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Bit premature maybe, but with that latest amazing display at the Russian security meeting I'm fairly sure this is a lock.
Quote:
Then it gets astonishing.
Putin: speak clearly, do you support recognition?
Naryshkin: I will
Putin: You will or you do?
Naryshkin: I support bringing them into Russia.
Putin: That’s not what we are discussing! Do you support recognizing independence?
Naryshkin, flustered: Yes
I'd advise him to take a coat if he does indeed invade.
:D
Sad to say it but Putin's head has gone. Humiliating defeat incoming for the bear.
Has it fuck, he knows exactly what he's doing. Presumably this whole thing is a smokescreen for something else he's getting up to that he'd rather deflect attention from.
Investing with Mellion, no doubt.
Putin recognises Donbass and Luhansk as independent republics.
Now they'll say Ukrainians are oppressing them so Russia can step in as the defenders, not aggressors. Then they'll join Russia via referendum later on anyway because the regions are predominantly ethnic Russian. It's all a bit weird given Russia have gone to great lengths to stage the premise that we all know is bullshit.
Do you reckon we can get a TTH battalion set up once we've been conscripted?
It's Georgia all over again. Beat by beat.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
We'll be too rich to have to fight by then. :drool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
We can bribe our way out of it with all the coin Mellin nets us.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
The new fucking haxball :face:
Join us this time, Giggles.
I have no idea what’s going on and I make a point of never gambling.
But anyway, are we not going to get WW3?
War = market volatility.
Either Putin backs down or we're mega rich.
I thought Giggles meant war with Russia was the new Haxball. We have Pleb on our side, so that would have been terrible.
In the short-to-medium term they are much better placed to ride out any tit-for-tat sanctions warfare. Years into it Western depth would start to win, but they can live with twenty per cent inflation for a few years easier than we can. Not because they have lower debt, decent reserves, illicit Chinese assistance, etc. to soften the landing, but because our politics would blow itself to bits in the meantime.
What’s the actual reason Putin is doing this, Lewis?
Banter.
He strives for a Russian ethnostate nearly as much as Xi wants a Han ethnostate.
He doesn't want them joining/affiliating with NATO. Plus Russian ethnostate.Quote:
Originally Posted by 7om
What's your take on it really being more about EU than NATO?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
Which sounds sensible, doesn't it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
Why? It’s not the old excuse of having NATO on his doorstep, is it? Because he’s already got that with Latvia and Estonia.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
Ukraine has the largest military in Europe, apparently. I say apparently because the Wikipedia article seems to ignore Russia. :D
NATO would likely lead to EU membership, which is his real gripe. I don't know why we are so bothered, we hate the EU and we're swimming in Russian rubles.Quote:
Originally Posted by 7om
He's 5' 6" lads. There's the reason.
But apparently a black belt in fucking everything so although he couldn't touch me north of the nipples, he'd fuck me up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
Although that could easily be a lie too, who knows anymore.
He's nearly 70, any of us would pummel him.
Alright, you go first.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bernanke
The Baltic countries are an irrelevance in terms of population etc. Ukraine is a big country with a lot of people. You don't need that in the enemy camp on your border.Quote:
Originally Posted by 7om
As for the European Union, I don't really see it. They don't have a proper foreign policy or any military capabilities, and I can't imagine that they are genuinely worried about it being some sort of symbolic break with the East. That all sounds like people who talk shit for a living thinking that everybody else bases their lives around talking shit (excellent example of this on the BBC ticker just now, accusing Putin of asserting something 'without evidence').
It is sensible, and, seeing as it means more to them than it does to us, the mutually sensible thing to do would be to just agree to not let them join.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pepe
Lewis siding with a balding short arse. I never thought I'd see it.
It's not a case of siding with anyone. People have just got a bit high on their own farts these last thirty years in thinking that you can wank your way around threatening what another country - rightly or wrongly - considers its supreme interest without any consequences. How is this different from Turkey claiming a 'buffer zone' in Syria, or Kosovo breaking away with Western support? This could have all been avoided.
The 'peacekeeping' operations are apparently underway.
I'd love to know why we get involved in shit like this. I'm pretty sure it hasn't escaped Russia's notice that we have basically no armed forces left. We're sharing boats with the French ffs. What are we going to do to stop Russia doing whatever they want? Sanctions? Oh noes.
Just do the bare minimum that Nato membership requires and shut the fuck up.
All the mongs making Nazi Germany comparisons on Twitter is another how we got here example. Russia has its own rich history of this sort of behaviour, but none of them know anything about it, so none of them know anything about why they might be doing this beyond thinking that Putin is some sort of madman.
Traditions are important.
It makes a change from just fucking over Poland which is the normal Russian route to rebuilding the empire.
1,000 times this. They've not even invaded yet, but despite this Putin's got us running round in circles to determine whether we should remove Russia's access to Yorkshire Tea, French Fancies, or both.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spikey M
Does Macron not have the final say on French Fancies, or is it a faux ami? Or a 'false pal', as they say up north.
So we've "sanctioned" five banks and three people. That'll show 'em.
Why don't we just admit we're not that arsed about it?
:facepalm:
Top-tier diplomacy from the septics as always.
The Yanks want this war as much as anyone.
Even if we were, what could we do? The arned forces were under equipped during Iraq and Afghanistan under Labour, never mind the austerity policy that followed of sending all the Harrier pilots to stack shelves, mothballing multi million pound air craft carriers, and being seemingly desperate to pay off any career soldiers in favour of bringing in kids for peanuts. Russian planes and ships flying/sailing through our airspace/waters in the past is just them helicoptering their dong in our faces. They already own half the real estate here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben
I did see a hilarious post about how we should think about how getting Russian dark money out of London would affect house prices so maybe we need to calm down the rhetoric. Amazing stuff.
We could just admit we're going to let Putin get away with this much. Letting everyone think there's a possibility of a war that we will send British troops to the frontline in is reckless governance, all while they take bungs from Russian donors.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lofty
Pretty sure that's a parody account.Quote:
Originally Posted by phonics
I’ve just read through that Albanian Mafia story. It was before my time, so what was the deal with it? Did Wedge ever talk about it again?
I think Wedge got banned not long after for the good of his health. He was truly obsessed.