Pull out of Ukraine

@ArishMell Nice summation that misses the point. This war could have easily been prevented had the US and by extension NATO abided by the Minsk Accords. Sadly Russia was betrayed by the west and Ukraine which is world renowned for its corruption has been killing ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine. This is a senseless war that the US did its best to provoke and is now trying to blame Russia for its reaction to US provocation.

@hippyjoe1955 Whatever Ukraine's internal problems - and the EU has firmly told it to root out the corruption if it wants to join the EU - does not excuse Putin unilaterally invading the country for no benefit to anyone but Putin.

I do not accuse the USA for starting this war, despite her reputation; but would Russia worry about international accords? Or law? Evidently not.

@ArishMell Russia was roundly provoked to invade and in large part the invasion is more than justified. Similar to Britain invading Nazi Germany in WWII. Ukraine is slaughtering civilians and someone has to stop them. Obvious the 'virtuous' west is not going to do anything. Pity the poor ethnic Russians living in Ukraine.

@hippyjoe1955 Ukraine was not "slaughtering" Russians gratuitously just for being Russian as you imply, but has had continual fighting with pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow. This sort of war though, provoked entirely by Putin wanting Ukraine to cease to exist, can exacerbate any tensions that may have existed previously. Putin would know and exploit that.

It is hard to know exactly what Vladimir Putin really wants because he has never said anything that does not fit his own propaganda. He still insists it is a "special military operation", he has systematically and ruthlessly crushed any questioning or opposition, and he has convinced perhaps most Russians to believe his lie that they are heroically fighting a country that threatened them!

He certainly miscalculated. He apparently thought the Ukrainians would welcome his massive Army convoy driving into Kyiv and seizing power from the alleged "Nazis" - and their Jewish president. That failed, so he turned simply to an ages-old Russian tactic of brutality and destruction. If he genuinely wanted to seize the nation's land, assets and homes, why has he ordered his forces to destroy them, and to treat the citizens with utter cruelty and contempt? Putin has no humanity or morality, and neither does his sidekick the Patriarch Kirril, who thinks the "operation" a crusade or jihad; but his acts make no political or strategic sense.

Ukraine may have its dark sides, possibly, but they still do not excuse being invaded by ex-KGB Liaison Officer Putin's campaign. Only days, remember, after Putin was still telling the world he was not going to invade anyone, and his soldiers that they were on a large-scale exercise. We know the latter partly from intercepted telephone calls made by bewildered, ill-fed, unwilling young conscripts to their families.

The results so far?

Huge numbers of Ukrainians and Russians fleeing their respective countries.
Many Ukrainians taken by the Russians to economically depressed towns in remote regions like the far East of Russia.
Ukrainian cities, utilities and homes deliberately destroyed by Putin's men for no purpose beyond un-inhabitability.
The development of a mercenary force - the Wagner Group - that Putin and his High Command would do well for their own sakes, to keep under very close scrutiny. A group so desperate for men it is now taking convicts and putting them in the front line with only the barest of training.
Sweden and Finland moving from near-neutrality although participating in NATO exercises, to seeking joining NATO.
Heavy financial and international co-operation costs to Russia.
Heavy death-tolls to Russians as well as Ukrainians.
Enormous international problems, not least food shortages in many countries that relied on Ukrainian crops.
Strange bed-fellows like Iran supplying military drones to Russia, whom you'd think they would despise for being Godless kafirs who had tried to subjugate a Muslim country (Afghanistan). Though Iran and Afghanistan are remarkably quiet about what China is doing to her own Muslims. Alliances of convenience rather than friendship and shared cultures?

@ArishMell According to people who lived there yes Ukraine was slaughtering civilian Ukrainians of Russian descent. Kind of ethnic cleansing by the Banderists AKA the Azov AKA Nazis. Sadly the west is not very virtuous and does not report on the atrocities of those who we deem to be our allies.

@ArishMell Oh an one other thing not reported in the west is the massive death toll suffered by the Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian deaths are somewhere between 8 times higher to 15 times higher than the Russian deaths. Both sides are suffering loses but Ukraine is being decimated and none of us should take joy in that. In the mean time Russia's economy is ticking along while Germany, thanks to the US blowing up the Nord Streams is suffering huge economic losses. Such a stupid and pointless war. The time for peace was back when Obama was president. He should have called off the CIA and told them to leave Ukraine. However had he done that, he could never have bought his mansion in Martha's Vineyard. The US political class is utterly corrupt but then again so is most of the political class in the west including Britain and Canada.

@hippyjoe1955 Throwing wild accusations about won't help, but it is difficult knowing Ukrainian losses - they seem willing to count the number of Russian soldiers killed but not their own. The other way round of course with Russia, but there is an old saying that truth is the first casualty of war, and admitting one's own losses would always be wrong.

