Proxy war between NATO and Russia

[Del.Monte]

Amazing, at last the penny has dropped in Russia but not in the West. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/ukraine ... ow-2920057

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-61224804

It has been obvious that this has been what has been going on in recent weeks and if Western powers think that this policy is sustainable they are either fools or knaves. As night follows days NATO forces will be drawn into fighting with Russian forces and this will escalate deliberately or accidentally into a nuclear conflict. At least then we won't have to worry any more about housing refugees.

[kadman]

Proxy wars have been a thing between east and west for decades, and will continue on.Of course Russia see the supply of Nato weapons to Ukraine as more provocation to continue the war against the west as they see it. It will probably gain more support for Putin from the russian people. I dont think there has ever been any serious concern for all refugees from war zones, it was always a selective process unfortunately.

[Del.Monte]

Listening to some American official pontificating at their Ramstein airbase in Germany on the RTE lunchtime news would frighten the heebie-jeebies out of you. All the shite about degrading Russia's ability to wage war is playing right into Putin's hands. Somebody needs to tell the warmongers in the US to dial down the rhetoric and put more effort into diplomacy - his missiles won't just fall on Europe!

[kadman]

The proxy war that the western countries are propogating is a dream come true for the US. They are engaged in war on an enemy that they have disliked since the start of the cold war. But the best part for them is they are fully engaged in everything about the war, except in "Too" many boots on the ground as far as the us public is concerned. They are reaping the rewards financially from the war, except in US body bags being filled with US personel.
Its a war that welcomes massive profit for the US MIC financiers.
And all at the expense of innocent people suffering.

[JayZeus]

Ukraine. 40 million people. Invaded by Russians, who commit heinous crimes against its people.

If I was in Ukraine, I wouldn't care what the Ministry of International Propaganda had to say about NATO and proxy wars. I'd be sitting there, looking at war on my streets, hurting my people, and I'd want ever piece of equipment we could use and every round it could fire.

Artillery, Aircraft and Ammunition. It has to come from somewhere. And someone's going to be making off the back of it.

The 'MIC' references are totally irrelevant from the perspective of Ukranians, when their country is under attack. There's more good coming from it than bad, arming Ukraine, given the circumstances. So don't be wringing your wrists and buying the line of sheite the Russians are laying down, and others are picking up. It's crap.

[knownunknown]

Very strange that Noam Chomsky and Tucker Carlson share the same wrong-think opinion, that diplomacy might be a better approach over continued war mongering.

[schmittel]

Very strange that Noam Chomsky and Tucker Carlson share the same wrong-think opinion, that diplomacy might be a better approach over continued war mongering.

Half of Americans have spent the last 6 years demonizing Russia and Putin for purely domestic purposes, this is the inevitable outcome.

If those in the west who advocate diplomacy are seen as Putin’s puppets, and a desire for better US-Russian relations is used as a stick to beat them with, is it really that surprising that Putin acts without regard for the diplomatic consequences?

[CelticRambler]

... if Western powers think that this policy is sustainable they are either fools or knaves ...

What policy? You haven't indicated in your post what you're referring to - only provided one link to the BBC's live feed for the whole day and a second link to one news site regurgitating the content of another which claims to be reporting the words of a Russian government spokesman, in which he says that he/Russia thinks it's OK to fire missiles at people with weapons in a foreign country.

So where's the western foolishness in all of that?

[Del.Monte]

What policy? You haven't indicated in your post what you're referring to - only provided one link to the BBC's live feed for the whole day and a second link to one news site regurgitating the content of another which claims to be reporting the words of a Russian government spokesman, in which he says that he/Russia thinks it's OK to fire missiles at people with weapons in a foreign country.

So where's the western foolishness in all of that?

Sorry, the policy of NATO sending vast amounts of weaponry to the Ukrainians and expecting no reaction from Putin. Is that clear enough? Sorry about the BBC link - I try.

