Will Russia invade the Ukraine?

[Count Steer]

If we're doing well supported, well armed Nazi units, shall we discuss The Wagner Group and Dmitriy Utkin next? You know, Putin's 'private army'. Just for balance like.

'The Wagner Group itself was first active in 2014, along with Utkin, in the Luhansk region of Ukraine. The company's name comes from Utkin's own call sign "Wagner" after the German composer Richard Wagner, which he is said to have chosen due to his passion for the Third Reich (Wagner being Adolf Hitler's favorite composer).'

[Potter]

But yeah try and convince me in a way that doesn't make it sound like you're glued to the dark web waiting for an opportunity to accuse the sheeple.

You're about fifty right? And you've only ever lived in the west and you've only ever really paid attention to western media.
You want me to change fifty years of conditioning, by posting something on a motorbike forum?

Easy example, Jimmy Saville, you'd think that the media would have grabbed that with both hands, but it was radio silence - in fact it was the contrary, he was a media darling.

I'm not sitting here with a tinfoil hat on, I'm just saying that you have to look for the angles.
I've seen enough to make me question the narrative when there is an armed conflict afoot.

[Potter]

If we're doing well supported, well armed Nazi units, shall we discuss The Wagner Group and Dmitriy Utkin next? You know, Putin's 'private army'. Just for balance like.

'The Wagner Group itself was first active in 2014, along with Utkin, in the Luhansk region of Ukraine. The company's name comes from Utkin's own call sign "Wagner" after the German composer Richard Wagner, which he is said to have chosen due to his passion for the Third Reich (Wagner being Adolf Hitler's favorite composer).'

I don't know if that's apples and apples, I thought they were a 'private' entity and I'd have probably likened them to Blackwater, financed by the government, owned by people in the government and/or well connected, and up to their necks in dodgy shit.
I think they're more along the line of deniable assets, rather than actual official army units.

The Russians don't fuck about though, if they want you gone then I don't think they're too scrupulous, you won't get any arguments from me about them being the moral high ground.

[Mussels]

Russia is desperately recruiting ethnic minorities through agencies to reduce ethnic Russians in body bags. They are promising* Russian passports to central Asian immigrants for three months in the army, central Asian governments are not happy and threaten prison for anyone who fights for Russia.

* It's not clear if the agencies promising this are telling the truth.

[irie]

Russia is desperately recruiting ethnic minorities through agencies to reduce ethnic Russians in body bags. They are promising* Russian passports to central Asian immigrants for three months in the army, central Asian governments are not happy and threaten prison for anyone who fights for Russia.

* It's not clear if the agencies promising this are telling the truth.

It appears that 5,000 to 10,000 Russian soldiers have so far died in Ukraine. That's an aweful lot of body bags, many (most?) will have been young conscripts. Many bodies will not have been returned in bags, having been blown to pieces or otherwise unaccounted for.

Mothers and fathers burying their children, brothers and sisters burying their siblings.

[DefTrap]

You're about fifty right? And you've only ever lived in the west and you've only ever really paid attention to western media.
You want me to change fifty years of conditioning, by posting something on a motorbike forum?

Easy example, Jimmy Saville, you'd think that the media would have grabbed that with both hands, but it was radio silence - in fact it was the contrary, he was a media darling.

I'm not sitting here with a tinfoil hat on, I'm just saying that you have to look for the angles.
I've seen enough to make me question the narrative when there is an armed conflict afoot.

Yeah I'm over 50 and an old fule and you're 45 and not, where is this going?
I've no reason to love Ukraine over Russia, or Russia over Ukraine, I'm old enough to remember when "they were the same"" and let's be honest prior to this conflict western media could have given less of a shit, and neither could you. It must be some really deep level subconscious conditioning.

And ffs with savile, we've done that, he was a paedo in plain sight, the media showed us often enough at the time what a creep he was and Joe public cheered him on, if anything the media followed the public mood.

[Potter]

Yeah I'm over 50 and an old fule and you're 45 and not, where is this going?
I've no reason to love Ukraine over Russia, or Russia over Ukraine, I'm old enough to remember when "they were the same"" and let's be honest prior to this conflict western media could have given less of a shit, and neither could you. It must be some really deep level subconscious conditioning.

Up until a few weeks ago most people in the UK probably couldn't point to Ukraine on the map, you're being too specific, it's Rule Britannia versus Johnny-Foreigner, the country isn't important, half of the UK would go to war with France if Liz Truss and the tabloids said so. All of the UK would go (and has gone) to war with someone they don't really know much about, because naturally they will assume that they must be barbaric savages.

That's deep level conditioning.

[Mussels]

Something missing from all the coverage is accurate reporting of where all the Russian forces are, I expected a lot more detail. Maybe satellite intelligence isn't as good as we are led to believe.