Oh yes, Ukraine and Russia are both suffering huge losses but President Putin cares no more for his own troops than he does for the Ukrainian civilians - all he wants is to destroy the country.

Russia has also lost thousands of good people she cannot afford to lose - one who have escaped to avoid being called up to fight in a war against a nation that was never a threat to them. Putin does not stop them, he simply hurls insults at them.

One of the saddest aspects of the war is that is placed members of families on different sides, by living in the two countries. Ukrainians or Russians living in Ukraine have told how their relatives in Russia refuse to believe President Putin has been lying to them all along; and his "special military operation" is an invasion by a cruel and ruthless army.

What he then plans is anyone's guess, because he has not published it, but it would not surprise me if he simply wants it for the farmland and mines (if any are left, and operated by Russians) and the Crimean port of Sevastopol; and those as no more than a region of Russia, perhaps under a new, Russian-language name.

If he succeeds? Oh, almost certainly Putin would seize Moldova where he is already fomenting pro-Moscow separatists, and Georgia; and he might well have his sights on countries like Tajikistan. (I think that is an oil and gas producer.) All anyone knows is that he resents the loss of the USSR empire, so I think although Putin must know he cannot take Poland, Hungary, Germany and the Baltic States back he can and quite likely would try to grab the far weaker and more remote countries.

He would be unlikely to try to take Afghanistan - from previous experience but also possibly to avoid upsetting China, which is making friendly noises to the Taliban and seems to be developing sizeable towns on its side of their short border in far Western Tibet.*


The US blew up the gas pipeline? Please send you accusation and your evidence to the UN. No-one yet knows who did that though the German police seem to have suspicions; but suspicion is no more proof than a grabbed-at accusation repeated in an internet chat-group. In any case what possible use would the act be to the USA?

+++++

*These towns lie on a arid plain, and are supported by their own farms.. All are irrigated by short melt-water streams from the adjacent mountains so with a natural limit, but occasional Google Earth "flights" reveal more buildings and other changes each time. Some are in odd places and it is hard to determine their purpose; but why are these towns here anyway, in such a remote, dry spot? The area is served by a major dual-carriageway road (why so large?) that ends abruptly - beyond is just dirt tracks - but may become extended in time to reach new settlements. While Russia is land-grabbing in Eastern Europe, we all know China wants to take over Taiwan but what is she doing next to Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan? These all border China-grabbed Tibet within a very short distance, along a mountain ridge. There are no roads or railway over these mountains but that does not mean they cannot be built, perhaps in tunnels.

@ArishMell Being willfully blind is not helping your arguments at all. Maybe you missed Biden saying the US was going to blow up the pipelines.

@hippyjoe1955 I am not "wilfully" blind but if Biden actually did say that, why would he do so? In any case, would you really say he'd do so, publicly? If he had we'd all have known immediately it was the Americans - or people hired by them - who did it.

@ArishMell Yes you are. You can't imagine the west blowing up pipelines therefore the US did not blow up the pipelines. Everyone else on the planet knows that they did. Biden even said they would. His was a promise and not a threat.

@hippyjoe1955 Really? Did he say he would, or admit he had, publicly? If so there would have been an outcry everywhere; but anyway what possible strategic advantage could there have been to the USA? Even thinking it would increase exports of LNG from America does not stand up logic.

A phrase like "everyone else knows" means nothing, only states it is what you want others to believe.

I do not know who blew up that pipe, and so far nor does anyone else, not publicly anyway; so I am keeping an open mind, not blind belief. For it was a strange act of no clear use or advantage to anyone; not Russia (who anyway would only need close the valves but was still trying to sell the gas to Europe); not even America despite its reputation for shoot-first-ask-later clumsiness.
..

@ArishMell He said it very publically. It was a threat to Putin that if Putin invaded Ukraine the pipelines would be gone.

@ArishMell
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/07/ukraine-russia-scholz-biden-macron/

@ArishMell All very true! So many short-sighted people !

@hippyjoe1955 @fanuc2013 Thankyou for that reference.

Interesting article, not least for it having been published [i]before[/i] the invasion. I read it carefully, and admit President Biden's comment looks like a veiled threat; but whatever he really meant, he did not explicitly say he would have the pipeline sabotaged.

So we still have no proof that it was blown up by Americans under US Government orders; and anyway why would they? It would have been a severe move against Western Europe, less so to Russia as she would find other customers and trade routes; and particularly of [i]no[/i] advantage to America.

One might suggest American exporters of Liquified Natural Gas would have benefited, for a while at least; but that would have been far outweighed by the potential diplomatic and economic costs to the USA as a whole.

