Anyone think that Putin's war will spread across Europe and beyond?

JacquiG

It seems Zelensky has funds in the Virgin Islands (from the Pandora papers), and is a graduate of the WEF Global Leaders Programme. I'm not encouraged by this. Are we being played?

No we're not.

Next question?

Thousands of people have been arrested at protests across Russia against President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s interior ministry said more than 3,500 people had been arrested: 1,700 in Moscow, 750 in St Petersburg and 1,061 in other cities. The ministry said 5,200 people had taken part in the protests.

The OVD-Info protest monitoring group said it had documented the arrest of at least 4,366 people in 56 cities.
Some Russian state-controlled media carried short reports about Sunday’s protests but they did not feature prominently in news bulletins.

volver

JacquiG

It seems Zelensky has funds in the Virgin Islands (from the Pandora papers), and is a graduate of the WEF Global Leaders Programme. I'm not encouraged by this. Are we being played?

No we're not.

Next question?

What's wrong with the WEF? It seems to be an organisation with quite high ideals. It's certainly produced a good leader in Zelensky.

www.europarl.europa.eu/EPRS/EPRS-Briefing-573928-The-World-Economic-Forum-FINAL.pdf

I don't want to get involved in a war. Neither does any of the other European countries. I don't see any of them sending troups in. They cant. That would definitely be the excuse he is waiting for. As for Russian money being used in politics. Its not new that money from another country is used to support other countries economy. We did it for years in other countries and so has USA. It works both ways. I honestly cant see that any other Government party would have refused help of any sort in normal circumstances. If this hadn't happened it would not have been a problem. I don't actually trust any party to be honest they all lie. We will see wont we in May 2024. Give them a few years and they'll show their true colours too.

I think people are being unduly pessimistic. Ukraine has a large, well trained and experienced army. It's being well supplied with arms by NATO powers and has been effective in foiling Putin's plan for a show of apparently force causing submission within 3 days.

Putin's army is too small to hold the whole country even if the Russians manage to get as far as installing a puppet regime. The army is badly supplied, vehicles are often old, and are poorly maintained and at least 25% of the army are very young conscripts, not battle hardened troops, who don't really know what they are fighting for.

Apparently there would be difficulty in building new armaments to replace those taken or destroyed by Ukraine because many depend on parts and technology imported from the West. Sanctions put an end to that.

Commentators think the Ukranians could carry on a well supplied (by NATO) insurgency for years because the Russian army just isn't enough to occupy the whole country.

I think Putin's backed into a corner and could be happy with a face saving exit strategy.

I'm verging on the optimistic side ATM

I think we’ve all spent too much time attempting to placate putin. We thought bring reasonable and accommodating would bring him into the fold but we were badly mistaken. He was laughing at us all as he only respects strength.
We are so terrified of him pressing the button that we are letting him destroy Ukraine and it’s civilians.
At some point he will probably do something like go into a NATO country which will necessitate our involvement or take it as a declaration of war if planes are taking off from turkey, so I’m starting to feel we should now just meet Strength with strength. I actually don’t think he’s mad. I think he’s totally ruthless and a sociopath though. We have more to worry about with him taking procession of the nuclear plants as we do the possibility of him pressing the button because one stray missile breaking through and we are just as fckd.

We have more to worry about with him taking procession of the nuclear plants as we do the possibility of him pressing the button because one stray missile breaking through and we are just as fckd.

Actually we're not.

A destroyed nuclear reactor could be disastrous, but not the literal end of the world. A destroyed nuclear reactor could be catastrophic for the surrounding areas but not nearly as destructive as a thermonuclear bomb directed at specific western targets. And winds blow in many directions, including from Ukraine to Russia.

So it would be good if people with no understanding of how the world works stopped making random comments about the implications of this conflict.

Oh dear, this is such an anxiety inducing situation for so many people. The Ukrainians the most of course, but also the Russian citizens who realise they are being lied to and don’t agree with what Vladimir Putin is doing by attacking Ukraine. Then citizens of other European countries who are afraid the war might spread to their countries. There are also people in other parts of the world who are desperately concerned about their family and friends in Ukraine. And so on and so forth....

And winds blow in many directions, including from Ukraine to Russia.

I have been keeping an eye on wind direction!

When the Chernobyl accident occurred, levels of radiation were higher here than we were ever told by the government according to someone I knew who was testing them in the UK.

