Jimmy_D

If Russia have had logistical problems in Ukraine, that’s nothing compared to what they’d face in Finland, never mind the level of gun ownership in Finland, and the level of attrition they’ll be facing from taking and trying to hold Ukraine at the same time.

Just saw that myself, I've no idea how they got out of that, must have been terrifying.

Very sad, and very shocking, it’ll take a while for this news to sink in RIP

Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been under attack by Russian shelling, and has a reactor on fire that, although currently inoperable due to renovations, does contain nuclear fuel. Feels kind of surreal to be typing that.

Ah, that’s that then.

You’ll have to paint it red and white while you’re out there

Boreham Wood’s luck definitely ran dry there... or not? VAR looking at handball... and it is!

If it really was fixed, they’d have avoided giving City an away fixture against Saints at the moment.

At least we’ve taken the last chance to face them at St Mary’s, instead of most likely having to face them at Wembley. Always a long shot but probably not the worst outcome in terms of overall chance of lifting the Cup.

Speculation increasing that Russia are preparing to impose martial law and close the borders imminently. Sounds like the protests there are starting to grow too big to ignore maybe?

The draws are almost certainly fair, just due to the number of different people that do the draws, but I’d still be interested in seeing an infra-red camera feed of the draws

Initial reports indicating it’s probably due to weather. Sounds like Romanian Migs haven’t had the best reliability record, but hard to imagine the timing could be worse.

Gerrin!!! Quarter final!

That’ll do it!!! What a goal!

A bit more sloppy at times than the first team, lucky to get away with a couple of chances, but good to see us recognisably playing like Southampton. What an utterly fantastic goal that was too!

If we go on to win the cup, our highlight reel is going to be ****ing fantastic!

Not playing badly here...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0bqc59f/the-fa-cup-202122-fifth-round-southampton-v-west-ham-united Up on iPlayer now.

We’re not out of it before a ball’s been kicked of course, but feels like that line up gives us far less chance than we’d want. I’d have preferred to see us going full strength from the start.

Good luck!

There’s no tactical advantage in defending empty ground with very little cover. Who were these people thinking Ukraine had any chance against a huge Russian military force a month ago?

Putin might have claimed he was packing up and going home, but no Western intelligence believed that for a second. Most of the land mass currently controlled is empty, ceded in order to concentrate on defending key targets, and on top of that is still very much contested. Painting that as already having a huge success is ridiculous.

As soon as Putin went from ‘just’ occupying the separatist regions, to a full scale assault of the whole of Ukraine, the only way it makes sense is if they were expecting their disinformation war to have been far more successful and for the Ukrainian people to welcome them. Russian units advanced way ahead of supply lines, looks like they wanted to have forces in place to accept a quick surrender, with very few casualties, and Putin be able to claim he was liberating Ukraine. If he’d have been able to claim he was there with the will of the people, the West would have been far more divided on how to respond. Now Putin is trapped as he’d look even weaker to back down, but the cost of switching to heavier tactics that have killed many civilians is high for him. Decades of Russian efforts to create division in NATO have evaporated overnight, other countries that Putin wants to return to the Russian Empire have been pushed towards NATO and the EU, Western perception of Russia’s conventional warfare capabilities have been significantly reduced, sanctions that would have been unthinkable two weeks ago are already in place, Russian people are protesting in huge numbers, and the longer this all goes on, more and more of Putin’s allies are distancing themselves from him. I don’t know what Putin was hoping for going into this, but it wasn’t that.

A huge part of Russia’s soft power has come from people believing that Russia’s conventional military capability is far more potent than it’s been shown to be in Ukraine. That’s partly down to Zelensky, and the resistance he’s helped inspire. It’s given the West enough time to react, and belief that it’s worth reacting. Even if Russia ultimately manage to gain military control in Ukraine, losing that is something Putin won’t have been counting on. They’re likely to find it almost impossible to maintain that military control long term, with the people being so clearly against it, which seems to be something else Putin miscalculated. Yet another thing he seems to have miscalculated is the unity shown in sanctions against Russia. They appear to have already gone further than Putin expected, and there seems to be a will for them to go further if needed, especially if Russia remain in Ukraine. He does still have nuclear capability of course, but Putin can’t use that without consequences for Russia that make anything else in history pale in comparison. I don’t think it’s likely, but still have to hope that he never gets to the point that he doesn’t care about those consequences and no-one stops him. It’s difficult to really tell exactly what Putin went into this expecting to achieve, and even more difficult to imagine that anything he expected to achieve is possible now, with the way events have unfolded so far.

Thought that was going to be a ‘what if’ game for Middlesbrough. Fantastic result for them, goals like that are what every kid that wants to be a footballer dreams of growing up.