Ukraine

Amnesty report listed incidents in which it said Ukrainian forces appeared to have put civilians in harm's way by establishing bases in residential areas.

What a silly thing to say - Amnesty International. Do they think that the Russians are only shelling residential areas because the Ukrainian Military are there? Do they think that the Russian military have any morals - or follow any codes of conduct when it comes to war?

Do you want the Ukrainian soldiers to fight in open country side - away from the shelter of buildings?

Numpties.

 

Send much more - Boris/Rishi/Liz..

The UK is increasing its military support for Ukraine, doubling the number of long range multiple rocket launchers it has provided from three to six.

The total package of military support given to Ukraine has reached £2.3bn ($2.8bn) so far.

 

Yeah, loads of money.
While over here prices are rising like crazy and they say there's not much they can do.

I noticed 25% of those that took in Ukrainian families want to opt out next month when the minimum 6 months is up.
Support will wane the longer this goes on, a short sharp war it not.

Let's face it we got involved when it had already been going on for more than 10years.

 

I'm losing some respect for Zelensky. I think he's getting over excited about all the weapons everyone is sending. He's said that the war isn't over until Russians have been removed from Crimea. I get that it was Ukrainian until the Russians stole it in 2014 but taking it back by force was not, I believe, the intention when other countries started to help. And the US have had to build into the terms of their support that Ukraine won't use US weapons against targets inside Russia.

Russia has thrown Ukraine a bone recently, avoiding a massive escalation by claiming it was their accident that caused an airbase in Crimea to destroyed, despite satellite images clearly showing that Russian aircraft had been targeted, and British intelligence saying it looks like a carefully targeted attack with precision weapons.

I can fully understand the Ukrainians wanting to repel an invasion, and I can understand that emotions will be running high, but war can't be fought on emotion. It has to be calculated and methodical and always with the goal of finding a peaceful exit. Attacking Crimea and having to be told not to fire into Russia doesn't feel like a methodical defence with a peaceful exit strategy. I'm starting to believe that Ukraine wants it to escalate, so that NATO attacks Russia.

Something a lot of people have forgotten, and the media is largely sweeping under the carpet, is that a few years ago, the elected leader of Ukraine was forced to flee for his life, after he was violently overthrown. The world stood back because the elected leader was happy to work with both Russia and the EU. Having forced him out, not through democracy but through violence, he was replaced with a more EU leaning leader. I'm not suggesting that all Ukrainians want a fight, I'm saying that some do, and it seems that as long as they want to fight Russia well support them and portray them as saints.

As I've said before, the only sensible way out of this is through diplomacy. Defence of course while someone is invading their land, but isolating Russia and continuing to support a leader that clearly wants more than just the immediate defence of their current territory is just a recipe for disaster.

 

Tbh right from the start Ukraine has tried to drag NATO into the war imo

Understandable, in a way, but I don't think that they actually considered what that would mean in terms of where Ukraine would fit in.
At the moment NATO countries are propping up Ukraine, if war broke out widely along the NATO line I'm sure Ukraine would be dumped as expendable.

 

I see that Putin is now burning off gas that he cannot sell and that for the first time the UK didn't buy any energy at all from Russia.

Russia's energy market has hit rock bottom and it's not going to get any better.

 

I don't think it's quite the case that he can't sell the gas. Germany would still buy it in a heartbeat if they could, but Russia is saying that sanctions have prevented maintenance on the Nordstream 1 gas line into Germany. Putin is goading Germany by burning off the gas that Germany wanted to buy.

I largely agree though, Russia is probably starting to feel the pinch a bit now. I just hope the west is not being softened up ready to accept a reduction in support for Ukraine. The environmentalists are already saying, quite rightly, that Russia flaring off their gas is going to have an adverse climate impact. But that in itself is a good thing, if it gets people asking the question, if it's bad when Russia does it, why wasn't it ever bad when every other developed country does it?

 

Putin is laughing at us.

We have people who are going to probably die this winter due to our energy companies jumping on the bandwagon.
If gas was being rationed it would make some kind of sense but they seem to have plenty to sell.
Electricity prices linked to gas prices regardless of how many windmills we build.
A 6% rise in output from the north sea but only because its worth doing now at stupid prices.

Add to that the price rises in supermarkets and someone is making billions out of Putin's war.

Never seen it in my lifetime, today in Morrisons, racks and racks of bagged up stuff all heading for the food banks .

Someone should be ashamed, but let's just blame Putin, so much easier.

 

Our energy supplier is all renewable - they tell me that renewable is cheaper to generate than fossil - yet renewable is all charged at the price of a unit of gas. This is bonkers IMHO. Because of Putin - people are now looking more seriously at alternatives to fossil. Putin can pipe his gas to where the sun don't shine - and I mean that in an environmentally responsible way.....

The US have just bunged an extra couple of billion worth of aid to Ukraine - wait until October when the lend lease kit starts to arrive. This will be the turning point in the war.

 

Can you imagine what would happen if they didn't link the price of electricity to gas.

First we would all go over to using electric, then the national grid wouldn't be able to cope so we would be sitting in the dark until they fired up more gas powered power stations ,its a vicious circle of short sighted government after government for the last 40years.

 

Prime example is Norway, supposed to be 100% or nearly 100% renewable, yet the North of the country is virtually paying nothing for electricity due to the abundance, yet while in the south the electricity is supposed to be the most expensive in Europe. Lack of water in the reservoirs in the south, but yet no cables from the North to the South, madness.

Nuclear power and hydropower have been hampered by the lack of water, not only in Europe but also the states and China has been in the grip of a heatwave also. They reckon world wide, nuclear power and hydropower is down by 25% if not more. But lets all blame Putin, the problems lie a lot closer to home.

 

I'm afraid that's just a lie, I don't mean you're lying, I mean you've been lied to. I'm in the same boat.

All of the electricity from every type of generator goes into the same grid. When eon and the likes promise it's all renewable, I think they mean they only buy contracts from renewable suppliers, but as it all goes on the same grid, those suppliers might fulfill the contract through multiple means.

There's an app that shows where all your power is coming from at the moment. Last time I looked, over 70% of ours was just categorised as 'imported'.

 

I've just had an email from British Gas stating that my monthly Direct Debit for Electric will go up from £56.48 to £88.43.
I wonder if my State Pension will go up by £7.99 to cover the increase

 

John, you need to do more overtime.
It was always the way out in the high inflation of the 70s.
Somewhere along the line we got old.

 

I used to get lots of overtime during my working life.
I feel sorry for the members of the House of Lords

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