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So is Putin going to invade Ukraine anytime soon or..?

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8 minutes ago, Baracouda said:

Banning Russia from swift would do more harm than good, than would shut down the gas supplies if they cant receive payment... They would then create their own banking system to rival swift, Iran and other countries affected by sanctions would just use that, their trade with China/India and the rest of Asia would be via Swift. 

A SWIFT ban would absolutely cripple them - make them North Korea-like. The problem is it would badly hit us too. It depends on how outraged we are at their invasion/incursion. 

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13 minutes ago, Baracouda said:

Banning Russia from swift would do more harm than good, than would shut down the gas supplies if they cant receive payment... They would then create their own banking system to rival swift, Iran and other countries affected by sanctions would just use that, their trade with China/India and the rest of Asia would be via Swift. 

I'm sure I read somewhere that they'd already set up their own system of sorts. Could be wrong.

 

https://www.russia-briefing.com/news/spfs-russia-s-alternative-to-swift.html/

 

There we go.

Putin has been planning for this for some time.

Edited by Yellow Fever

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Just now, Worthy Nigelton said:

A SWIFT ban would absolutely cripple them - make them North Korea-like. The problem is it would badly hit us too. It depends on how outraged we are at their invasion/incursion. 

Short term maybe... but when Russia works with its allies like China to come up with an alternative system. It would be a disaster to the western control of money. 

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5 minutes ago, Baracouda said:

Short term maybe... but when Russia works with its allies like China to come up with an alternative system. It would be a disaster to the western control of money. 

You seem to be suggesting that in practice we have already lost control, and you may be right - we certainly don't have control unless we have the will and ability to exercise that control when the situation demands it, and it seems that we don't have either - at the moment anyway.

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1 hour ago, Herman said:

Tough sanctions coming in. Johnson has banned vodka from any of his parties. 

Sadly it appears most already think Johnson's first salvo of sanctions have fallen short of what was expected or needed.

 

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Truss.

Did anybody hear on Radio 4 at 1pm the Russian lady making fun of the lack of education and knowledge of Truss and by extension all the UK government (and the British). Fallen so far. Ouch. Sadly in this case she was right.  A Norfolk bumpkin.

Edited by Yellow Fever

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8 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

You seem to be suggesting that in practice we have already lost control, and you may be right - we certainly don't have control unless we have the will and ability to exercise that control when the situation demands it, and it seems that we don't have either - at the moment anyway.

We have been losing control for a long time, we moved significant amount of industries to China (US, UK and some EU), which would give them significant counter leverage. US and China are also going down a path of confrontation and pushing China and Russia together. The more we isolate Russia from our own economies, the more they become dependent on China. 

Eventually, these countries might turn round and say we wont use your currencies look at your debt UK (2trillion) and US (21trillion) its worthless and dont need to trade with you here are some return sanctions. 

All this whilst china became the largest economy in the world. Just how much leverage do we have? Its not the 1970s and 80s where American dominance was uncontested. 

Edited by Baracouda

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13 minutes ago, Baracouda said:

We have been losing control for a long time, we moved significant amount of industries to China (US, UK and some EU), which would give them significant counter leverage. US and China are also going down a path of confrontation and pushing China and Russia together. The more we isolate Russia from our own economies, the more they become dependent on China. 

Eventually, these countries might turn round and say we wont use your currencies look at your debt UK (2trillion) and US (21trillion) its worthless and dont need to trade with you here are some return sanctions. 

All this whilst china became the largest economy in the world. Just how much leverage do we have? Its not the 1970s and 80s where American dominance was uncontested. 

I think you're underestimating how much these countries rely on Western financial institutions. I know from my industry that a ban on SWIFT would instantly shrink parts of their economy by about 80-90% overnight. It would ruin them immediately but would also leave big $ holes in Western corporate budgets. It's about our will to suck it up.

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13 minutes ago, Baracouda said:

We have been losing control for a long time, we moved significant amount of industries to China (US, UK and some EU), which would give them significant counter leverage. US and China are also going down a path of confrontation and pushing China and Russia together. The more we isolate Russia from our own economies, the more they become dependent on China. 

Eventually, these countries might turn round and say we wont use your currencies, look at your debt UK (2trillion) and US (21trillion) its worthless.

All this whilst china became the largest economy in the world. Just how much leverage do we have?

All that is true, and as far as China is concerned we have minimal leverage and probably soon none whatsoever..

Russia though is a rather different case, and there we have still got real leverage (potentially) but if we aren't prepared to use it then inpractice we have none with them either.