Personally, as I'm almost a pensioner (63) have a had a reasonably good life experience and being nuked might actually be preferable to ending up in an old folks home but I don't see by what right the neo-fascists in the USA and the out and out fascists in the Kremlin think that they can kill our children. In an ideal world young people in both countries would rise up and hang their leaders from the lamp posts. I am utterly disgusted by the lot of them, from the thugs in Russia, the military/industrial complex in the USA, the empire builders in the EU/NATO and the Chinese who seem to believe that they have nothing to fear from a full nuclear exchange between the big powers. Do you want links?

[CelticRambler]

Sorry, the policy of NATO sending vast amounts of weaponry to the Ukrainians and expecting no reaction from Putin. Is that clear enough?

Ahhh. Well, in that case, presumably you'd also expect Putin to react badly to Russia sending vast amounts of weaponry to the Ukranians, wouldn't you? You do know that as things stand at the moment, Russian is by far the biggest supplier of tanks, armoured personnel carriers and miscellaneous artillery to the Ukrainian forces? Since the end of February, the Russians have given to the Ukrainians more tanks than the entire British and German armies operate between them.

OK, maybe they didn't really intend it to be like that, but if you deliberately drive your weaponry into your neighbour's garden and leave it there, you can't very well complain about other people doing the same.

[Del.Monte]

I'm worried that the bellicose action by the US in particular - Putin's a war criminal etc. - will back him into a corner with nothing to lose by lashing out at the West. Imagine Hitler in the final days in the Bunker with an arsenal of nukes at his disposal.

[CelticRambler]

If Putin's not able to cope with a bit of diplomatic mud-slinging, I reckon he's going to be tipped way further over the edge by the multitude of memes, cartoons and parodies permanently undermining the Big Man macho image he's striven to build up over the last couple of decades.

Right up until February, he had Western "moderates" thinking that he played a clever game; now everyone knows that he's as much an incompetent, bumbling idiot as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson (and I'm more convinced than ever that he's a still-in-the-closet homosexual) and we all know that he presides over a wreck of a nation. At this stage, if he's paying as much attention to what's being said in the West, he's got to be wondering if his nukes are even fit for purpose.

[Del.Monte]

The Western propaganda from stupid politicians, media companies like Yahoo etc. would have you believe the Russians are completely incompetent - remember the same crowd have been telling everybody for years that America was the only Superpower left. If the definition of being a Superpower is a country's capacity to destroy life on earth our next door neighbour with 250 warheads could do a fair old job by themselves.

[isha]

Couple of years ago when we were all being plunged into a pandemic, I honestly didn't see it progressing to where Russian state TV is threatening the UK with nuclear annihilation. The Chinese curse of interesting times....




An alternative method..yay

[Del.Monte]

I wonder who is making money from all the arms being supplied by the USA - asking for a friend.

[Del.Monte]

Couple of years ago when we were all being plunged into a pandemic, I honestly didn't see it progressing to where Russian state TV is threatening the UK with nuclear annihilation. The Chinese curse of interesting times....

During the height of the Cold War there were literally thousands of Soviet missiles aimed at the UK and British government sources estimated that it would only take 10 serious strikes to make the country uninhabitable. Being neutral Ireland will be okay but will we have enough hotel rooms to take in the survivors?

[isha]

I'm presently holidaying with family who live near enough to Ramstein US air base in Germany. It seems somewhat more real here than at home, especially with very regular sorties by fighter jets, and the conference at Ramstein last week, which is to be followed by monthly meetings between the US and
NATO allies re Ukraine.

A question I asked myself today is do I think there will be a nuclear strike or a series of retaliatory strikes. A month ago I would have said it is not possible, we are a crazy stupid species in so many ways, but not that crazy. Today my answer to myself is maybe. I hope that is a completely wrong speculation.

[Del.Monte]

I still can't fathom why young people worldwide aren't on the streets in the West and Russia demanding an end to this 'absurdity' as the UN Secretary General put it. I would be if I was still a teenager - I thought they were supposed to be generation green? Maybe green equals naive in this case?

[marhay70]

Even if Vlad and his mates do survive in a bunker, there'll be no country to dictate to, no bears to wrestle, nobody to admire him riding bareback over the Steppes and only tinned caviar for the foreseeable future. For a man whose whole raison d'etre seems to be strutting the world stage, this can't be a pleasing prospect.
While he may be able to nuke the UK in a short time, the UK's principal nuclear strike threat is first and foremost from submarines which could be anywhere. No winners in this game.

