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I was thinking about this question last night. I´ll answer with what I came up. I´m still collecting my thoughts, but this is what I believe it happened. Putin is a predator. He smelled blood on a wounded prey and decided it was safe to attack. I mean, the West can´t reallly hurt him in any meaningful way. An exhausted United States ,from costly and bloody interventions in Middle East is not going to deploy boots on the ground to aid the ukrainians. In Europe, Germany the main EU power, refuses to spend the NATO minimum of 2% in defence. Another good question would be: what difference it makes for Russia if Ukraine joins NATO and the EU? I mean, Poland and the Baltic countries have already joined. I´d say Ukraine is different, for historical and ideological reasons. Russians believe it to be part of Russia. The origins of what is now Russia begin with the Kiev Rus. A democratic Ukraine in contrast to an authoritharian Russia would become a source of instability for Putin´s regime, as young russians would look up to Ukraine as a model to be followed. Much like a communist Cuba attracted thousands of young latin americans during the Cold War, as it from the outside at least, Fidel Castro´s regime appeared to contrast with the corrupt and violent regimes backed by the United States.

I am safe in the UK mate, I am just watching the proceedings in Kyiv online on my laptop. It is just terrible what is going on there. Especially as regards to the civilians who have been killed.

- Install a puppet regime in Ukraine to access those valuable gas pipelines, short term - Dictate European security for long term No invasion in recent history has achieved everything intended by who launched the attack, Putin would be no exception.

Little known fact. Finland likely won WW2 for the allies with their stoic defense of their nation, as that fucking imbecile Churchill wanted to fight Germany and Russia at the same time via a Sweden landing. Finland fighting russia to a standstill prevented this (obviously disastrous) plan.

I still feel for you and your country, being an ex army man and have been on tours of duty, bombs & bullets are not nice to be around, this is a wicked old world we live in regarding conflicts nowadays.

Apparently only a case of dust getting kicked up. Very disappointing. I thought the "Putin's invading Ukraine because of gender-neutral toilets" head bangers were limited to Twitter but the odd one always finds their way here every so often. The far left and far/alt right have embarrassed themselves over this at every turn. Both as bad as each other in their desperation to hold a different line to the normal majority.

Spoiler, they dont.

My girls turned 1 yesterday. My gosh where did the time go? We also found out through DNA testing if they actually are identical or fraternal.

Right on cue, here comes the "America did this too" angle. I'm not arguing with you but this is a thread about Russia and Ukraine so I won't get sucked into it. I don't think anyone defends the war crimes committed by the West either, but there are countless cans of worms you can open. Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction. Selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Etc. It just draws everyone away from the discussion about what's happening now and what this thread is about. If you want to talk about all that stuff then feel free, but use the Middle East thread for it, or whichever one is relevant. I don't see how you can have any actual rational problem with me or anyone posting reports on what's potentially about to happen from reliable sources. I've already addressed, in good faith, your point about trustworthy reporting and people misrepresenting the war by explaining where I got it from so park all this "bro" nonsense. It sounds like you're trying to make out it's coming from some dark corner of Reddit that I've found after a couple spliffs or something. The whole raison d'etre of Bellingcat is exactly because of the rise in disinformation driven by Russian bots and other nefarious actors and propagandists on the Internet. If you choose to believe that you know more than me about the reliability of this organisation that I think you're admitting you've never heard of, then be my guest. As for the "I'll cry about it when it happens" comment, if you've got a problem with people posting about stuff before it's happened then I suppose we best get onto the staff and get all of those prediction leagues and transfer rumours forums shut down. Maybe you're upset that other people are posting stuff which is "misrepresenting the war" but the actual leader of Ukraine seems to be expecting something pretty much along those lines himself: Or does this count as another "mad source bro" misrepresentation too? For the record, I'll happily see all of these sources be proven wrong and look completely stupid for arguing with you if it means less civilian deaths, that should go without saying.

Sorry, did you want me to actually clarify the "if they do this" part? I'd have thought that, even around here, we could all scrape together enough brain cells to figure out that part was implied. Obviously I'm not saying it's already a war crime before they've done it. They have already bombed hospitals and orphanages so it's not exactly hard to believe. But fine, if this one doesn't end up happening, then you can strike it off the list for all the difference it will make. Forgive me if I trust the verified accounts of foreign correspondents working for reputable news outlets over the IAmVeryClever hot takes from the modestly informed everyman shitposters on this football forum (and don't be offended because I include myself in that). Most of these intelligence reports have come true despite armchair experts on the internet convincing themselves that it's all scare mongering. This particular source appeared on my feed as it was retweeted by Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat which is an organisation that spends its entire time debunking false reports of this, that and the other on social media, using some mental open source research tools that I don't fully understand but have always led to reliable conclusions in the past. But back to the point I was making, to summarise simply, firing indiscriminately on Kyiv with even more lethal weaponry with no regard for civilians is bad, in my opinion. And if Russia do it, that will be bad. Hopefully we can find some common ground in there.

Interesting thread offering a sliver of optimism. Not the first I've seen either. For all the horror, which shouldn't be downplayed, it's worth acknowledging that Putin isn't having things entirely his own way here. Even if he manages to install a puppet leader in Kyiv, there are doubts over whether he can subjugate a sovereign nation of 40 million people.

Sviatislav Yurash a Ukrainian politician marches towards the front-line of the conflict in northern Kyiv with his AK-47. Could you imagine any of our many current politicians if such a war was ever to break out in the UK? BJ and Company would be fleeing to their country houses or flying overseas with their private transport.