[DefTrap]

half of the UK would go to war with France if Liz Truss and the tabloids said so.

Well you're assuming we're ALL deeply and significantly aligned in our prejudice. Well I'm telling you I'm actually not and I don't think most are, in this case of Russia vs Ukraine because nobody gave two tosses about Ukraine before this, there's been no opportunity for alignment. And even if there was, why would I take the side of Ukraine against Russia? I'm a Leftie sympathiser, I'm told, surely I would leap on the chance to rage against US-funded-Ukrainian nazis? I wouldn't be able to help myself.

The (UK) public didn't really go along with the Iraq war after all did they? - that surely is a classic case of no-brain good-versus-evil. Good old clean-cut-thankyou-for-your-service-GIJoe versus men-in-dodgy-moustaches-and-dresses-in-the-desert. I mean "they" tried their best - I even had a copy of "Desert Strike" for my Sega MegaDrive where you could enjoy blowing up scuds from your Apache 'copter - but I don't buy that it makes me indoctrinated. (Who knew Sega were in on the plot?)! . But yeah that was a Labour government at the the time wasn't it? Proper bogeymen.

What I find slightly risible is that you think you've sifted through all the hard-to-find evidence and seen the light. If you can do it, so can other proper journalists. And for every man that is indoctrinated there's a significant number who -always- assume they are being lied to.

[Count Steer]

If we're doing well supported, well armed Nazi units, shall we discuss The Wagner Group and Dmitriy Utkin next? You know, Putin's 'private army'. Just for balance like.

'The Wagner Group itself was first active in 2014, along with Utkin, in the Luhansk region of Ukraine. The company's name comes from Utkin's own call sign "Wagner" after the German composer Richard Wagner, which he is said to have chosen due to his passion for the Third Reich (Wagner being Adolf Hitler's favorite composer).'

I don't know if that's apples and apples, I thought they were a 'private' entity and I'd have probably likened them to Blackwater, financed by the government, owned by people in the government and/or well connected, and up to their necks in dodgy shit.
I think they're more along the line of deniable assets, rather than actual official army units.

The Russians don't fuck about though, if they want you gone then I don't think they're too scrupulous, you won't get any arguments from me about them being the moral high ground.

It's something of an aside but, while there are similarities between Blackwater and Wagner (and Azof batallion) one difference in terms of deniability is that Wagner doesn't exist...it can't, private military outfits are illegal in Russia. (But somehow they get transported by the Russian MoD, train at dedicated Russian MoD bases and get bulk passports issued by the government). I suppose if you're going to be really dodgy, being illegal is a good place to start.

[Screwdriver]

Something missing from all the coverage is accurate reporting of where all the Russian forces are, I expected a lot more detail. Maybe satellite intelligence isn't as good as we are led to believe.

Well that would be an extraordinarily dumb move to make all of that information freely available. I am constantly surprised by the idiocy of the Russian military though they may yet prevail by brute force.

Recent story suggests Russia blew up a Ukrainian 3g comms tower which took out their own encrypted communication system. If that's not dumb enough, they then nicked a load of Ukrainian sim cards and started using those. Not only does that allow the opposition to eavesdrop on everything, they can track any individual so Ukraine just sent a Bayraktar to home in on their General. They won't be sending him back in a body bag...

[Potter]

What I find slightly risible is that you think you've sifted through all the hard-to-find evidence and seen the light. If you can do it, so can other proper journalists. And for every man that is indoctrinated there's a significant number who -always- assume they are being lied to.

Proper journalists?
If you were John Pilger I might listen to you, but I don't think you and me agree on what proper journalism is.

IMO you're more intelligent than average, so I'm not saying you're a mug and there is little point in us arguing about who is the most able to see beyond the spoon feeding - from my side it took a couple of wars and a couple of decades seeing other parts of the world until I finally saw the corruption of the narrative I'd been raised on.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Something missing from all the coverage is accurate reporting of where all the Russian forces are, I expected a lot more detail. Maybe satellite intelligence isn't as good as we are led to believe.

It's probably more likely "they" are not reporting it for two more practical reasons.

- If you know where the enemy are you don't necessarily want them to realise that you know.
- Perhaps more mundanely, all the Satellite data that's privately obtained ain't free!

[Hoonercat]

I agree...but FWIW this whole right wing thing has hardly been brushed under the carpet AFAICT. There have been front page articles about it on the mainstream news sites in the last few weeks for example.

The "nutter" tag for me comes in when people are a)claiming that its a secret that is hidden away and b)Zelensky - a Jew who won a huge chunk of the popular vote - owes his success to their support.

