Lighthouse

Just been speaking to my friend from Kharkiv who has made it as far west as Lutsk and is now trying to get into Poland. It sounds like a proper ordeal; a three day journey including 24 hours solid on one train, absolutely packed with people. An overnight sleep in Ternopil train station, nothing with her but a suitcase and a rucksack with her cat in it. I’ll never complain about SW Trains or a Travelodge ever again.

We don’t want to engage in any military engagement with Putin, at all. It’s an escalation NATO doesn’t want or need, harsh though it may be on Ukrainians. Putin clearly wants it as the war isn’t going well or looking good back home, he is now claiming economic sanctions constitute and act of war. He needs a big, scary, foreign enemy, rather than bombing Russian speaking school children. On a separate note, The Kremlin seem to be going to some effort to hide the whole isolation and paranoia issue.

whelk, thank you for opening my heart to two genuinely new emotions. Hoping someone has cancer Hoping a Daily Star headline is true

How have you managed to translate Russia's clusterf**k of an invasion, against one of the most chronically underfunded militaries in Europe, to Britain losing all our F35s, tanks, helicopters and the paras?

South Africa weren’t trying to wage a war against a country of 44 million people during apartheid.

That’s pretty much my point, you’ve just said oil was recently reading around $50, so why on Earth would people be rushing to buy now when it’s $115? The price will stabilise eventually, the sanctions will still be in place and Russia's economy will suffer for it. They will be tied up in Ukraine for the foreseeable future and won’t have the financial or military resources to launch an offence in Finland or any NATO country.

So why on Earth would China start buying massive quantities of it right now?

Yes but they NEED to sell to China at pretty much whatever price the Chinese offer. Russia can't just cut the USA and EU out of it's trade and carry on with China as if nothing happened.

Finland look very likely to join, with the threat being the way it is and I still don’t see how any why there’s going to be another Yugoslav war, just because Serbia is pro-Russian. Russia can’t send any military hardware there without passing through a NATO country first. China may well take advantage of the situation but it’ll be completely on their own terms. Russia has literally nothing to bargain with. It may well take the sting off things but it won’t pay for a marauding Russian sweep across central and Northern Europe.

How does he invade Bosnia, without first sending his forces through a NATO country? I’ll be wildly optimistic on Putin’s behalf and say Belarus complies with no opposition and Ukraine and Moldova both collapse. Then what? Supposing he attacks Finland, NATO would respond, then he find himself facing a far superior force along a border thousands of miles long. His resources and logistics are already stretched trying to get hold of half of Ukraine.

Where does he realistically have to go without invading a NATO country. Finland and Sweden are hurriedly talking about joining, Belarus is Russian territory in all but name, He's going to be bogged down in a civil war in Ukraine, which basically leaves Moldova to invade before he's essentially toe-to-toe with NATO all along his Western border. All the while, his economy continues to tank and he has a very expensive war and occupation to pay for.

Watching Puel’s teams made me not want to go to games any more, I can’t put it any more simply than that.

Morbid prediction; get ready for a few bombs going off in Moscow and other Russian cities, followed by the swift arrest, "trial" and execution of some random ethnic Ukrainians on "terrorist" charges.

Correct. As painful as it is just to sit here and watch, I suspect Putin is desperate for NATO to get involved, so that Russia unites behind him. Right now he is trying to convince people he had to act for Russia's own security but if we don't get involved, it's just him killing innocent Ukrainians.

Rouble ends the week at £0.0061, down from £0.0098 just before the conflict. Now I’m no economist but….

'Pressing striker front four' translates to "Stürmervornevierdrücken" no double s in there though.

Forget a mad tyrant firing artillery at Europe's largest nuclear power facility, this is the real news. https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/sainsburys-renaming-chicken-kiev-kyiv-26386074

Something like 'The Balearic Front press' or the 'Siegfreid Line'?

Marsh was before my time but Warney... f**k me, only 52.

I've done my own research and discovered that Le Tissier never actually played for us. It's all just lies the mainstream media want you to believe.

If the news from this last week is anything to go by, he’s showing support for those less fortunate than him.

There’s a cracking Zouma joke there somewhere, leave it with me.

I’m more annoyed at how easy the draw is for the other big teams, not even a Merseyside Derby or something to trip them up. If we managed to pull of the unexpected, that leaves us needing to beat Liverpool and Chelsea in the semi and final.

Man City. Brilliant. All the big teams avoid each other.

Videos have been circulating of an elderly woman, barely able to walk and hold up a sign, being arrested at a protest in St Petersburg. Unfortunately for Russian propaganda, she is a famous and well respected war hero. One of, if not the, last remaining survivors of the siege of Leningrad and an icon of the glorious history Putin wants to preserve and emulate. Kind of a tough sell, that one; arresting frail war heroes, for the glory of Russia.