Russia has invaded Ukraine

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

early on? the Rushkies are knocking on the door shouting little pig little pig let me come in. No point offering concessions once the tanks are crossing the border

If you're going to concede on NATO membership, then it makes sense to do it now as oppose to early on.

[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

If you're going to concede on NATO membership, then it makes sense to do it now as oppose to early on.

I understand your reply now as it could have been to any part of my post and I misunderstood

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

I understand your reply now as it could have been to any part of my post and I misunderstood

Apologies for any confusion.

Were they ever seriously going to join NATO ?

Originally Posted by Paul

Were they ever seriously going to join NATO ?

They changed their Constitution in 2019 to include joining NATO

https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-pol...stitution.html

Having been previously part of the Soviet Empire, they’d rather that didn’t happen again…

I don't think realistically they would have been admitted into NATO anytime soon though precisely because of his tension. The point is that the West wants to respect the principle that they could and more importantly have the right to choose to do so as a sovereign nation.

Originally Posted by Hugh

They changed their Constitution in 2019 to include joining NATO

As a "goal"...
Such goals can take years, even decades.

Yup - the (ex-)Sovs don’t even want that…

Originally Posted by Hugh

Yup - the (ex-)Sovs don’t even want that…

Putin obviously doesnt, who knows about who will follow on.

[jonbxx]

This is a good article on why Putin and Russia are reacting as they are to Ukraine potentially joining NATO. The geography of Western Russia is very much in favour of the invader rather than the defender. To compensate, buffer zones have always been the way forward. Arguably, the recent big invasions of Russia (France and Germany) have failed because of stretching the supply chain of the invader. When winter followed by the spring thaw comes, it get very difficult to move supplies long distance.

In that respect, you can partially understand why Putin is getting a bit twitchy about having a potential adversary to the south who also owns one of Russias only warm water ports.

It will be interesting how we get out of this. The Russian psyche likes a strong leader so for Putin to back down now would be career limiting to say the least. He therefore needs to 'win' in some way to not appear weak to both his supporters and rivals in Russia. In the old Soviet days, there could be concessions from the West given without the public in the West knowing. On the face of it, the Soviet Union backed down in the Cuban Missile Crisis but it did lead to the removal of US missiles in Turkey and Italy which directly threatened the Soviet Union. This was Kruschevs 'win' or, at worst 'draw' over the whole affair

[joglynne]

15 FEBRUARY 2022 • 11:50AM
Russia-Ukraine crisis: Kremlin has begun pulling back troops from Ukrainian border
The Russian military has announced some troops have begun returning to their bases from both Belarus and Crimea after the conclusion of military exercises, the local news agency Ifax reports.

"Units of the Southern and Western military districts, having completed their tasks, have already begun loading onto rail and road transport and today they will begin moving to their military garrisons," a defence ministry spokesman said in comments carried by Russian news agencies.

Russia's top diplomat mocked Western intelligence for naming the date of a Russian invasion as Moscow announced a partial drawdown of troops.

"February 15, 2022, will go down in history as the day when Western war propaganda failed," Maria Zakharova, a spokesman for the Russian foreign ministry said on social media. "They were humiliated and defeated without a single shot."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-ne...invasion-news/

Aye aye!

Six Typhoons bimbling about Lincolnshire/Yorkshire at the moment…



Two just above Boston, and the other four near/above and to the right of York.

https://www.flightradar24.com/53.25,-0.89/8

[Jaymoss]

Don't think they will offer much help hahaha

Thinking more they may be out for Bears or Blackjacks…

[RichardCoulter]

Looking like Ukrainia won't be allowed to join Nato as, if they did and Russia invaded them, other countries (including us) would be obliged to come to their defence.

For some reason we don't want to do that, either because, even with America, we are not confident in winning any war with Russia or Ukrania is regarded as being worth sacrificing in order to avoid any military conflict ie loss of life etc. I'm not sure which.