I am more interested to see him leap-frog some Liverpool legends pretty soon - https://www.transfermarkt.co.in/fc-liverpool/topTorschuetzen/verein/31 And just to add to that look at where Sadio and more importantly Bobby is.

I actually agree in many ways. I don't have anything against most of the Russian people, but we need to get rid of the Putin regime. I know Ukraine isn't a NATO country, but we should be helping to defend Ukraine with our Western forces. The war would start to go in our favour quite rapidly if we were to do this. However, the one hurdle is the fact that Russia has nukes and if he uses them as he probably would if we intervened, then that could spell disaster for humanity. At the very minimum, we should be supplying Ukraine with our best military technology, we should give them all that they need in terms of weapons, so that they can defend their country with success. Right now, they are short on a lot of advanced weapons, military vehicles and jets. As it stands, sadly the Ukrainians are the sacrificial lamb caught between Western and Russian politics. The Ukrainians are outnumbered and they do not have the military technology as well as the strength, that the Russians have. If they were better equipped, they would be in a much better position to successfully repel the Russians.

Russia can fuck off with these threats they are throwing out left, right and centre. The whole worlds army’s should just go to Russia and batter them all.

This video might already be a bit dated as it's just before it looked like a real possibility that Russia would invade Ukraine but it adds a little bit of context.

Haha. Well we found out they are indeed identical. Even though we can see some differences and the fact the pregnancy they had separate everything. Apparently only a small percentage of identical twins have separate placentas etc! Learn something new all the time.

He might love changing his screen name a lot but he can't change his bearded face

Putin dreams of this when he was in the KGB, not Russia but the USSR as it was.

Happy Birthday he man @Spike SPIKE

Both

I hope this is a parody account because this is genuinely one of the biggest, steaming piles of absolute shite I've seen posted on this forum and that really is saying something. Andrew Windsor served in the military. If it made him a better person and gave him discipline I dread to think how he would have turned out without it. Or is it "woke" to condemn him for befriending the leaders of a paedophile and sex trafficking ring and almost certainly fiddle with underage girls himself?

the power rests in corporates that own politicians, until that is address small and medium business will never thrive

Germany and Italy having reluctance to cut Russia from SWIFT is disappointing. I hope they’ve got an alternative way of responding strongly to this that is serious yet not serious enough to escalate tensions and drag more countries into conflict.

The only time a NATO member was attacked was in 60s when India took Goa from Portugal through force but NATO didn't got involved. Although I think that was different, it was a period of decolonisation and everyone including NATO was against Portugal clinging on it's colonies

I'm nOt QUiTe sUre PutIn BaNkeD on THis!!!! People in his diverse nation of millions having a negative opinion on an invasion of a neighbor?

They think Putin didn't expect there would be anti war support from a nation of 150 million people? Todays society is odd. Everyone just sees things so black and white.

This. By all accounts, Putin doesn't care about the economy and the oligarchs that face sanctions by the West are still much better off on his side than putting pressure on him to get their sanctions lifted. I'd love to be wrong but if Putin gets away with this it probably marks the end of the West being able to cow the less liberal and democratic superpowers. If we're being honest, Russia and China can pretty much walk all over the US and Europe now. To believe that we have any power to tell them to back off or else is now a pretence. Just got to hope Putin doesn't go on to test the waters with the NATO countries on his doorstep because then it either will be WW3 or there will be no military response which will be an acceptance of effective powerlessness from the Western nations.

Still one of my favorites from him.

Bin's trippin' - 9GAG

Thank you both Yeah, I've been in contact with them for almost a week now, and agreed to give it ago. We'll see how it goes. I think there's a growing demand for astrophotography images at the moment, so it would be pretty neat if it pays for a few beers every month, haha. @Viva la FCB here are some of my favourites (highly compressed as the original ones are 25MB+, so don't mind the quality)

I've been watching the Kyiv livecams and those of other cities as well. You could hear many explosions and artillery fire in Kyiv today. Sad times as things are really intensifying.

Just watched a live webcam from Kyiv. Everything was quiet and peaceful. And then suddenly you could hear 5-6 really loud bangs and the sirens started going. Gut-wrenching and surreal.

How to make friends...

As in the article Cicero posted, it was indeed announced earlier today, that all Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are not allowed to leave Ukraine. So they are essentially forced to stay in Ukraine amid all the bombings and attacks taking place. It is also noteworthy to mention that it is almost impossible to get a train or even a bus to Western Ukraine and the Polish, Slovak and Hungarian borders. The trains and busses are limited and we have to remember that Ukraine is a country of 44 million people, which is a lot of people.

https://starecat.com/we-need-air-support-youre-doing-great-war-military/ This meme sums up the situation in Ukraine right now.

The sirens in Kyiv went off about 20 minutes ago and now I can literally hear the sound of artillery from the Kyiv livecams I am watching. This is a really sad time in our history.

The Russian forces are in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and the fighting is more intense. Civilian buildings have sadly also been hit by the Russians.

peddle up more covid to distract people from what may escalate to war. no more social distancing mandates, mandatory conscription is needed. some people need the military to beat them into the straight and narrow.

I suppose Russell will like Bill Maher get labelled a far right winger now because if you don't agree with the cultural hedonists destroying western society you are labelled alt right. China and Russia know the west no longer holds itself to its founding values and at war with itself. I don't believe NATO have the ability to go to war. time to send in the Whamen and them/theys

Kadyrov will coordinate the Chechen forces about to enter Kiev. Expect war crimes with these guys around