Jimmy_D

Indeed, feels like this invasion has been the beginning of the end for Putin. He might end up seeing no way out, and how he'll react to that is unpredictable. Before that though, the combined effects of inflation caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine aren't insignificant, people are already feeling it pretty heavily and it's going to get worse. Long term, the world is already moving away from fossil fuels. Probably not nearly fast enough, but it'll get there eventually. It'll be painful in the meantime though. Assuming Putin goes one way or another, most likely exile, prison, or old age, there's going to be a huge power vacuum in a nuclear armed country. I've got no idea of the leadership structure or path of succession beyond Putin acting as if he'll live forever and always be in absolute power. How that turns out is anyone's guess.

Ah, yep, sorry. So around a 2-3% cut overall. Even more manageable, although the point about knock on effects of overall demand still stand. One thing in our favour is the new energy link with Norway, which should allow us to make more use of our renewable energy generation and make sure less of it is wasted.

That's oil. It's about 40% of our gas. The UK's energy mix has about 40% gas, so the gas and oil being cut off from Russia would be about 16-18% cut in the UK's energy mix, so it's a significant cut, but probably relatively manageable, especially as we're coming out of winter. Russia cutting the oil and gas would impact other places, in some places far more heavily, so the remaining oil and gas that we use would see a far higher demand (or rather, the supply would be lower with the same demand) and see higher prices as a result, especially if this ends up stretching into next winter. Some of that increased demand would be mitigated by Russia being forced to sell into a far smaller market, hence at a far lower price. That'd result in China mainly buying more from Russia and turn reducing demand on remaining oil and gas, but it certainly wouldn't offset it completely.

We want 10!

The first mistake is taking anything Putin says at face value. There's more and more evidence mounting up that he's not even being honest to his own troops.

Oh good. That means Ukraine should be safe then.

Threats from Russia to not do something that wasn't Russia's decision to make are not an excuse for Russia to commit war crimes. Blaming the West or Ukraine for this is utterly utterly ridiculous.

Hoax. Origin: Wien: Demo gegen Klimapolitik - YouTube It's literally the top reply to that tweet debunking that.

Might be worth looking at what happened during the recent Green Dagger wargames exercise. Suggests we'd be extremely effective in exactly the sort of operations that would be required if it came to it.

So we wouldn’t be wiped out militarily in a weekend then? There are a few reasons the West hasn’t escalated, not yet at least, but lack of military capability on NATO’s part certainly isn’t one of them.

Obviously not verified, but reportedly from a member of Russia’s FSB. With the way things have played out so far it rings true, although it’s still just one person’s view even if it is accurate.

So Russia losing a lot of kit against the Ukraine military over the course of two weeks... that makes you think that the UK’s military capability would be wiped out in a weekend if NATO entered said conflict?

What makes you think NATO would face those kind of losses? We’d have overwhelming air superiority. Even assuming NATO did face those kind of losses, why would they all be contained to British forces?

NATO has made its position pretty clear at this point, any military involvement in Ukraine is vanishingly unlikely. Putin however, is extremely unpredictable at the moment. It's impossible to rule out him doing something that gives NATO no choice.

Well, the Ukrainian government at least has an appetite to take them on.

I'm aware of the atrocities Russia have committed in their past. I'm wondering why you seem to be implying that that's a reason to go easier on them.

In what universe is invading a democratic country, and then using thermobaric and cluster weapons against civilians 'light touch'?

Enforcing a no-fly zone is an escalation of conflict. It’d make any entity enforcing that no-fly zone a valid target, especially in the eyes of Putin, and as we’ve seen, he doesn’t care about civilian casualties. That’s a huge ask for any leader to endanger their people like that. On the other hand, everyone wishes more were being done to help Ukraine, each day it’s getting worse there. Beyond that, we don’t know what diplomatic information might be influencing that decision. For example, how likely is it that direct military action against Russia could draw China in? Right now NATO’s stance at least has the benefit of diplomatically isolating Russia. As much as Putin would like to claim NATO are the instigators by claiming that supplying weapons and enforcing sanctions are acts of war against Russia, Putin has so far failed to find much support for that view, and he has few allies that think any of his actions are justified. Even China abstained from the UN vote to censure Russia, rather than vote against it as they normally would. I think as much as the level of unity and level of sanctions quickly imposed have probably taken a few off guard, the level of restraint from NATO probably has as well. Putin has been forced to keep escalating unilaterally, and that’s further isolating him. The consequences of providing more direct military support are uncertain at best, put me firmly in the “glad that’s not my decision” camp.

So you think Ukraine was wrong to pivot towards the West because it should have foreseen that it would make Russia commit war crimes against them?

Run was going to come to an end at some point, and it’s been a bloody good run. Didn’t think it’d be today though, and certainly not like that. Ah well, time to dig out Adkins’ pen and put a line under it.

You’re the one that started comparing to fighting back then. Finland would still be a far tougher prospect than Ukraine now, considering the terrain, the armed populace, forces being split between Ukraine and Finland, and the lack of access to borders Russia has to Finland compared to Ukraine. Add in that a further invasion would turn even more of the world against Russia, and it seems unlikely Putin would consider it viable any time soon. He’s struggling enough with Ukraine already.

To be fair we’re one of Villa’s biggest bogey teams. Unfortunately... just not today.

If you want to go back to that time, you don’t need to compare with those countries, you can just look at the actual Russian invasion of Finland. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War

Never easy after conceding early, feels like we’re not quite at it. Need something special 2nd half, we’re capable of it so let’s see which Saints we see...