Jimmy_D

Someone has. • Support of Volodymyr Zelensky's during war in Ukraine 2022 | Statista 70% believe in Ukraine’s victory, 91% support Zelensky, (kyivindependent.com) How President Zelensky’s approval ratings have surged - New Statesman Funnily enough, performing miracles to drum up international support and hold off a brutal Russian attack on his country has somewhat improved his approval ratings.

Everyone will be buying bungalows and avoiding upper floor windows.

There are a lot of people trying to tell Ukraine what they should do. It's up to Zelensky and the Ukrainians.

Putin's been acting as if he'll be in power forever since he got into power. I guess that might have changed if he has been ill, but it's still going to be one hell of a power vacuum that's left if he does go.

Ukraine war: Military intelligence chief 'optimistic' of Russian defeat saying war 'will be over by end of year' | World News | Sky News Ukraine's head of military intelligence claiming that information has leaked or been obtained that Putin is seriously ill and the process of replacing him is already in progress. Rumours have been floating around for a while of course, and it wouldn't be surprising, but it's interesting that it's actually Ukrainian intelligence claiming this now.

Sounds like that might actually be their strategy at this point. A third attempt has gone about as well as the first two, according to the Luhansk governor. Ukraine war latest: Russians failed three times in bloody river battle, says Ukraine - BBC News

The formation of Ukraine is a settled issue. Russia in effect recognised that by holding the sham vote for Crimea to break away. Although the circumstances leading to them were very different, in effect both Crimea and Taiwan have unilaterally declared independence without ‘permission’. Supporting Russia’s claims to Crimea could undermine China’s policy that Taiwan is Chinese.

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3228896-china-confirms-nonrecognition-of-attempted-annexation-of-crimea-and-ban-on-contacts-with-occupation-authorities.html If it’s confirmed, sounds like it’s not so much coming out in support of Ukraine, but a combination of China recognising which way the wind is blowing in Ukraine, self interest in not wanting their stance on Crimea to undermine their their stance on Taiwan, and not wanting to get drawn into backing up Russia if Ukraine moves to liberate Crimea. That would still be helpful for Ukraine in terms of what Putin can do. My gut feeling, China thinks there’s a small possibility Putin would use Ukraine moving on Crimea as an excuse for escalation that they don’t want to see.

Oh... that's a huge shift in Ukraine's favour... China has apparently recognised all of Ukraine, including Donbas, Donetsk, and Crimea as Ukrainian.

See that the UK has signed Joint Security Agreements with Sweden and Finland today. That'll have a twofold effect in terms of them joining NATO, which now looks inevitible. Firstly it'll provide the UK's military as security during the period that they've applied to NATO but before they join. Secondly that security makes any application to NATO likely to run much smoother. It's far less likely they'll be drawn into a conflict as a result, and vastly reduces one of the possible objections that there could have been to slow down any application.

Russia invades a soverign territory, using any means, including rape, mass murder, and torture of civilians, to attempt to force the invasion to be successful. Said soverign territory asks for help. Help is provided to said soverign territory, and turns out to be extremely effective. No actions have occurred that come anywhere near justifying Russia either initiating this, or carrying it out in the way they have. NATO isn't committing any crime by seeking to allow new countries to join, nor are countries committing a crime by seeking to join NATO. Russian paranoia, leading to threats to soverign countries not to do something, that they are perfectly entited to do, in no way justifies it. This has backfired on Russia in almost every way it's possible to backfire. Countries are more justified than in ever in seeking to join the protection that NATO provides, and NATO is now stronger and more unified than it's ever been. Russia's army has gone from something that invoked a certain level of apprehension, respect, even fear, to being a source of ridicule, derision, and utter disgust. Russia is now more isolated than it's ever been. It's accelerated its biggest market in it's efforts to move away from carbon based energy, and Russia biggest source of wealth. That will never return for them, and it will take decades for Russia to get back just to where they were before they invaded.

Apparently they cancelled the flyover portion of the parade too. Claimed to be due to bad weather, but it seems that weather was better than last year when the flyover went ahead. My gut feeling is that either they got some sort of intelligence that an anti-air missile attack was possible, or Putin got paranoid for some reason.

Not sure this has been verified, but this person was spot on about the Moskva when it was hit. I'm more inclined to think something he's put out will turn out to be genuine than Russian State Media at any rate.

Still no confirmation either way on whether Admiral Makarov was hit, but something happened there to force Russian ships (and the anti-air capability they were providing) to pull way back and allow the counter attacks on Snake Island to occur. Seen some speculation that it may have actually been a Russian sub that was hit, based on the infra-red satellite data and the types of NATO aircraft that responded when the Makarov speculation was emerging.

Leeds imploding here.

Excellent. Looking very difficult for Liverpool now.

Pointless but funny stat; Watford have been relegated despite taking 4 points off Man Utd this season.

Not against Brighton we don't

What a goal that would have been... Man Utd getting humiliated here.

Obviously no-one will bat an eyelid at the pitch invasion at the end of the match, but the one during the match might be seen in a different light. Bristol Rovers went into those last ten minutes knowing exactly what they needed to do. Can't see the league wanting to deduct points and decide the league off the pitch, but there might be a hefty fine headed their way. Joey Barton's previous claims about match fixing in football are probably going to get dug up too.

Well... we've had a better day than Northampton fans 😕

Russia ceded any moral right to gain anything a long time ago, and Ukraine has proved they’re nowhere near strong enough to take it by force. Russia won’t end up gaining anything from this.

I feel like the word 'disagree' is doing a fair bit of heavy lifting for the actions of russian-backed armed separatists storming and taking a government building here.

Like I said, still unverified, reportedly from a drone at long distance. On the game front, that model isn't natively in any of the games that usually crop up with fakes like that. It's possible it could have been modded into one though. Dmitry Peskov, the Russian presidential spokesman, earlier said that they didn't have any information about the Ukrainian claims, rather than an outright denial, which lends a little credence to it being hit. Just have to wait and see.

Still unverified so far, but looks like it might genuinely have been hit, and pretty badly, considering first reports were in the middle of the night and this footage looks like it shows fires still burning after sunrise. Either way, looks like it won't be a threat again any time soon. If it doesn't sink, Russia has a crippled warship as a drain on its resources for the forseeable future, if the refit of the Admiral Kuznetsov is anything to go by.