russia so trustworthy that you’ll swallow absolutely anything they shove down your throat?

Lots of talk that Russia might be looking to hit Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as part of an attempted false flag operation, workers there apparently have been told to stop going in, and there’s video of Russian military equipment parked inside buildings there. If they do that and it leads to NATO territory being threatened with fallout, it may lead to Article 5 being triggered.

Not to mention the six Southern League titles. Those are even technically top-flight titles, since the Football League and the Southern League were parallel at the time.

That’s not the real comparison, though. The real comparison is whether you want to be less likely to win trophies at a higher level, or more likely to win trophies at a lower level. As far as I’m concerned, I always want to see Saints compete at the highest level they possibly can, and wanting to compete at a lower level would be admitting defeat before we even begin. As fun as watching Saints lift the JPT was, it was nothing compared to what seeing us lift the FA Cup would be. As for the league, the odds might be (VERY) long, but we even have a real life example in Leicester that those odds can be beaten to become the best in the land. Probably I’ll never see it in my lifetime, but presenting some theoretical scenario where it’s literally impossible instead of virtually impossible is pointless to me. In the meantime, I’ve seen Saints compete in cup finals, win against teams considered among the greatest of all time, I’ve seen the fastest hat trick in history, and after finishing 6th with Koeman, we could finally say there was no team we had never finished above. I’d still support Saints at a lower level, if it came to it, of course, just as I have before, but always with the aim of wanting to see Saints rise.

Ukraine playing Russia at their own games in the information space since the airfield going up in Crimea. An official story that it wasn’t Ukraine, then rumours Ukraine has ATACMS, denials from the US that Ukraine has ATACMS, Ukraine stating it was Ukraine made equipment that was responsible, rumours that Ukraine have developed their own long range capability based on Neptune, possibly an airstrike being made possible by HARM taking out AA, a ‘leak’ that it was Ukraine spec ops… Meanwhile Russia are trying to blame their own incompetence as the thought that Ukraine could do this and Russia couldn’t stop them makes Putin look weak to the people. In the end, how Ukraine did it doesn’t matter, and it’s a sign of good OPSEC that it’s still not clear even now. What matters is that, judging by the traffic jams heading out of Crimea, Russians aren’t believing the Russian version of events, they believe that Ukraine did this, Russia couldn’t stop them, and they’re going to go home and talk about what they’ve seen with their own eyes. On top of that, with everyone assuming this was Ukraine, Russia’s bluff about hitting Crimea leading to massive escalation has well and truly been called, same as it was with Finland and Sweden’s NATO applications.

I guess Russian shills were always going to get a fair bit of mileage out of that utter garbage that AI released. Meanwhile in the real world, even people within AI have critisized their stance, and they've tried to do some damage control by putting out that Russia's invasion is completely without any justification. Donations to AI have dropped through the floor since that report as everyone can see it's victim blaming. Ukraine has been defending where Russia has been illegally invading. Russia has been targeting civilian areas regardless of the presence of Ukraine military. MSM is also reporting that the US has just approved $1B to Ukraine, the biggest package approved yet, that Germany has ruled out reviving Nord Stream 2, and that breakdowns of Russian equipment have shown it almost without fail to be reliant on Western components, that are now under sanctions, inaccessible through legal channels. They might still have some limited access through black and grey markets, but nowhere near the levels they need them to be. Russia themselves are reporting that their S-300 AA systems are being targeted, and it doesn't look like it's HIMARS or similar systems that are doing it. There's a lot of speculation that Ukraine has quietly recieved HARM systems, and as a result the balance of air power over the front line is tipping towards Ukraine. Between the increasing levels of Western support for Ukraine, and the increasingly degraded state of Russia's forces, this is increasingly becoming an asymmetric fight where Ukraine has abilities that Russia doesn't have, and has no counter for.

GERRRRRRRRRRRRRIN!!!

Pretty disgusting to imply that Ukraine are fighting because the USA want them to, and not because Russian forces have illegally invaded, and are murdering, torturing, and raping men, women and children in Ukraine.

On the subject of the St Mary’s pitch, pretty cool that it was part of England’s route to a major trophy. Might have been a dead rubber for the group, but at the very least contributed to Mead’s Golden Boot, England’s record goals scored in a tournament, and England’s record of winning a tournament with the same starting line up in all games, as well keeping our momentum going.

Oh wow. OH WOW! CHAMPIONS! Bloody hell. What a tournament! It’s Coming Home!

Perhaps should have put it in first time, but very quick reactions for the rebound

Gerrrrrrrrrrrrrrin! YES!

Germany had the better of that first half of ET but started to fade towards the end of it. Might be they’ve burned themselves out?

We’ve done well since the equaliser. Need to carry that into extra time.

Damn. Great goal… Focus needed now.

Earps has been phenomenal all tournament.

Oh what a finish! And what a through-ball! GET IN!

We’ve had the better of the game, although Germany had the best chance. Hopefully we can settle quickly in the second half and get control. Ref has been poor.

Huge miss for Germany. I had England as favourites before the match, but thought Popp might have given Germany a fighting chance with the way she’s been finishing. Need to hope England still give 100% after that… this is such a huge opportunity now…

Well, Putin has said again and again that he intends to restore the Russian Empire and expand the Russian sphere of influence. I’ve seen plenty of reports saying that those are Russia’s intentions, not too many that think those intentions are realistic, outside of Russian shills claiming it’ll happen. However, the reason that’s it’s not feasible is that Ukraine, with the help of NATO backing, have performed absolute heroics defending their home. Ukraine are the ones that are stopping Russia, and they’re owed a great debt for that sacrifice. You seem to be implying that if Russia are too weak to expand beyond Ukraine, we should abandon them to appease Russia in the (unlikely) hope that they’ll give us cheap energy again?

Got as far as them saying they don't know what 'successfully damaging three bridges' means and trying to discredit that with Russia saying they'd repelled it, when there are pictures of it out of action, a replacement ferry(!) service in place, and reports from 'officials' in Kherson that the bridge is closed...

70000 is the US estimate for killed and wounded. Usually that'd mean 14000-17500 killed. That's probably a conservative estimate based only on data they have relatively solid evidence for. Ukraine's own estimated figures put it at over 40000 Russian troops killed. Regardless of the true figures, they're certainly facing shortages. The threat of Russia invading beyond Ukraine was over as soon as they lost a large number of their best troops failing to take Kyiv. Russia has thrown away most of their hard power, which as it turns out wasn't anywhere near as much as anyone thought, and along with that, all the soft power that being percieved as being a significant military threat gave them. Public support for supporting Ukraine is there because it's Ukraine that are being invaded. That's enough. Trying to imply that there needs to be some threat beyond Ukraine for public support to continue is ridiculous. Another thing that Russia's thrown away is the perception that they're a reliable energy supplier. They've shown that they're willing to use energy supply as a weapon. Any western country currently using Russian energy is looking for ways to reduce that, and Russia won't be getting anything it loses that way back.

Doctor Who was where I saw him most, which of course he was fantastic in. Very sad news RIP