As for Iranian oil and the like. Personally I'd rather pay a higher gas bill, but I know most wouldn't and many can't.

It's not quite mainstream news in western media, although it is there if you look, I know about it from browsing independent news and talking to the Ukrainians at work - yet when I posted about it I had (for example) Irie in disbelief and demanding I prove it, DT saying he'd seen nothing about it and Hoonercat saying it's only a small percentage of them, then a few others chipping in to gaslight me claiming I'm a paranoid weirdo.

There is no virtue signalling, I called out a far-right army in place, well provisioned and fully supported by the west.
I took some shit, but now you accept it. I'm not frothing about it or burning bridges, but if any of you are then that's left with you.

I wouldn't call 10-20% a small percentage, but you originally suggested they would have a lot of influence in Ukraine, my point being that 90-180 ultra-nationalists in a population of 44 million is irrelevant. They (along with other regiments) were formed and funded by Jewish billionaire Igor Kolomoisky (I doubt he had the time to check their political views or ask if they had any tattoos, with Russian troops on their doorstep). They were a bunch of right-wing, well armed thugs who carried out some pretty dispicable horrors (as did their Russian counterparts). No govt wants half a dozen or so private armies carrying out atrocities in their name, particularly a govt who want to join the EU and NATO, and following and a report from Amnesty International report that these militias 'act with virtually no oversight or control' they were incorporated into the National Guard (not the Ukraine army) to give the govt oversight of their actions and to make them accountable (or at least the perception of). The following month, the commander and many other volunteers left to form a polictical party, and since then many 'veterans' have done the same, but there is no denying the regiment's ultra-national roots or that some are still of that persuasion and have links to the political party.
As for their politics, they are completely out of step with the rest of Ukraine. They are anti EU, anti NATO, want an autocratic state with a president who has direct control over the military, but instead got a pro EU, pro NATO Jewish president. Ironically, if it wasn't for their ultra national views, they'd make perfect bed fellows for Putin and would probably be fighting alongside Russian forces.
BTW, the Donbas batallion, also originally funded by Igor Kolomoisky, were accused of similar war crimes before they were incoporated into the National Guard, but you won't hear Putin mention that because the batallion was made up entirely of ethnic-Russian volunteers opposed to Russian rule, which doesn't fit with his 'genocide' agenda'.

[Potter]

I wouldn't call 10-20% a small percentage, but you originally suggested they would have a lot of influence in Ukraine, my point being that 90-180 ultra-nationalists in a population of 44 million is irrelevant. They (along with other regiments) were formed and funded by Jewish billionaire Igor Kolomoisky (I doubt he had the time to check their political views or ask if they had any tattoos, with Russian troops on their doorstep). They were a bunch of right-wing, well armed thugs who carried out some pretty dispicable horrors (as did their Russian counterparts). No govt wants half a dozen or so private armies carrying out atrocities in their name, particularly a govt who want to join the EU and NATO, and following and a report from Amnesty International report that these militias 'act with virtually no oversight or control' they were incorporated into the National Guard (not the Ukraine army) to give the govt oversight of their actions and to make them accountable (or at least the perception of). The following month, the commander and many other volunteers left to form a polictical party, and since then many 'veterans' have done the same, but there is no denying the regiment's ultra-national roots or that some are still of that persuasion and have links to the political party.
As for their politics, they are completely out of step with the rest of Ukraine. They are anti EU, anti NATO, want an autocratic state with a president who has direct control over the military, but instead got a pro EU, pro NATO Jewish president. Ironically, if it wasn't for their ultra national views, they'd make perfect bed fellows for Putin and would probably be fighting alongside Russian forces.
BTW, the Donbas batallion, also originally funded by Igor Kolomoisky, were accused of similar war crimes before they were incoporated into the National Guard, but you won't hear Putin mention that because the batallion was made up entirely of ethnic-Russian volunteers opposed to Russian rule, which doesn't fit with his 'genocide' agenda'.

You've ripped that straight off Wiki, but ok, let's say it's all true, that's like Richard Branson arming the Millwall Bushwackers with automatic weapons and anti-tank missiles, because Chelsea are only around the corner, then Boris Johnson arranging for the SAS/MI5 to train them, and then incorporating them into the Territorial Army because he can better keep an eye on them.

Then when he's had enough he disbands them and tells them to behave and keep out of trouble.

No risks there then

[Mussels]

Could UK be a guarantor in Ukraine-Russia peace deal?

NATO membership by the back door?
Sounds good but the US and UK were meant to enforce Russia's last agreement not to attack Ukraine, Russia will just wave the nuke card again next time. I don't see how Ukraine can accept a deal that leaves it unable to defend itself.

The Kremlin has told Russians not to panic buy staple goods such as sugar and buckwheat as prices rise at a record rate and shortages have been reported across the country.

