Russiagate, Geopolitics, National Politics, Gas, Ukraine and us

[PlaneMan]

Les, I wish you both a happy outcome.

I fear the war may get worse before it gets better but I honestly think Putin is looking for a way out that he can spin into a victory.

[keith with the teef]

Putin needs to be torn apart by horses.

Those modern anti tank ‘and other modern’ weapons provided by NATO have rubbished the tank as a weapon..

I’ll bet Putin thought his tank division was better than Hitlers Pantzer division. 65 years on and tanks are no more the monster from the original in WW1.

Struggling with the BBC news, definitely tailored news.

I wonder just how many volunteer solders from countries are fighting for the Ukraine. I guess that kind of information needs to be kept from Putin.

 

[Ed P]

I agree with your comments with respect to the BBC – definitely tailored news and by no means impartial. I now tend to look for my Ukrainian news in foreign English language sites such as The South China Morning Post, Der Spiegel, and even Pravda to try and navigate my way through the morass of propaganda.

This Der Spiegel article is a good balance between the extremes. It covers Trostyanets the first Ukrainian town to fall to the Russian invasion, the occupation and the aftermath. From this it can be seen that while the BBC is generally factual, its emphasis is biased.

Reading the German account, the Russian invaders were a disorganized rabble, who had no real idea of what they were trying to do.  The Ukrainians organized a quick partisan resistance that spied on and sniped at the Russian soldiers. In response the Russians became ever more brutal in their anti-partisan responses, and this was the root cause of many civilian killings. Even the possession of a mobile phone could be cause for death as the phone could be calling in a drone strike as obviously was the case in the death of one railway worker.

I’m not excusing Russian actions, but they become somewhat understandable in the context of every civilian being a potential threat to their lives.

There are no excuses for what Russian troops did, and Russia should have handled such threats far more carefully and looked to the lessons of British actions in the Malay uprising (contain and separate). Instead they reverted back to their actions against Cossacks and others in the Second World War.

It now appears clear that Ukrainian soldiers have also committed atrocities on Russian soldiers. What I hope now is that we see a clear and distinct difference in official responses to those who break the Rules of War. If the Ukrainian Government fails to act then they will be no better than Putin’s mob.

[keith with the teef]

Yeah. I was saying to the misses the other night.

Just a minute, something ain’t right here! Where are the Russian P,O,W’s

Clearly some of the Russians must have put down there weapons and arms in the air.

??????

[keith with the teef]

Well, I was listening to the Evan Davies show tonight on radio4 and I could not believe my ears.

Evan went on to say that he had spoken to the prime minister of Sweden and it seems that Finland is looking to join NATO real soon and if so Sweden will join.

The mind boggles.

[Ed P]

Putin may know how to handle politics within Russia, but he could not have done a worse job of mismanaging Russia’s place on the world stage. The US have goaded him into a situation where he looks like losing his western buffers, even if he wins enough in Ukraine to satisfy his Russian audience.

Even Russia’s Italian and French political allies are keeping fairly quiet, and I have heard nothing of any substance from Corbyn in the UK other than him equating Russian aggression with that of NATO!  Only Hungary’s fairly fascist government distances itself away from European sanctions (mainly I think due to all the money it makes through Russian gas transiting its borders.) On the world stage other than the usual fellow travelers only India stands out by not condemning Russia. (some pundits say that India has sold-out to cheap Russian oil).

[Ed P]

Edits time-out too quickly! I wanted to add the following comment:

On the other hand I have seen NO reports of Ukraine mounting meaningful investigations into the reports of war crimes against Russian POWs.  If that gets swept under the carpet, I for one will start discounting stories of Russian war crimes as being similar in ilk. War is horrible, and fear, adrenaline and lust need to be countered and constrained by meaningful official actions otherwise things too quickly descend into bestiality.

[keith with the teef]

These goggles+aux kit, look like they could be a big help to the ukraine forces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTV13SDWB-g

[Ed P]

One for PM,  Bomb carrying, cheap Turkish drones (one sixth the cost of US equivalents) are giving Russian troops a hard time.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/05/16/the-turkish-drone-that-changed-the-nature-of-warfare

[PlaneMan]

They were mentioned in a video that popped up in my news feed.

Amazing. It’s a sad thing but war drives innovation forward quicker than peace.

[Ed P]

Yes, unfortunately even sites like this could fall foul of the new legislation that is going to be announced in the Queens Speech today. This will massively extend the Official Secrets Act. As the Civil Service is run by Oxbridge Arts graduates they do not really understand technology, as a result they avoid getting into areas they do not understand and use swingeing legislation that gives the Government blanket powers to act on anything they might not like. This leaves the law very ‘grey’ and open to wide interpretation.