As you've said, this is largely 'our' fault, i.e. primarily the US and the UK - as Daniel Farke so aptly put it 'we are now paying for our sins of the past'!

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32 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Sadly it appears most already think Johnson's first salvo of sanctions have fallen short of what was expected or needed.

 

Sadly it wasn't tough enough. 3 blokes that have been already heavily sanctioned and a few small banks. It's like punishing Brentford, Burnley and Norwich for the PL overspending. 

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25 minutes ago, Worthy Nigelton said:

I think you're underestimating how much these countries rely on Western financial institutions. I know from my industry that a ban on SWIFT would instantly shrink parts of their economy by about 80-90% overnight. It would ruin them immediately but would also leave big $ holes in Western corporate budgets. It's about our will to suck it up.

I am not underestimating, the EU is still the largest partner for Russia... and the short term consequences would be drastic. But also largely their economy is based on tangible items whether that be fossil fuels or precious metals/minerals. There will always be someone willing to buy them, whether they based in the west or east. 

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The world is getting more dangerous and to counter it the west has got to start getting it's sh!t together politically, the fact people like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson have been elected leaders of the US and UK is a sick joke, a lot of people found it funny but I didn't because it leads to issues like this happening, weak morons who are not fit to lead then embolden the dangerous despots of the world because they know they can break international laws without resistance,  the problem however is that the alternatives are also often just as unfit to lead, I'm definitely not trying to say that people like Clinton/Biden/Corbyn/Starmer are any better though, the whole lot of them are a joke. 

Putin is a dangerous psychopath but he's not an incompetent leader and our weak, ineffectual politicians on all ends of the political spectrum can't offer any real solutions or resistance to counter the rising number of insane, power hungry madmen in charge of authoritarian governments around the world. You can't hide weakness and Putin can smell it, that's why he's made this move now of all times, the leaders of the US and UK are a doddering old codger and a dishonest bumbling moron, it's no wonder he feels emboldened to start wars now.

Trouble is people are so tribal now, everything wrong with the world is the rich's or the poor's fault, everything sucks because of foreigners or old people or whatever so we end up electing incompetent politicians who play up to these opinions and give easy answers, or we treat a political party like it's out football team or something and would elect a donkey if it wore a certain color ribbon. It's divide and conquer at work and people are tripping over themselves to fall for it. My big thing isn't left or right it's pro democracy and a real fear of authoritarianism, but democracy doesn't work very well when everything is as politically mangled as it is now and the voters don't know which way is up, people need to pull their head out of their **** a bit and try to look at things more objectively and stop always voting based on prejudice or self interest. With the instability of global politics right now we have got to get it together soon. 

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For what it’s worth and imo…….

Ukraine has/did have a huge respect for the British and America and the dream to one day have the same freedoms and chances. Really only a few of the older generations would ever want to return to the former Soviet ways. It was a disaster and has scared generations. 
 

The situation today has been unfolding for years. Even more so the vast majority wants to be away from the bullying, dominating Russian. Ukraine is a nation. It has been badly treated by Russia for many years. Even the invading Germans were seen as allies at first and a way to attack Stalins Russia, who was seen as the bigger enemy. Stalin had a few years earlier deliberately staved to death 7-10 million Ukrainians in little over a year. It was genocide but just the beginning.

Depending whether your far left or right you can try and argue your point but the figures don’t lie and I have family who lived through this. I’ll leave  it there ……..

Today we are where we are, which is not on the edge but over the edge of war in Europe. Putin has a dream of recreating the former glories of the USSR , but of course he’ll still have his billions and it won’t be his blood spilt.

He tried his luck in invading Crimea, with his lies and fake election’s. There was No resistance and even now there is to him no resistance other than a few laughable restrictions on a couple of bank accounts!

The west doesn’t have the stomach to stand up to Putin, he knows that. Russians and Ukrainians are much stronger and can put up with far greater hardships.

What is beginning to concern me is that now Ukraine is starting to realise who is really going to stand with them and it’s becoming clear that they are on their own basically.

They have a big army but no where near as well equipped as the Russians but they will prolong the war, they won’t give in. It is a nuclear country, they are very clever and can improvise. 


Ukraine-just wants to get on with their lives, drinking, singing/ dancing and being the fools. They don’t mind a fight, but fight fair. I’ve seen many fights but I’ve never seen anyone ever hit a man on the ground and it’s always finished with respect.

