Ukraine

The Russians were sailing warships through the English Channel earlier in the week, just because they can.

I think we should just add the cost of energy bail out to the bill for supporting Ukraine, I think its at 30 billion last time I heard, so another 150 billion added to that is all part of the cost.

Yes the UN should be doing more, but as usual its sitting on its arse talking.

I get the feeling this war could end up costing us more than any of the others we have actively been involved in.

 

Sterling is very weak, especially against the USD. £1 will get you $1.15, you have go back as far as Feb 1985 when £1 got you $1.15. Any trading that the UK does outside the UK and EU, will be in USD, with a weak pound, all imported goods and ocean freight make them considerably more expensive to the UK consumer.

 

So our media tells us. That would be the same media that portrayed Ukraine as a nation of right wing neo natzis a few years ago, the same media that focused on their violent overthrow of their elected leader who had to flee for his life. The same media that reported on Ukraine being a nation of peace loving saints after they replaced their violently overthrown leader with someone who was closer aligned to the EU.

Don't get me wrong (I know somebody will quote me out of context later), I'm absolutely not a fan of Putin, and I genuinely believe that by far the huge majority of Ukrainian people are genuinely nice people. My point is we are only being spoon fed one side of the story, as is usually the case.

The facts remain. It was the west that cut off negotiations with Russia, a nation we used to collaborate with on trade, science, and occasionally even military conflict. NATO nations constantly involve themselves in the affairs of other nations, far more so than either Russia or China, or probably both combined. The stock market is typically measured by the performance of the US, never Russia, and only ever China if the focus is 'emerging markets', which kind of indicates that those with influence have a vested interest in keeping the US at the top of the tree. And while I know Russia has always tested our military reactions with regular unannounced visits to our airspace and waters, that same media that tells us how evil Russia is hasn't reported anything I've seen to suggest that Russia has been constantly inching missile systems closer and closer to our territory.

To be clear where I stand on this, I believe there is no excuse whatsoever for Russia to invade it's neighbours. I believe there is never a valid reason for any nation to invade any other. And seeing as Russia did it anyway, I believe they need to be met with force and pushed back. But in the words of Winston Churchill, it's better to jaw jaw than it is to war war. We've basically reinforced Putin's belief that he's done the right thing. Isolating Russia just sends the message that we don't want peace. How can we want peace when we're sending weapons, imposing sanctions, and flatly refusing to talk? What other interpretation is there?

 

Had we not already isolated Russia by expanding NATO
Did the speed of expanding NATO, inadvertently "poke the bear"

 

I don't think so. Possibly, maybe.

If I was Putin, I think I'd be less worried about the expansion of an alliance designed to keep the peace than I would be about an alliance that in the last few decades has invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. The latter openly acknowledged as an attempt at forceful regime change.

 

This current energy issue is not solely because of the war. It is a culmination of the years of stifling independence through climate change/the sky is falling dialogue panicking people, like my Prime minister and his environmental minister (Gibault-former Green Peace activist) allowing self destructive dialogue to be shouted from every roof top.

The Thunbergs and Gores of this world shut down things like our LNG pipeline which if it had been put in place, would have provided a non stop supply of gas and oil to Europe and the UK.

The war led by the climate henny-pennys got us where we are now.

Yes, we have to be good caretakers of this earth but no, we were stupid to crown pollutin Putin the energy power lord in the name of stopping climate change.

 

It is not good that we are only given one side of the story
It was IMO wrong to close down RT Russia Today news channel on day one of the invasion

We are being denied the opportunity to make our own decision on what is actually happening

 

I've not heard anyone over here blame the energy price rises on anything other than Putin's war.
They started out blaming covid for the price rises at the pumps, but that all seems insignificant now in comparison.

 

There are multiple factors at play.

During lockdown, lots of people saved up lots of money, having nothing to spend it on, and not even having to fuel their cars to go to work. I must admit I was one of those people.

Once everything opened up again many people went on a spending frenzy (I didn't), which on its own would push up inflation, everyone spending more than usual all at the same time. But add to that the fact that not everything was really back to normal. China's zero covid policy coupled with the fact that the very same China either directly makes all our stuff or appears somewhere in the supply chain of all our stuff, meant demand outstripped supply, further compounding the inflation problem. But we can't just blame China. Everywhere in the world, people having to isolate due to covid meant at times staff absence hovered as high as 50% That can't not affect the supply chain and therefore inflation.

Our government here in the UK came up with a brilliant idea to try to prevent everyone blowing their covid savings at once. They launched some savings bond for it. Except the rate of return was so pathetic that nobody bothered with it.

Germany burying it's head in the sand for years didn't help anyone. It didn't seem to occur to them that 40% of their gas was coming from a single pipe, which is bad enough in itself, single point of failure and all that, but the input end of said pipe was a country that nobody really trusted even before the war.

Going back to the covid savings point I just mentioned, I'm not a conspiracy nutter, but part of me can't help but wonder if the combination of covid savings and people having had a taste for a different life, with more flexible working arrangements and a new wave of entrepreneurs, might have made certain influential organisations a little bit uncomfortable, and I wonder if we're being kicked back into line.

 

I agree on all points, except the bit from the brigadier, which I don't disagree with, I just don't have any similar experience so I can't comment.

One thing I'm absolutely certain of is that none of us know the full truth and all the intricacies that surround it. I doubt if even the highest level of government knows the full truth. The guys and girls on the ground will have the truth that they see with their own eyes, which of course is a big part of the picture, but they won't know all the reasoning behind what's going on. Likewise the top brass, governments and intelligence agencies will have what they see as the truth, which again will be a very real part of the picture, but I doubt if anyone has all of the picture, and I'm absolutely certain, that ordinary civilians in the comfort of their safe homes thousands of miles from the conflict, which includes me by the way, won't have very much of the picture at all, and have to try to guess what might be somewhere near the picture based on lots of conflicting descriptions of little bits of it.

From the comfort of my sofa, the only bits of the picture I see that nobody is disputing is that war seems to be the preferred option over dialogue, which I think is not only a massive shame, but it absolute failing of all parties concerned.

 

The UN cannot do anything. What you advocate requires a Security Council mandate and Russia, as a Security Council member would have vetoed such a proposal.

 

I think the West should nuke Russia with everything we have then the fallout will drift over China so we can kiss them goodbye. Or maybe that is a bit extreme.

 

That's my point. The UN is utterly useless. They always were.

UN stands for United Nations. Two words that hardly make sense when even before Russia invaded Ukraine, they struggled to reach agreement, and since then, I struggle to see how anyone can say the nations that make it up are united.

Perhaps the UN should change its name. Perhaps we should just call it the N, because it's certainly not United.