What to do about Russia?

I don't think he's on the way out at all. I'm always surprised at how he's popular in Russia, but I think part of that is down to a different culture. They seem to hold different attributes as important, like strength and ability to control.

I agree primrose. These people (and they span a huge part of the continent) just think differently from us hence different attitudes eg just denying stuff that there's plenty of evidence for.

I too agree

Basically Russia likes a Tsar figure and they’ve got one. I think it’s all quite scary at the moment as he’s not going to criticise Assad or stop supporting him and he must be pretty annoyed with Europe over the nerve agent business. I don’t think we can do anything can we but I hope we don’t bomb Syria and encourage his wrath

I don’t think we can do anything can we but I hope we don’t bomb Syria and encourage his wrath

I understand that Russia is economically rather weak (after letting all those oligarchs have free rein) but I have no doubt that what they do have to spend is focused on the military as well as subversion through the internet.

And while they may not have a large and strong army I'm sure they have a fine collection of nuclear weapons which are strategically targeted on key places in the West.

So yes, it worries me, too, maryeliza

I find it very worrying - it is as if he is purposely goading the ‘west’ with what he says and does.
The position in Syria I find most puzzling - why would anyone want to smash their country to smithereens and kill so many of the subjects - and Russia is assisting with this. All that part of the world had beautiful buildings and millions of people. So many have been killed and yet there still appear to be so many trying to find asylum in a safe place.
Does anyone understand any of what is going on?

In a word No, but I find it very very scary. I can only suppose that Assad wants, like his father, to rule Syria with an iron fist, and that Russia sees it (Syria) as a valuable vantage point into Europe. I think Russians admire military strength, strong leadership and order. They perceive the west as weak, indecisive, and vaccillating. In other words they despise us, our democracy and everything we stand for. It would appear they have little regard for human life particularly the weak, young or old, handicapped, whatever; the end presumably justifying the means. How on earth we in the west deal with this is beyond me. Will it be like Hitler, and in the end we HAVE to do do something, or do we just try and contain this aggression? It's certainly frightening even to contemplate!

Welshwife: Assad is a dictator, and his family is part of it too. They are of one Muslim sect, and a lot of the other Syrians are different. ( I don't pretend to understand the differences, but most religions are like that)
There was an uprising by people who wanted elections and democracy. Assad said this made them terrorists, no different from Daesh. So his campaign has been to eliminate all dissent. By now, the only people still fighting have been thoroughly radicalised and the rest have left as refugees or been killed.
Putin is supporting Assad in his definitions, because he wants that foothold in the Middle East.

I think theres an awful lot of nonsense talked about Russia ,hasn't it occured to any of you that that country lost more people in WW11 than any other ...more than 4X the loss of the Jews and ten times more than America has lost in ALL its wars .

Of course they were fixated on their military might after that ,wouldn't we have been?

Of course then someone decided they were the enemy when in fact they were the strongest allies we had.

They may have a different approach to things than we do but can you really believe that we make good decisions all the time? Remember those WMD ...AND the outcome of that conflict .
Making any country the fall guy for things that go wrong is plain ridiculous,I am more terrified of Trump than I have ever been of Putin ...

As to the lack of democracy in Syria ,we can see the same in Spain where the Spanish government 's fascist roots are clearly on show yet the western world isn't taking them to task.Now why is that ?

paddyann said

"As to the lack of democracy in Syria ,we can see the same in Spain where the Spanish government 's fascist roots are clearly on show yet the western world isn't taking them to task.Now why is that ?"

Could it be because the Spanish government are not using chemical weapons against their own citizens?

Perhaps because the Spanish government is responsible for massacring it's own people.

Trump tells Russia “get ready for missile strikes in Syria.” Just now.
War between US and Russia?
Wars are easy to start but never easy to finish. I just hope Britain doesn’t support this without a great deal of thought. Parliament is in recess so Theresa May probably won’t take any action yet.

Paddyann, Russia lost millions in the October revolution, Stalin murdered more people than Hitler, the Soviets murdered/starved anyone and everyone who disagreed or didn't tow the Soviet line, invading and keeping inside the Soviet system with murderous effect any country under their control from even contemplating independence, remember Hungary, Czechoslovakia, This is now a country that invaded Crimea, shot down a passenger plane, invaded East Ukraine, drops barrel bombs, and indulges in chemical warfare. Are you seriously saying that this country has not got a long history of terror towards others?!!,!

I think with Russia we need to build up a bit of resilience. We need to remove as much of their 'dirty money' as possible from the UK, try to make sure we don't give them scope for propaganda attacks and hope our intelligence agencies keep track of their spies and intercept and deport any thugs.

I agree that we need to remove their 'dirty money' but I don't know how we can tell which money is dirty and which isn't.

I do hope that we don't just become America' poodle again and get involved in yet another war that always makes things worse.

I always think of that line in a song of Sting's "The Russians love their children too"

Heard a tory MP on the news saying that Parliament didn't need to vote on UK getting militarily involved in Syria. I wonder if these gung ho retarded adolescents ever learn that military intervention usually causes more problems than it solves and that knee jerk reactions are foolish.

If it comes to it of course parliament should vote.

We should work on the principle that all the money is dirty - the oligarchs made their billions by cheating ordinary workers when privatisation happened. No action will really be taken against the dirty money - what would the Tories kill the goose? Anyone for tennis?

May has to follow Trump into oblivion, and all with her- because of Brexit. She needs him, totally- and there is a massive price to pay. Those poor Syrian people -

we live in VERY dangerous times- and I fear for our grandchildrens' future. I wish I could bring them over NOW, and keep them safe, well as safe as can be, in our wild mountains in the boonies. I despair.

Doing nothing has as much as an effect as doing something.
If the West does nothing, they may as well tell Putin he can do as he likes in any country in the world.And he will.
Action has to be taken carefully, but it has to be taken if chemical weapons have been used yet again in Syria.

Why does action have to taken against Syria? What good will it do? Assad will not be stopped - in fact it will just escalate an already impossible situation. And remember Iran backs Syria - do you really want us to provoke them?

And remember with Iraq the hindsight criticism that we had no exit strategy - who would take over in Syria if Assad went? There’s no Western friendly opposition is there?

I fear Putin isn’t done yet. He does seem to be loosing the plot though and pushing his luck. It’s scary the way he’s playing with the rest of the world like a nasty child pulling wings off flies. He either believes he’s invincible or he has a death wish and wants to take all of us with him. I hope we manage to stay out of it but how can we? If the rest of the world stands by chemical weapons could become the norm. Replacing nuclear weapons as the ultimate threat.

We can stay out of it by staying out of it because no good will come of joining in. How could it?

I think that as we-the West- have deliberately refrained from intervening for most of this conflict, it would be criminally stupid to start now, and would achieve little.
I would like to think that money and manpower is not used for military intervention, but employed instead to bring immediate aid once this conflict ends.
But how long, Lord, how long?