They must be having a right laugh

[Trainee neophyte]

For anyone who gets their news from the BBC, this 5 minute video currently doing the rounds might make interesting viewing:

It's made by a Ukrainian living right on the front line in Donetsk, and his opinions on what he is seeing regarding buildup, and the likely start of the coming battle are interesting. It may not jell with what you have seen from the more "normal" media. Also, when he talks about Nazis running Ukraine that isn't hyperbole - they really are proper, german style nazis harking back to the third reich. You can find lots of info on that if you go looking for it (Azof battalion, for eg.), but did anyone tell you that your government is supporting, funding and arming self-identifying Nazis? Ukraine's Nazis: Who are they, why are they so influential — and why have media ignored them?

Note that I don't endorse the views of the video, but he thinks his views and predictions are rational, and he is closer to the start line than I am. We will know in the next month or so if there will be a world war, and who was right.

 

[Droogs]

Just remember war is just an accronym for arrogance
We
Are
Right

 

[Spectric]

Who can blame Putin, the west continously antagonises him and accuses Russia of many things but it is ok for the west to go into Iraq and Afganistan to sort out a supposed threat, this seems like one set of rules for the west and another for the rest just like how Borris thinks. Then you have the west looking to supply Australia with nuclear powered submarines and Borris thinking we need more nukes in our stockpile so if you were Putin would you not be peed off and saying enough is enough and it's time to make a stand and show we are not having anymore of this nonsense.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

A quick ride around Google throws up a huge diversity of information on the history of Russia Ukraine relationships going as far back as far as the 10th Century, through the soviet era, and on to the current day.

It would take considerable time to identify a truth and reality separated from rumour, partial truths, skewed analysis, political ideology, economic impacts, gas supplies, ethnic realities etc. Even with unlimited time it would likely still be unclear.

The leadership is dominated by a cold war ethos and memory- an octogenarian and a senior ex-KGB director. They create a narrative to support their own case, and neither (IMHO) is to be relied upon.

All rather sad for the average civilian who most likely wants security, food, education, medical care - basically a functioning society. The UK should stay well away from any involvement!

 

[Spectric]

If it goes pear shape then our energy crisis would be solved for a short duration as we would have plenty of thermal units to keep us very warm, all our hairdressers would be out of work because no one would have any hair, no one would be that worried about Covid any more and it might take the heat out of Borris's predicament !

 

[baldkev]

Also they have given up large parts of their "Empire" - much of which was gained incidentally in self defence during WW2.

Can you explain this to me?
From my limilted memory of the news in the late 80s/ early 99s, didnt boris yeltsin negotiate to give it back and dismantle the ussr?
Putin seems to want it back.....

And as far as gaining countries through self defence, not sure i understand that either. After all, the Russians were allies of germany and if fact i believe, joined in at the start invading poland. They just didnt realise the germans wanted russia to..... they sent the 8th on a rolling start even as ribbentropp promised the russians they were best buddies.

Its not widely reported in our history, but the Russians arguably had the worst time of all during the war ( china suffered badly at the hands of the japanese )

The Russians really suffered and i guess there was a reluctance to help them after poland and other countries they 'annexed' whilst definitely not in self defence

 

[Jameshow]

If it goes pear shape then our energy crisis would be solved for a short duration as we would have plenty of thermal units to keep us very warm, all our hairdressers would be out of work because no one would have any hair, no one would be that worried about Covid any more and it might take the heat out of Borris's predicament !

Think a new boy on here has built a bunker....do you think we would all fit and talk sharpening?!!

 

[selectortone]

Post WWII Europe was defined (or carved up if you want to be cynical) at the three conferences attended by Churchill, Roosevelt/Truman and Stalin at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam. Jacob's claim that the USSR satellite states were 'gained incidentally in self-defence' is stretching the facts a bit.

This is not to say the USSR didn't play a huge part in the outcome of WWII, arguably the pivotal part. You only have to look at the numbers Hitler lost on the Russian front, in men and materiel and the resources he had to withdraw from the Atlantic defences, to see that. The satellite states, along with puppet regimes in Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States and the other countries that vanished behind the Iron Curtain were Stalin's price.

 

[heimlaga]

Some 20 years ago the Finnish army got rid of the last coastal defence guns taken from the russians in 1918. They were fully operational and an integral part of the defence system right to the end. When they could no longer be maintained to high standards they were taken out of use.
The Finnish army still use sniper riffles with bolt mechanisms scavenged from first world war suplus Nagant riffles. The same riffles that the second world war was fought with.

