Ukraine

I have a slightly different view. I judge any media by its ability to look into its own shortcomings, in the publics gaze. I don’t think anyone can say that the BBC has come up short in that respect. The big problem with social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter (and others) is that there is no accountability. Thank goodness we don’t have news outlets such as Fox News.

 

I mostly agree. Slightly disagree on the BBC point, but only slightly. Everything else, absolutely 100% although while we don't have Fox news unless we make a small effort to look for it, we do have the daily Mail and the Express.

Facebook is an absolute travesty. I went through a phase of reporting stuff that was clearly blatant bovine excrement, represented as truth with the clear intention to mislead. Every time, I would get a notification back a few hours later and it would say that having reviewed it, it 'doesnt violate our community guidelines'.

The worst part is it's not just total thickos that believe it. I remember one example where I saw a post because a good friend of mine briefly shared it, before engaging his brain for a few minutes and taking it back down. He wasn't the original poster so couldn't take down the original, only his repost. It told of a Muslim woman that attempted to snatch a child in our local park in broad daylight. There was a clear photo of the suspect and she was actually in the park. The write up said there'd been screaming and commotion and the original poster just managed to get this pic before the suspect hurried away just before several police cars turned up. It was really dramatic. I saw this post and my first thought was, I doubt this is true. What supporting evidence is there. By chance, my sister had been at the park around the same time, so I asked her if she saw anything. She hadn't. This despite the apparent commotion and massive police response. I looked on both the police Facebook and their website to see if there were any appeals for info. Of course there were not. It took me about 30 seconds from seeing the post to confirming my suspicion that this was just someone stirring up racial hatred towards an innocent woman walking in the park. Yet within an hour it was splattered all over Facebook and some of the comments were really horrific threats of violence towards her. I only saw it because my usually intelligent friend briefly shared it. I wonder how many others saw his re-post before he took it down, and how many other usually bright people, parents reacting naturally to a perceived threat to kids, also shared it, and of course racists who even if they realised straight away it was made up shared it anyway because they know mud sticks.

It's an absolute travesty.

 

I take no notice of newspapers as they clearly have an agenda. Whilst I’m clearly generalising, Facebook has a healthy population of scumbags intent on heaping scorn on others. I don’t know how they get away with it. People can say what they like, with no consequences.

 

I see that Ukraine now have home made long range missiles _ that can be used to attack military targets within Russia itself. These and the new gliding bombs due to arrive shortly from the US. Putin should be getting his brown trousers ready.

 

There's more nuclear sabre rattling coming out of Russia at the moment too.

I also see that Putin is going to negotiate a new grain deal soon. Probably because merchant ships are already using an alternative route in and out of Ukraine.

What's bugging me at the moment is all those whining about the counter offensive going too slowly. Basically you've got a much smaller force, with fewer equipment pieces, attacking multiple layers of well established defensive lines of a numerically superior enemy. They're doing it largely without air support, and they're making progress. The counter offensive has been going on for three months, to push back 18 months worth of Russian advances, yet there seems to be no shortage of commentators that expect Ukraine to reclaim their entire land in a matter of days. Zelensky is right, they should shut up.

 

Probably its that they see winter just around the corner, again, and not much movement.
Last I heard was Russia is actually making gains in some areas.
Its pretty much stalemate I think.

 

I still think as far as the west is concerned, this is largely an economic war. The idea being to give Ukraine just enough help to deplete Russia.

 

The thing is what else should the West give Ukraine?
They are out numbered and not able to really make a difference.

 

If NATO wanted to, they could kick Russia's posterior. Of course that would be a terrible thing for everyone, everywhere, but they could. But that's the most expensive solution, both in terms of civilian casualties, and economically, so it's a daft idea, hence why it so far hasn't gone that way and hopefully never will.

I think the western governments might have learned something from Afghanistan and Iraq. In Iraq, we technically won, but created a power vacuum that led to ongoing trouble. In Afghanistan, we lost. We can dress it up any way we like but the Taliban are still in power, the people are still oppressed, and NATO forces withdrew. NATO was the superior force, but the Taliban just kept on going, costing money and lives. Not entirely different to the situation today in Ukraine where a technically weaker force can just keep eroding the theoretically stronger force.

Another strategy is basically what the US did in the so called space race. Just make the opponent, who is not officially the enemy because that would call for military force, keep spending until they run out of money.

 

Well, I for one, is kind of fed up waiting for Russia to run out of money, I dont think that is an option, just wishful thinking.

The thing regarding Afghanistan and to a lesser extent with pushing Iraq out of Kuwait it was about forcing regime change, and that never works, ask Adolph about that one.

Ukraine is different and one we need to stay out of as in this case Russia is trying to enforce regime change, it doesn't work when the whole population is against you.

 

Talking about home made. Russia have been boasting about their first domestically made passenger aircraft. The engine of which is made in France.....

Not to mention that they are banned from travelling through the airspace of civilised countries.

Dmytro addresses the issue around pace of the offensive quite well:

Counteroffensive critics are ‘spitting into the face’ of our soldiers, says Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. He tells critics to shut up.

Strong language for a diplomat.

 

I see that that there are now 97 Roubles to a Dollar. It's looking like Putin's Central Bank are going to have to increase the base rate again this month if they want it to stay below 100 per buck. I would reckon 15% base interest in the next couple of weeks.

Apparently the sanctions are having no impact and the Russian economy is doing really well...

 

The tank has done its job admirably. Every single crew member survived

video shared on social media and analysed by BBC Verify shows a badly-damaged British-made tank.

A Western defence source confirmed to the BBC the footage shows a Challenger 2 tank and that all crew survived.