Ukraine

Is he the mister nice guy that turns up at the UN from time to time.
Got the kind of face that you would like to kick.

 

Ukrainians now have to look forward to a winter with no heat or power, and in some cases no running water. In some cases, living in accomodation that now has great big holes in it.

I think Russia is now a global embarrassment. A spineless bully that picks a fight with a target they expected to be soft, found out otherwise, so turned their attention to an easier target, ordinary people trying to lead ordinary lives.

Putin and his cronies will go down in history. Not as mighty warlords, but as the people that turned a great nation into a complete joke.

 

"Ukrainians now have to look forward to a winter with no heat or power, and in some cases no running water. "

A bit like us but with bombs

 

Classic BBC poo stirring.

Russian jet released missile near RAF aircraft over Black Sea

Headline: Russian jet released missile near RAF aircraft over Black Sea.

Reading into the story, the RAF jet was unarmed. I would question, given that there's a war on in that region, why the RAF was flying a defenceless plane in a contested region anyway. But I'm sure the RAF know what they're doing, so I'll let that slide.

So what actually happened. A Russian jet, beyond visual range of the RAF jet, released a missile. The article doesn't say what the missile was aimed at. As the unarmed RAF plane was not shot down, I'm going to guess the missile was not fired at the RAF plane.

And the final point that caught my notice was that Russia issued a statement that it was unintentional due to a technical error. That's quite a bold admission for a country at war, suggesting their kit is knackered. And from the UK side, they're not treating it as an escalation.

So basically, this looks like a none story, other than to wind people up with a headline that might imply that the Russians are now fighting the British.

 

It was announced in parliament today by Ben Wallace, Defense Secretary. What was the BBC to do? Ignore it?

 

Maybe report it in accordance with the BBC mandate of objectivity and impartiality and not use emotive headlines?

 

Trouble with all these missiles going off all over the place, you just can't trust technology.
Could have been a warning, stay away, I wouldn't put it passed the Russians.
They know we know when they let one go so we can't consider it an escalation if they say it went off by "accident". Yeah.
Lots landing in Ukraine are they accidental as well.

 

I don't believe it was an accident either. But as a civilian, or even military folks not directly involved, we can only speculate.

I just think it's a total non story. The headline might as well have been: aircraft belonging to a nation that has started a war has fired a missile somewhere near the war, and the RAF were in the same general area but were not fired upon.

Except my headline is maybe not as attention grabbing.

 

I know what you mean about media hype.
I don't know what the circumstances were or the intended target of the missile.

 

Given that the RAF plane was apparently an unarmed small transport plane, I suspect that if it had been the intended target, the headline would have been: Russian jet shoots down British jet in major escalation.

Or it just wouldn't be reported.

 

It wasn't exactly a small aircraft. Nor a transport aircraft.



The RC-135W Rivet Joint is a dedicated electronic surveillance aircraft. I suppose they could have sensationalized it by calling it a "spy plane".

 

So we were spying, nothing new but that makes me even more think it was a definite warning.

 

So basically it could have detected a missile launch from quite some distance? So the BBC report is even more a non story?

 

I take it you are very anti-BBC? The BBC only reported what was said in parliament. No more, no less. They didn't try to dramatize the story or put their own spin on it.

 

That's an unfair and unfounded assumption. I'm not anti BBC at all. If I was anti BBC I don't think I would have wasted my time reading their news.

I am however anti scaremongering. Pretty much everyone knows that Russia has started a war, that the UK is one of several countries equipping and training the Ukrainians, and that Russia is not happy about it. Pretty much everyone knows that Russia also happens to have nukes and has made veiled threats to use them. So when a media outlet posts a story with a headline that implies the Russians actually fired a missile 'near' an RAF plane, it doesn't take a genius to work out that many will interpret that as though Britain is one step closer to all out war with Russia. The headline does not match the story. This is my criticism. The story tells of a total non event. It serves no purpose other than to either frighten people or rile people up. The last thing we need in the world right now is more media induced irrational thought.