“Russians have absolutely no need to run to the shops and buy-up buckwheat, sugar and toilet paper,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday, when asked about reports of panic buying.

“The fuss around supplies in food stores is extremely emotional,” he said.

Bog roll seems to be a global obsession.

[Hoonercat]

I wouldn't call 10-20% a small percentage, but you originally suggested they would have a lot of influence in Ukraine, my point being that 90-180 ultra-nationalists in a population of 44 million is irrelevant. They (along with other regiments) were formed and funded by Jewish billionaire Igor Kolomoisky (I doubt he had the time to check their political views or ask if they had any tattoos, with Russian troops on their doorstep). They were a bunch of right-wing, well armed thugs who carried out some pretty dispicable horrors (as did their Russian counterparts). No govt wants half a dozen or so private armies carrying out atrocities in their name, particularly a govt who want to join the EU and NATO, and following and a report from Amnesty International report that these militias 'act with virtually no oversight or control' they were incorporated into the National Guard (not the Ukraine army) to give the govt oversight of their actions and to make them accountable (or at least the perception of). The following month, the commander and many other volunteers left to form a polictical party, and since then many 'veterans' have done the same, but there is no denying the regiment's ultra-national roots or that some are still of that persuasion and have links to the political party.
As for their politics, they are completely out of step with the rest of Ukraine. They are anti EU, anti NATO, want an autocratic state with a president who has direct control over the military, but instead got a pro EU, pro NATO Jewish president. Ironically, if it wasn't for their ultra national views, they'd make perfect bed fellows for Putin and would probably be fighting alongside Russian forces.
BTW, the Donbas batallion, also originally funded by Igor Kolomoisky, were accused of similar war crimes before they were incoporated into the National Guard, but you won't hear Putin mention that because the batallion was made up entirely of ethnic-Russian volunteers opposed to Russian rule, which doesn't fit with his 'genocide' agenda'.

You've ripped that straight off Wiki, but ok, let's say it's all true, that's like Richard Branson arming the Millwall Bushwackers with automatic weapons and anti-tank missiles, because Chelsea are only around the corner, then Boris Johnson arranging for the SAS/MI5 to train them, and then incorporating them into the Territorial Army because he can better keep an eye on them.

Then when he's had enough he disbands them and tells them to behave and keep out of trouble.

No risks there then

Lol, none of it came from Wiki, it's from various sources which look deeper into the origins of the volunteer regiments in Ukraine. But if it makes you feel better about making daft analogies, knock yourself out

[slowsider]

Could UK be a guarantor in Ukraine-Russia peace deal?

NATO membership by the back door?
Sounds good but the US and UK were meant to enforce Russia's last agreement not to attack Ukraine, Russia will just wave the nuke card again next time. I don't see how Ukraine can accept a deal that leaves it unable to defend itself.

The Kremlin has told Russians not to panic buy staple goods such as sugar and buckwheat as prices rise at a record rate and shortages have been reported across the country.

“Russians have absolutely no need to run to the shops and buy-up buckwheat, sugar and toilet paper,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday, when asked about reports of panic buying.

“The fuss around supplies in food stores is extremely emotional,” he said.

Bog roll seems to be a global obsession...

... for when the shit hits the fan.

[Potter]

Lol, none of it came from Wiki, it's from various sources which look deeper into the origins of the volunteer regiments in Ukraine. But if it makes you feel better about making daft analogies, knock yourself out

Fair enough, and credit to you for doing a bit of reading instead of just accusing me of being a paranoid nutter that is losing the plot and inventing them out of thin air.

I don't know much more than you've written except for some anecdotal stuff from Ukrainians, but it's nothing more than conversations over coffee, it reminded me of stories about the IRA.

[DefTrap]

Proper journalists?
If you were John Pilger I might listen to you, but I don't think you and me agree on what proper journalism is.

IMO you're more intelligent than average, so I'm not saying you're a mug and there is little point in us arguing about who is the most able to see beyond the spoon feeding - from my side it took a couple of wars and a couple of decades seeing other parts of the world until I finally saw the corruption of the narrative I'd been raised on.

This is too kind.

I don't think it's a question of who is fick, more of motivation to delude or remain unenlightened. What's a journo driven by? His paymasters or are they on a mission to inform and tell the truth? We have plenty enough journalists on the ground in Ukraine (at least 50 UK according to sources) from all the usual suspects and including Vice and even freelancers. I don't believe they're all blind to the other side of the coin.

I'm happy to be spoon-fed, I don't really have the time or inclination to sift through the non-mainstream alongside the easily accessible. I'm just not convinced the majority of journos aren't actively engaged in a scoop rather than trotting out the spooge.