It also has some of the most naturally beautiful women in the world, fantastic kids, great hospitality, passion, soul and calmness. It takes just one deranged individual to destroy all of this. The opportunities to stop this have been sadly missed.

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Yellow Fever said:

Truss.

Did anybody hear on Radio 4 at 1pm the Russian lady making fun of the lack of education and knowledge of Truss and by extension all the UK government (and the British). Fallen so far. Ouch. Sadly in this case she was right.  A Norfolk bumpkin.

I didn't hear this interview as I gave up on the BBC a long time ago, but it is shocking that they would put up for an interview a representative of a country that should now be considered our enemy, in order to mock one of our ministers and by extension the UK people. The BBC show that once again they are accountable to no one except themselves. Time to defund this organisation.

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10 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

I didn't hear this interview as I gave up on the BBC a long time ago, but it is shocking that they would put up for an interview a representative of a country that should now be considered our enemy, in order to mock one of our ministers and by extension the UK people. The BBC show that once again they are accountable to no one except themselves. Time to defund this organisation.

Go listen to the interview. No different to listening to Putin's rambling speech but a least an interviewer to ask awkward questions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014p7p

about 36:30 onwards. No BBC bias. 

Edited by Yellow Fever
Truus - object of anecdotes
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7 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

I didn't hear this interview as I gave up on the BBC a long time ago, but it is shocking that they would put up for an interview a representative of a country that should now be considered our enemy, in order to mock one of our ministers and by extension the UK people. The BBC show that once again they are accountable to no one except themselves. Time to defund this organisation.

😂 Yep - the truth hurts doesn't it, but still no reason to shoot the messenger.

You are surely not trying to pretend that you feel anything other than shame and embarrassment at the UK being represented by a Foreign Secretary who is as thick as pig sh*t??

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25 minutes ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

The world is getting more dangerous and to counter it the west has got to start getting it's sh!t together politically, the fact people like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson have been elected leaders of the US and UK is a sick joke, a lot of people found it funny but I didn't because it leads to issues like this happening, weak morons who are not fit to lead then embolden the dangerous despots of the world because they know they can break international laws without resistance,  the problem however is that the alternatives are also often just as unfit to lead, I'm definitely not trying to say that people like Clinton/Biden/Corbyn/Starmer are any better though, the whole lot of them are a joke. 

Putin is a dangerous psychopath but he's not an incompetent leader and our weak, ineffectual politicians on all ends of the political spectrum can't offer any real solutions or resistance to counter the rising number of insane, power hungry madmen in charge of authoritarian governments around the world. You can't hide weakness and Putin can smell it, that's why he's made this move now of all times, the leaders of the US and UK are a doddering old codger and a dishonest bumbling moron, it's no wonder he feels emboldened to start wars now.

Trouble is people are so tribal now, everything wrong with the world is the rich's or the poor's fault, everything sucks because of foreigners or old people or whatever so we end up electing incompetent politicians who play up to these opinions and give easy answers, or we treat a political party like it's out football team or something and would elect a donkey if it wore a certain color ribbon. It's divide and conquer at work and people are tripping over themselves to fall for it. My big thing isn't left or right it's pro democracy and a real fear of authoritarianism, but democracy doesn't work very well when everything is as politically mangled as it is now and the voters don't know which way is up, people need to pull their head out of their **** a bit and try to look at things more objectively and stop always voting based on prejudice or self interest. With the instability of global politics right now we have got to get it together soon. 

Think the above, is why Trump was elected... people have had it with the old political system and wanted a change. 

 

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23 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

😂 Yep - the truth hurts doesn't it, but still no reason to shoot the messenger.

You are surely not trying to pretend that you feel anything other than shame and embarrassment at the UK being represented by a Foreign Secretary who is as thick as pig sh*t??

Unfortunately, the BBC stopped being a messenger a log time ago. Now they have a narrative, they see themselves as players, having a role in shaping opinion. If that's what they want to be then stop asking the public to fund them through taxation (which is what the TV licence is) and let them fund the service themselves.

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43 minutes ago, Baracouda said:

Think the above, is why Trump was elected... people have had it with the old political system and wanted a change. 

 

Which is completely fair, I understand why people were desperate for an alternative because I'm as fed up of the current political system as anyone, but you've got to have the ability to understand that in some cases the alternative can be even worse than what's already in place. If I was an American I wouldn't have been happy with Obama's geo-political policies and wouldn't be thrilled with the prospect of Clinton taking over, but I'd be able to see that Trump, while different, would be even worse and wouldn't vote for him for changes sake or as some kind of protest. 