And the near hysteria and conspiracy theories in some posts on here aren’t helping. People are just winding each other up to no good effect.

Sorry, I hope I didn't add to hysteria or spread conspiracy theories.

I do understand something about the difference between fallout from a damaged nuclear reactor and a bomb.

No Callistemon. I was commenting on Ning’s post and you nipped in. No reflection at all on what you said. My fault, I should have quoted her post.

Another Cold War!!!
Heaven forbid.
A few years ago, when I told our daughters about our early married years ( from 1978), they could not believe that we had posters through the door telling us where to hide in case of a nuclear attack.
For me, as a newly married and wanting a family, it was a very scary time to be bringing children into the world.
Yet we did, in 1983, 1985 and 1987. ( A month after the eldest was born we came so so close to an accidental nuclear war but luckily I did not know about this until much later).

Now I have 6 grandchildren and 1 foster grandchild, the youngest of which is only 4 months old.
Scary times again.

I’m not scared. What a lot of doomsayers we have here.

JacquiG

It seems Zelensky has funds in the Virgin Islands (from the Pandora papers), and is a graduate of the WEF Global Leaders Programme. I'm not encouraged by this. Are we being played?

The destroyed buildings, devastated Ukranians and utter chaos is Zelensky playing us?

I constantly feel anxious about this. I am looking at the news in the middle of the night and praying for a miracle. How does he think he can just take over a country and rule it, just because he has bigger guns than anyone else. He is a bully and hopefully the Russian population and the rest of the world will rise up to stop him. Wonder if there is any cyanide in the Kremlin that can help him disappear.

Unless the western world does something more than just sanctions soon I can see it spreading to the EU, and eventually to us. I hope it doesn't happen but Putin doesn't care about people, his or ours, and sanctions will not stop him. My only hope is that someone near to him will realise how wrong this all is and do something about him. It is so so wrong that we are allowing so many people to die in this way when we could stop it if we were brave enough. Covid was bad enough but that was out of our control. This isn't.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so optimistic, but I don’t think he will attack a NATO country. NATO will stand together, and Putin knows they have greater fire power, better troops and air power than Russia. Unfortunately both have nuclear weapons.

I come here to ask WhiteWaveWatermark a question.
First, our army and other armed forces have been badly depleted. This is true but please do not blame just the Tories. Tony Blair was also responsible. So we are weak? But we have enjoyed a decent period of peace in terms of world wars. But you constantly blame everything on the Tories not mentioning just how inward looking and weak the USA is at present. President Biden is really too old for such a demanding job and the world has depended on USA for firm leadership. Then look at Germany, France and Spain. I think they also are very weak. I support the Ukrainian women and children who are forced to leave and I think if you want to criticise you might look at our own civil servants who need to pull their fingers out to get the necessary paperwork done so relatives in UK can help those fleeing the war. Why would Keir Starmer and Labour do better? I do not write here much because I feel I am very much in a minority among Grans who are mostly much younger than me anyway, but really WWWM just forces me to retaliate. I am really concerned that the Animal Welfare legislation will be delayed due to the emergency we are in. I am also concerned with the hasty closing of sources of energy in UK and like everyone I am concerned at the plight of poor people who cannot possibly pay the increase in prices for energy.

I see the schoolgirl running extinction rebellion has nothing to say and both Labour and Tory politicians support green energy. Wonderful idea but what about poorer members of society who see prices rising all around them without the money to pay?

So 'we' should start WW3 kwal but we aren't 'brave' enough? For goodness sake, think about it.

NATO is providing a lot of weapons to Ukraine mostly small arms and hand held missiles, they could supply larger weapons which may well happen. There was talk that aircraft would be supplied, not much use if runways are bombed although Apache helicopters may well be useful.

I fear he will not stop ! I feel sorry for most Russians, they also do not want war !! We all need to stand up to bullies !!

Putin is no more and no less evil than another megalomaniac power hungry egotist, Hitler, Idi Amin, etc etc He needs taking out !

I sincerely hope not!

Neither Hitler nor Idi Amin were 'taken out' by anyone. Hitler committed suicide, faced with defeat and Idi Amin had a long comfortable retirement in Saudi Arabia.

Yes, of course he needs to be removed from government and control, but that is not impossible. Roumania rose up and disposed of a dictator and other countries have too.