'
The assessed casualties from the invasion feared at the time, and quoted in the [i]Washington Post[/i] , have so tragically but unsurprisingly proven well under what has happened so far. Perhaps the assessors thought nearly as Putin did, that the Russian army would simply drive straight to Kyiv and seize power, though with more fighting than Putin had envisaged.

You may recall the first Russian troops who entered Ukraine had been told the residents would welcome them, and many seemed genuinely surprised that they were not - beyond very early, some taking pity on the young, very hungry, ill-trained conscripts and giving them food. That soon stopped....


As well as the huge death-tolls on both sides' armies - including Russian convicts taken from prison and thrown into battle with very little training and no regard for law by the Wagner Group - there have been significant civilian deaths. Ukraine has also lost millions as refugees, or by being taken basically prisoners by Russia (it seems Russia has been abducting Ukrainian children in large numbers). Russia in turn has lost many tens or hundreds of thousands fleeing to avoid being conscripted.

The UK's military intelligence analysts have examined where the burden has been heaviest on Russia. They found what has been reported as the "elite" in Moscow and St. Petersburg have largely escaped. The losses have mainly been from Eastern Russia, with ethnic minorities disproportionately among them.


Wars are terrible things, and we can only all hope for peace and for Ukraine to be able to rebuild herself (needing considerable international help); but no-one is helped by equating[i] suspicion[/i] based on personal interpretations of enigmatic statements, with [i]proof[/i].

Maybe American special forces - or mercenaries - did blow up that gas-pipe; on White House or Pentagon orders or not. Maybe they did not. Whoever did it, and whoever ordered it, are hardly likely to boast about it. [i]Some[/i] of the intelligence services of all countries involved or watching from the sidelines [i]might[/i] know but understandably keep quiet for their good reasons.

Quite simply, [i] we (general public) do not know[/i]!

@ArishMell We the general public don't know only because we choose not to know. The facts of the matter is blowing up the pipelines would take highly trained specialists in both deep water diving and explosives placement. Those pipes are built like the proverbial brick outhouse. Very thick steel wrapped in thick concrete. Most navies in the world would be hard pressed to do that. Certainly not a non existent Ukrainian navy. It was the US that did it although it might have had the help of Norway. One of the big mistakes you have is you humanize the US government which at the moment is hell bent on destruction. It doesn't care about the environment or western Europe or Germany or eastern Europe and Ukraine. It has the single focus of destroying Russia. BTW do you know who the violators of international law are? It is not Russia. Russia signed good faith pacts called the Minsk Accords. They were ratified by the UN Security Council. The US, UK, France, Germany (NATO) signed the accords but did not sign in good faith. Macron, Johnston, etc all later said that the accords were only signed to delay the war so they could arm Ukraine. Sadly Ukraine is rife with Nazis who were killing ethnic Russians who were born and raised and raised in Ukraine. You can find videos of the civilians of Ukraine expressing outrage at the damage done to their city BY UKRAINE! The US is not the benevolent force we were always told it was. It has become a force for evil and not for good. Ditto the UK who just passed legislation dictating what you can think. What the H**L kind of democracy does that? The Nazis of Germany in 1942 were not that bad that they wanted to control your thinking.

@hippyjoe1955 So you think Putin right and Biden wrong? You think the American and Norwegian navies the only ones capable of underwater demolition?

I do not have much time for the US and I know it has spent much of the last fifty-odd years trying to run the world, but I avoid taking sides in her febrile politics and I don't jump to conclusions about any country just because I don't like its government.

Even if Ukraine does have some rather nasty people in it, it is for Ukrainians to sort themselves out (the EU has told them to do that if they want to join the EU) NOT Vladimir Putin and his thugs. [i]They[/i] are the neo-Nazis with neo-Nazi imperialist aims, not the Ukrainians on their own land.

If some of the Ukrainians have committed war-crimes, as is suspected; they will need be dealt with and those proper bodies responsible for investigating are doing that, but the central points remain:

- Russia was totally wrong and broke all international laws to invade Ukraine with the intention already clear, of destroying it.

- No-one has yet been proven to have broken the pipeline - that people "choose" not to know is a sweeping generalising, and is NOT "proof". I suppose it might be true among Americans as they are not affected and many of them are very isolationist, though. If anyone does choose to know, it is certainly the citizens of Germany and other countries who had relied on it. Germany was still buying Russian gas but working hard to find alternatives; and probably ruing having decided against nuclear power in panic after the Fukushima tsunami incident.

Essentially you allege an act of treachery by the USA against her NATO, UN and trading allies, so please give your evident inside knowledge and supporting evidence to NATO, UN and the governments of Europe.