There's a lot of angry people at the moment because for a lot of people this has been a relentlessly miserable decade and a half or so and that creates opportunities for charismatic charlatans to enter the political sphere and offer easy answers and tell people what they want to hear to get into office despite not being fit for leadership. This has led to a weakening of democracy in western powers and is exactly what people like Putin and whoever the nutjobs running China are want to see happen because it strengthens their position and allows them to commit atrocities without any ramifications knowing how ineffectual their opposition are.

 

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21 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

Unfortunately, the BBC stopped being a messenger a log time ago. Now they have a narrative, they see themselves as players, having a role in shaping opinion. If that's what they want to be then stop asking the public to fund them through taxation (which is what the TV licence is) and let them fund the service themselves.

Whether not you really believe that I've no idea but even if you do it doesn't answer the question - "You are surely not trying to pretend that you feel anything other than shame and embarrassment at the UK being represented by a Foreign Secretary who is as thick as pig sh*t?? "

Funnily enough, I rarely watch the BBC myself for different reasons - as far as I can see they have allowed themselves to become so brow-beaten by the Tories that they report government nonsense and lies as news without any analysis or fact checking and are so unchallenging in interviews as to be a complete waste of space. Although to be fair to them most senior ministers and the main liar himself pretty much avoid any real interviews, and prefer to try and mug us off with pathetic photo ops and Soviet style 'briefings' from No 10. So the interviews tend to be restricted to idiots like Dorries and Rees-Smug.

No wonder the whole world is laughing at us and taking the p*ss.

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He has gone in on the pretence of peacekeeping in two areas he now recognises as independent states.

He knew that the world would impose sanctions and yet he went ahead.

Does the world not think he is prepared for sanctions? That he is testing the world's resolve? And he knows the world will come up short. Most of the West's leaders are under enormous pressure from within their own nations and will not want conflict at any price. And he knew that as well.

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15 minutes ago, Van wink said:

https://archive.org/details/ProtectAndSurvive_136/page/n3/mode/2up

Us old boys will know this back to front, just some advice for you young guns, better to be safe than sorry. Best to plan your inner refuge now, then you'll feel safe and warm.

I'd say the chances of nuclear war are no greater than they have been. If a Nuclear apocalypse was going to happen it would have happened between the 60's to 80's. Every action a politician and country now makes is made in self interest, nobody benefits from mutually assured destruction and I just can't see it happening now. The threat of nuclear annihilation is always there, but I don't think it's war dependent, it's more likely to happen if genuine diagnose able psychopaths come into power together at the same time or if military mistakes happen, I think Putin could invade most of Europe and not a single Nuclear bomb would fall in that time

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1 hour ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Whether not you really believe that I've no idea but even if you do it doesn't answer the question - "You are surely not trying to pretend that you feel anything other than shame and embarrassment at the UK being represented by a Foreign Secretary who is as thick as pig sh*t?? "

Funnily enough, I rarely watch the BBC myself for different reasons - as far as I can see they have allowed themselves to become so brow-beaten by the Tories that they report government nonsense and lies as news without any analysis or fact checking and are so unchallenging in interviews as to be a complete waste of space. Although to be fair to them most senior ministers and the main liar himself pretty much avoid any real interviews, and prefer to try and mug us off with pathetic photo ops and Soviet style 'briefings' from No 10. So the interviews tend to be restricted to idiots like Dorries and Rees-Smug.

No wonder the whole world is laughing at us and taking the p*ss.

He's a proper right wing conspiracy nut so he does genuinely believe all that stuff. 

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24 minutes ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

I'd say the chances of nuclear war are no greater than they have been. If a Nuclear apocalypse was going to happen it would have happened between the 60's to 80's. Every action a politician and country now makes is made in self interest, nobody benefits from mutually assured destruction and I just can't see it happening now. The threat of nuclear annihilation is always there, but I don't think it's war dependent, it's more likely to happen if genuine diagnose able psychopaths come into power together at the same time or if military mistakes happen, I think Putin could invade most of Europe and not a single Nuclear bomb would fall in that time

Phew 😉

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On 18/02/2022 at 15:42, Yellow Fever said:

I have no misconceptions about Russia - I indeed have Russian friends and colleagues (you remind me to email a company in Moscow) and as professional people we can often talk politics or indeed football (Farke) without the nationalistic bombast. That's distinct from Putin, his oligarchy and its aims.