Old military equipment doesn't necsessarily have to be obsolete or useless as long as it is well maintained and properly upgraded.
Could the problem be that the British navy are accustomed to be and sticking to practises from an era when it was a large navy with a huge budget and could order new ships often and did not need to bother with old stuff.
While small poor man's navies have routines for keeping vessels in fighting order for a long time and determining exactly when it is time to quit.

 

[Jacob]

Can you explain this to me?
From my limilted memory of the news in the late 80s/ early 99s, didnt boris yeltsin negotiate to give it back and dismantle the ussr?
[Putin seems to want it back.....

What East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania? I doubt it

And as far as gaining countries through self defence, not sure i understand that either.

Simple enough. The above were largely taken over in the process of repelling the Germans.

 

[Jacob]

Post WWII Europe was defined (or carved up if you want to be cynical) at the three conferences attended by Churchill, Roosevelt/Truman and Stalin at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam. Jacob's claim that the USSR satellite states were 'gained incidentally in self-defence' is stretching the facts a bit.

Rightly or wrongly, they were gained by agreement and negotiation because they were already there.

..... The satellite states, along with puppet regimes in Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States and the other countries that vanished behind the Iron Curtain were Stalin's price.

After the event yes, if you can call it "a price". The main Soviet issue was to repel the German invasion.

 

[Blackswanwood]

This thread definitely gets a prize for the over-simplification of history

 

[baldkev]

What East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania? I doubt itSimple enough. The above were largely taken over in the process of repelling the Germans.

Whats wrong with albania?
Putin would definitely want to regain the old ussr areas.... good as a buffer.

As for repelling the germans, that would have been whilst persuing the germans back to germany. The repelling bit was deep within russia, right to lenningrad.

 

[Jacob]

Whats wrong with albania?
Putin would definitely want to regain the old ussr areas.... good as a buffer.

As for repelling the germans, that would have been whilst persuing the germans back to germany. The repelling bit was deep within russia, right to lenningrad.

Would you have expected them to stop at their own borders and set up some sort of Maginot line? The Allies didn't - they went to Berlin too, and worldwide.

 

[selectortone]

Rightly or wrongly, they were gained by agreement and negotiation because they were already there. After the event yes, if you can call it "a price". The main Soviet issue was to repel the German invasion.

Hardly 'gained incidentally'. You make it sound like Uncle Joe's benevolent society for homeless countries.

 

[JobandKnock]

And they expect to be invaded from the west - Napoleon, Hitler, and an on-going general threat from USA.
Also they have given up large parts of their "Empire" - much of which was gained incidentally in self defence during WW2.

I'm sure that the many Poles, Czechoslovakians, Romanians, Latvians and Lithuanians I've worked alongside over a fair part of the last 20 years would regard the loss of freedom and human rights in their respective countries as being a necessary part of life to preserve the rights of the peace-loving USSR. After all didn't they regard it as a pleasure to have hosted the Russian military for half a century? No? Well there's a surprise. Russian "self-defence" was nothing more than a land grab. The oppressive regimes they forced onto many other countries were brutal and regressive.

To get an idea about what people from these buffer states think about Russia, and Putin, you really need to talk to the people from there. Many of the ones I worked with were far from positive about Russia, including some of the Ukranians we had on my last big job (I had daily dealings with another foreman who was Ukranian). It was from those guys that I learned about the Holodomor

 

[artie]

History is a strange animal with many faces.

A number of years ago I got acquainted with a Lithuanian guy in Krakow Poland.

He shook my hand and hugged me expressing his gratitude that we, in Ireland were no longer oppressed by the evil British and that he had sympathy because of his experience with the Russians.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

As the Germans retreated in 1944, the US and UK (mainly) advanced from the west and south (Italy). The Russians advanced from the east.

Although there were conferences amongst the allied leaders, they effectively endorsed the reality on the ground - after 6 years of war there was zero appetite for further hostilities, particularly between the victors, to carve up territory.

The USSR collapsed in 1991 due to ethnic, economic and political pressures. Eastern European states were only too happy to grasp the new democratic freedoms.

Neither the creation of the USSR, nor its dissolution, were the product of an enlightened Russian political plan - although Gorbachov may have lit the fuse.

I can, however, understand why Russia feels naked and threatened in the absence of a buffer previously provided by their satellite states. More enlightened attitudes probably await the retirement of Biden and Putin!

 

[Ozi]

This thread definitely gets a prize for the over-simplification of history

"In the beginning was the word"... there now put the prize back where it belongs

 

[Ozi]

"In the beginning was the word"... there now put the prize back where it belongs

Or the scientific version "Suddenly there was nothing - which exploded"