[marhay70]

I still can't fathom why young people worldwide aren't on the streets in the West and Russia demanding an end to this 'absurdity' as the UN Secretary General put it. I would be if I was still a teenager - I thought they were supposed to be generation green? Maybe green equals naive in this case?

Yeah, all very well to protest on the streets in Ireland but we've all seen what happens to protesters in Russia. There are lots of interviews of Russian young people on You Tube and those who will speak their minds are few and far between. You can tell they want to say something but dare not.
Having said that, it is from within Russia that the change will have to come but what might be but the catalyst for that is hard to see.

[Del.Monte]

Given the stranglehold Putin and his cronies have on the Russian media I suspect that your average person on the street there has no grasp of how close the world is to Armageddon. In the West the lack of seriously large protest against the whole 'absurdity' is mind blowing.

[CelticRambler]

I still can't fathom why young people worldwide aren't on the streets in the West and Russia demanding an end to this 'absurdity' as the UN Secretary General put it.

Well, it's easy enough to understand why they're not on the streets of Russia. Putin doesn't take well to people (of any age) suggesting that anything he says isn't entirely true, or anything he does isn't entirely motivated by honest intentions.

As for the youth of the West - of whom can they demand an end? Putin started it, Putin's keeping it going, and Putin doesn't want to listen to anyone who doesn't agree with him, so ...

Better that the youth of today keep doing what they are doing: offering practical support to the victims of Putin's murderous fantasy.

[CelticRambler]

This article I find very informative, it dispenses with the propaganda and emotion and focuses on what actually going on in Ukraine at the moment from a military perspective. Written by a former lieutenant colonel from the US army.

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/04/can ... unt-on-it/

From what I can see the Russians have now got their sh1t together both tactically and logistically and slowly moving westwards from the east. If they make a move later on Odessa, Ukraine as a country will become landlocked. The weaponry being shipped in by Nato and other western nations seem to be getting blown up on a nightly basis by both ballistic missiles and RU aviation according to nightly Russian military updates ( if true ) An S300 air defence system retails for 150 million euros, how many of these donated by Western countries are now burnt out piles of scrap ?

I wouldn't read too much into that. For a start, they're assuming that it would be Ukranians training Ukranians (note use of future conditional tense) when in fact it has been and is (past, and now present tense) various Western forces that are providing the training. The article also seems to put considerable weight on the use of tanks, when in fact the weaponry being supplied at the moment is "everything but tanks" ... and they're not being blown up every day and every night.

The article also makes no reference to the equivalent situation on the Russia side: i.e. that the Russians also have to train up a whole new army of conscripts if they want to keep the effort going, and they haven't even started the process because, y'know, they're not at war. Not only that, but if they decide to go to war, they'll also have to equip those soldiers with guns and ammunition and various weaponry, of which they have a limited - and dwindling - supply.

When all is said and done, since the article was written, Russia has lost more territory than it's gained, and the number of "suspect" incidents at critical infrastructure in Russia has increased, so I think it's pretty fair to say that the wind is firmly in Ukrainian sails at the moment.

[Del.Monte]

Putin started it but the Military/Industrial complex in the West are lapping it up and if we survive to have a War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague they can stick Biden and his fellow travellers in for good measure. A plague on them all and if I could push a button .......

[kadman]

Putin started it but the Military/Industrial complex in the West are lapping it up and if we survive to have a War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague they can stick Biden and his fellow travellers in for good measure. A plague on them all and if I could push a button .......

Yep, MIC think they have won the lotto, its perfect for them in terms of multi billions into their bank accounts.
As for war crime tribunals, we never had them in any real sense of the word, and none for western war mongers. Nuremberg tribunal was a show trial, as most of ss criminals were scooped up and brought to the US in operation paperclip and virtually given US citizenship.

Pox on all of them for sure, east and west, if you are an innocent civilian it makes no difference what force is pointing a weapon on you and pulling the trigger.