I Wonder If Mad Vlad Thought He'd Be Helping N A T O?

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-61404062
Finland to join ASAP and Sweden probably not far behind, oh dear Vlad, not going as planned is it.

[ichkeria]

"Apparently the Russians are refusing to reclaim many of their dead soldiers! "

It's true, and quite shocking.
Ukraine has been freezing many but I am not sure how many freezers they have.

[Ken4155]

Ich, just shows that Putin cares very little (or nothing at all) about the young men he has sent there to fight his war. Sad, very sad.

[davebro]

I think the Russian hierarchy generally & historically has very little regard for the life & death of individuals.

[ToraToraTora]

ken 11:10 is that on You Tube, I don't want to create an account.

[Peter Pedant]

//If he invades Finland, which has one of the largest and best armies in Europe (possibly the largest and best),//
yes Beeb yesterday
to a general - There are 5m Finns, ( Ja etc)
and you have a large army - ja the largest in Europe
Beeb hack - "well dat a larda people!"
Finland wanted to join NATO as soon as - tomorrow

a few points arising
Lenin deported his unwanted intellectuals ( Times today) whereas Stalin put them in their own gulag ( and the whole lot killed) - and the same is happening today.

Kravchuk obit is also in the Times - the northern countries negotiated return of their russian minorities. K did not hence Luhansk - BUT perhaps the northern ones were happy and the Ukrainian minority wasnt

( Kravchuk also denuclearated Ukraine)

[Peter Pedant]

// Ukraine has been freezing many //
so many - they are burying them in dumps
photo yesterday of volunteers doing it
after running a mine detector over them to make sure they dont explode

[Paigntonian]

Worked in the Soviet Union for a while. It may sound daft but am firmly of the belief that Russians think differently to people in Western nations. Their thought processes are wired in a different way, perhaps for historical and/or cultural reasons. An example would be the reports of mass rape by Russian troops in Ukraine. It is difficult to imagine British troops doing the same.

[ichkeria]

Quite.

Our friend Sashka’s regiment has been posted to Donetsk….
Prayer mats out …

[Ken4155]

TTT. no i took it from Channel 4's website. I do have an account with them.

[sandra4444]

Its pretty obvious to me that the only slight chance of Putin toning down this war is when he's taken and controlling all the sea ports, mainly Odessa.

If he manages to do this then he will strangle the Ukrainian economy, the latter is already in operation with the blockade.
Not only creating big problems for Ukraine, but he will delight in seeing other countries starve to death that rely on wheat for Ukraine.

Food supply shortage in war time can hit harder than any bombs. I believe this is his main goal now.

[Khandro]

Satnavs have been found taped to the dashboards of crashed fighter planes & the captured tanks are using maps from the 1980s,
The unbelievable hubris that one man with no military background or training other than that of an ex-KGB mafia thug, could launch a full scale war with clapped out weapons & a bunch of self-serving generals with little chain of command between them & the troops is both incredible & alarming.

[ichkeria]

I have not read the Kravchuk obit yet peter, but what happened in Dontsk and Luhansk in 2014 can be put down to two basic things: Russian agitation and maniulation, and regional differences and tensions caused after 2004. The Orange revolution then was a classic example of "too fast too far": Yushchenko was a good man, but not a very savvy politican, and he alienated many with his understandable desire for rapid reform. This was how, extraordinarily, the disgrace Yanukovich was able to garner enough support to win the presidency subsequently, largely fairly. But he, in turn, alienated the folk in Kyiv, as he was seen to favour the east unfairly (not wholly unlike, actually, the wat people in the south of GB have been muttering about BJ favouring the "north" and neglecting them.

[Togo]

This may be what you are after TTT. Perhaps Ken can verify it.

[Togo]

Ahh wont let me post it. Age restricted and only watchable on ytube itself. They will not let a direct link go.

Here is the url you will need to add https:// to it without a space.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ua1Ko6VGww

[Old_Geezer]

Must be going as planned. Nearby nations, who are able to think rationally, could not have concluded any other reaction to Putin's aggression would be better. Inevitable consequence.

[naomi24]

//The Russian statement (in Russian) described Finland's move as "a radical change in the country's foreign policy".

"Finland's accession to Nato will cause serious damage to bilateral Russian-Finnish relations and the maintaining of stability and security in the Northern European region," it said.

"Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to neutralise the threats to its national security that arise from this."

However, Moscow has not specified what steps it plans to take.//

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61420185

[Khandro]

The former Finnish PM gives a pretty robust response to Vlad's threats here.
https://www.dw.com/en/finlands-nato-accession-bid-better-late-than-never-former-pm-alexander-stubb/a-61776283?maca=en-newsletter_en_bulletin-2097-xml-newsletter&r=5726615913521878&lid=2151378&;pm_ln=147374

[jno]

a case of seriously unintended consequences - I assume keeping Nato at bay was one of the original ideas behind the invasion; now the exact opposite may happen.

[Ken4155]

The guy in my clip is the former head of policy at NATO and what he says is that, by invading Ukraine, Putin is actually creating that which he fears. More NATO members right on his doorstep.

[ichkeria]

Russia has threatened to cut the gas off from Finland

Their war on Ukraine of course was nothing to do with fear of Nato: that was just an excuse.