However most things aren't black and white as you note - Crimea for instance we can all see had a Russian background and was only attached to Ukraine in the 20th century. But Ukraine is an independent country now. It is not part of Russia and cannot be further annexed, invaded or indeed bullied and that includes the Donetsk region. No more little green men.

The real question you have to ask yourself is why do all the countries around Russia with free thinking governments want to break away from Putin's malign influence and join western clubs (the EU if not NATO). Even Finland and Sweden are now thinking it might be time to join NATO for self preservation.  I might hope that one day even Russia will join the EU/Nato - it was indeed floated in the past but rebuffed by the USA - probably a mistake. 

There are no people fleeing to the west from Donetzk or Lugansk, they are all going east, a bit of a giveaway.

America has always had an eye on Russias immense resources and potential wealth. I wish they had a few thoughts on a sxustainable future without their Leviathan ambitions. America needs wars to keep 33% of its industrial military economy going. Without wars America is doomed to the further running.

Nato has clearly shown thend of its road after their failure in Iraq Libya Syrtia and Afghanistan. Bojo's sanctions today, supported by Russians who always felt robbed after Yeltsins drunken giveaway, means that donations to the Tory party from wealthy Russians, hallo Mr. Lebedev, will also dry up.

They could not fathom Cuba being able to hit Washington and were prepared to throw the world into war, but to site NATO nuclear missiles in Ukraine, some 800+km MUST BE accepted by everyone as a legitimate move.

Today everyone was shouting their mouth off as to why Russia broke the Minsk agreement, totally failing to mention that it was us in the west that fueled the bombing of Dombass since 2014, Germany , France, the UK and the US did absolutely nothing to enforce the ceasefire agreement of Minsk, but Russia is being called out.

I would not be surprised, since we outlawed Russian trade in dollars and Euro's, if gas customers will one day have to pay their due's in Gold.

The information we are being prepped with by the BBC 'information research'? they get from the MI's, but there is a site were one can find truthful unbiased information, that of the OSCE, They have no crux with fake news, their observers are actually trying to investigate who bombs whom, but our propaganda ministry of much fake news is spamming our ears with irrelevance and omissions of facts. Read why the Ukrainian army did not allow OSCE observers to investigate the bombing of a Kindergarten in Ukraine, it says a lot about agent provocateurs.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/02/ukraine-where-to-find-the-truth-in-enormous-detail/

 

Three out of 57 countries have now withdrawn their services from the OSCE, these are the UK the US and Canada. Very telling.

 

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1 hour ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

Which is completely fair, I understand why people were desperate for an alternative because I'm as fed up of the current political system as anyone, but you've got to have the ability to understand that in some cases the alternative can be even worse than what's already in place. If I was an American I wouldn't have been happy with Obama's geo-political policies and wouldn't be thrilled with the prospect of Clinton taking over, but I'd be able to see that Trump, while different, would be even worse and wouldn't vote for him for changes sake or as some kind of protest. 

There's a lot of angry people at the moment because for a lot of people this has been a relentlessly miserable decade and a half or so and that creates opportunities for charismatic charlatans to enter the political sphere and offer easy answers and tell people what they want to hear to get into office despite not being fit for leadership. This has led to a weakening of democracy in western powers and is exactly what people like Putin and whoever the nutjobs running China are want to see happen because it strengthens their position and allows them to commit atrocities without any ramifications knowing how ineffectual their opposition are.

 

I agree with everything you said in both posts.

I have come to the conclusion, that democracy has "failed", rarely will I ever see a politician having a proper debate, just prepared statements, word games to avoid topics.

A lot of people have completely lost faith in the media, political and justice systems. The mockery of Johnson and his parties just underlines to so many that our system is just as corrupt as other parts of the world.

When so many have lost faith, its easy to see the appeal of stories on the internet.

 

 

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36 minutes ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

I'd say the chances of nuclear war are no greater than they have been. If a Nuclear apocalypse was going to happen it would have happened between the 60's to 80's. Every action a politician and country now makes is made in self interest, nobody benefits from mutually assured destruction and I just can't see it happening now. The threat of nuclear annihilation is always there, but I don't think it's war dependent, it's more likely to happen if genuine diagnose able psychopaths come into power together at the same time or if military mistakes happen, I think Putin could invade most of Europe and not a single Nuclear bomb would fall in that time

I hope you are right Christoph, but the congregation of neo **** in Estonia Lithuania, Ukraine, Canada and the US, is a quantifiable risk to sensible actions.

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