As I currently understand it, the new Act will cover everything from social media manipulation through to discussing any aspects of critical infrastructure. As a real but extreme example of the latter should we get into a discussion about automation, I could possibly get into trouble by saying that Siemens PICs are widely used in Sewage Farm control systems and complain about their vulnerability to Stuxnet type attacks and its potential impact on our beaches.

Journalists are expressing concerns that this blanket legislation will stifle their investigation into areas that should be of public concern. They are also noting that in typical fashion the new law does not include any action against  Russian money being funnelled into the Conservative party or individual Conservative MPs!

Shades of 1984.

[keith with the teef]

It was great to see the Ukraine win the UVSC last night.

Peeps of Europe pulled together to give them first prize and UK second, Yeah.

TBH that is the fist time I have watched the UVSC finals all the way through. 4 hours. In fact that is the longest I have ever watched TV. Thankfully pints of strong Bloody Marys helped.

 

[Ed P]

I dipped in from time to time, and mostly saw strong contenders for ‘Null Point’, especially the manic Norwegian yellow ‘Were Wolves’, and their crazy lyric. Maybe I’m just getting old, but that act ticked no boxes for me.

I was however pleased to see that the British contribution was much better than the usual weak carp and deservedly did NOT get the dreaded zeroes. It was nice to see that France and Germany got the kicking instead.

[keith with the teef]

Ed P wrote:

I was however pleased to see that the British contribution was much better than the usual weak carp and deservedly did NOT get the dreaded zeroes. It was nice to see that France and Germany got the kicking instead.

Agreed.

I thought the Spanish girls arse was top notch. No wonder she had got it out. 🙂

[Ed P]

The peoples of Ukraine whether supporters of Zelensky or Russia have suffered terribly, and the horrible situation has just become even worse.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Twitter on Tuesday that in the past eight days, “30% of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed, causing massive blackouts across the country”.

Imo affairs in Ukraine are reaching a critical juncture, and none of the outcomes are at all palatable.

a) A sticking plaster solution will be for Zelensky to now seek an accommodation with Russia. He will have to trade territory in order for Putin to be able to tell Russians that their sacrifice was worthwhile. Zalensky will also need to ‘win’ something, and EU membership may not be enough – he will certainly want border guarantees. (UN troops?). Long term peace would be hard and have to follow a Georgia example.

b) The horrible mess continues and Russia continues to erode Ukraine infrastructure. Western AA support would slow this down but not stop it. Ukraine will only survive the winter by the EU diverting its power supplies at a huge economic cost. This will almost certainly cause rolling power cuts in the UK as well. I’m not sure that the European West would have the stomach for this outcome. With Truss just damaged goods, the UK will offer no leadership, and another Winter of Discontent would be politically unacceptable.

A ruined infrastructure will completely scupper Ukraine supply lines and make a Zelensky ‘win’ impossible.

c) Putin completely loses his mind and uses tactical nukes – Armageddon would then be very close. I do not think this is a likely outcome as despite the continuous propaganda we get, Russia has a lot of support in countries such as India, and much  of Asia,Africa and South America. He can afford to play a long kamikaze drone game and just bluster about nukes.

[keith with the teef]

I cannot find the words to express how disappointed I am with the conservative party.

I am also worried that soon the ukraine war will spread.

[Ed P]

keith with the teef wrote:

I cannot find the words to express how disappointed I am with the conservative party.

They play with themselves, we pay!

Like you I cannot understand how a political party can so thoroughly implode. I just wrote the following in a note to a US friend during a discussion on events in Ukraine.

“I’m afraid to say it, but the UK is a busted flush and
incapable of taking any leadership role. My Government
cannot even lead itself. The UK swapped a Government that was
led like an immoral mendacious boozy football club, but with some
sense of purpose, to one that is incompetent and flounders around
causing both friends and enemies to wonder what the hell is
going on! ”

Its not just friends and enemies, I too wonder what the hell is going on!

.

[keith with the teef]

Lol. very good. 🙂

[Ed P]

Well :

The Truss bridge to nowhere was brought down by a Braverman.

Now what? It looks like Hunt has cornered the Chancellors chair for a while as no Prime Minister in their right mind would move him out as things stand. He has also stated that he will not stand for the pm role, and it is always good to have a

I guess we now need to see the bookie’s odds on Bojo, Badenoch, Braverman, Mordant, Sunak (heaven help us) and Wallace (assuming he will stand).

However who ever it is will only get in as a result of our broken version of democracy. Given that the pundits say that politically  an election HAS to take place before next summer, imo putting in right-wing austerity mongers would be an even worse Conservative political disaster. On that assumption it looks like Wallace or BoJo, with Mordant as an outsider.

[keith with the teef]

LOl, I really don’t want Sunak on account of him being some billionaire and other reasons.

[Author]

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