Though [i]IF [/i]you are right, there will be Hell to pay...

''''''

...As for this:

[quote]the UK who just passed legislation dictating what you can think.[/quote]

Don't write such utter rubbish. I live here so I do know. You don't.

@ArishMell The facts are not on your side. The US and NATO are in contravention of international law AKA the Minsk Accords which Russia signed in good faith while NATO signed in bad faith having no intention of living by the accords even though they were ratified by the UN Security Council. Had the Minsk Accords been adhered to there would be no war in Ukraine.

@hippyjoe1955 You mean the Minsk Accords allow Russia just to drive tanks into its neighbours, unchallenged? Why do you keep blaming the USA for what[i] Putin[/i], who is not interested in Accords that don't accord with his wants, started?

I'm beginning to wonder if you are in Canada or Russia!

@ArishMell Go find out what the Minsk Accords really say and get back to me. No they do not allow Russia to invade Ukraine but they also do not allow Ukraine to kill ethnic Russians living in Ukraine. They also do not allow NATO to become involved in Ukraine. Sadly Ukraine and its Allies abandoned the accord long before Russia invaded.

@hippyjoe1955 I did find out....

It is clear that basically Russia was determined to take Ukraine all along, arming its separatists in the SE of the country; invading Ukrainian territory by seizing Crimea in [i]2014[/i] and connecting that to Russian land by building road and rail bridges across the Kerch Straits.

(The deporting of Ukrainian children to Russia, for which Putin and his "Children's Commissioner" have both now been charged by the I.C.C, started around that time. Estimates of numbers vary widely, from under 20 000 to well over 200 000; but if I heard correctly, a Ukrainian official interviewed by the BBC today thinks somewhere around 60 000. Even if I misheard - I was driving at the time - and she had said sixteen not sixty thousand, it would still be a horrible crime.)

The Minsk Agreement was supposed to stop Ukrainians and Russians killing each other and maintain a sort of uneasy conflict-border that made me think of the two Koreas. I don't deny there were bad on both sides; but it did not attempt to address the real problem, which is Russia's territorial ambitions. At "best" the Agreement merely tried to bring peace by recognising the Russian Federation's take-over of SE Ukraine.

In any case, would anyone seriously expect Russia to have stopped there? Or to stop with Ukraine?

Further, if President Putin genuinely wants to absorb Ukraine into Russia in a functioning condition, why has he ordered his regular and mercenary forces to be so wantonly destructive and brutal, even making civilians their main target? It reminds us of the 'Three-Alls' tactics of Japan's invasion of China that was the real start of WW2 in 1937: Kill all, Loot All, Destroy All.


Note that NATO's involvement is limited to supplying weapons and training, and the latter back in the trainers' countries; not foreign troops fighting alongside Ukrainians (apart from a few, unofficial mercenaries off their own bat).

Nor can Ukraine join NATO, certainly not at the moment. NATO's own rules forbid a country from joining while embroiled in a war. Sweden and Finland can join, because they are not fighting.

@ArishMell NATO is the reason Ukraine is losing. NATO is not the nice guys in this conflict. The Minsk accords - look up the Minsk Accords.

@hippyjoe1955 I did look up the Minsk Accords: it was to stop fighting between Russia and Ukraine, which was all as they should have done; but seem very much to favour Russia taking over Ukraine anyway.

NATO was not involved in creating them!

Sometimes I wonder if you are pro_Russia in this......

@ArishMell NATO countries were all signatories to the accords. They then reneged on the said accords. The accords as written precluded Russia from invading Ukraine and Ukraine from denying human rights to ethnic Russians who have for centuries also lived in Ukraine. The NATO member countries signed in bad faith and had no intention of abiding by the accords when they were signed. That is why Ukraine is about to be annihilated as a country. The Russians can no longer trust the nations who went back on their word even though the accords became international law. The problem is the US and the west which includes the UK. The war crimes (blowing up the pipelines feeding western Europe) were committed by the US.

@hippyjoe1955 So you imply that Putin is entirely trustworthy and indeed the victim in all this?

You allege that the USA, UK, Canada, Germany, France etc. started the war against Ukraine; making Vladimir Putin their proxy in ordering the Russian Federal Army to attack the country after its massive build up on the border?

So NATO effectively sided with Putin who wants to destroy Ukraine; but now sides with Ukraine trying to protect itself from Putin?

Is that what you mean?


You allege with no real evidence that President Biden's Government of the United States of America ordered the US Navy to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline, possibly (you think, with no evidence) with Norwegian help; in a covert operation uncharacteristic of the US military?

So the USA committed an act of treachery for her own ends against her own allies, one likely to harm them more than Russia?

Is that what you mean?