Is Russia just about to invade Ukraine?

[irie]

... global affairs are being manipulated by the rich+powerful for their own personal benefit ...

Looking here, looking there, conspiracies everywhere.

[Flux]

... global affairs are being manipulated by the rich+powerful for their own personal benefit ...

Looking here, looking there, conspiracies everywhere.

Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean your not being followed (an old hippy saying)

[Hoonercat]

You said that Putin is carrying on with the invasion despite an offer of assurance that Ukraine will never join NATO. That is simply not true. There were discussions, negotiations etc. but no actual formal agreements. Without knowing the entire content of those negotiations we cannot know if any offer was sufficiently robust to satisfy Putin, ergo, we cannot say whether or not a veto of NATO membership was his prime objective.

I say it was. Other opinions are available.

If anyone believes that Putin's ambitions are anything less than the unification of Russia and Ukraine then they're living in La La Land.

We are having two separate arguments here and membership of NATO/reunification of Ukraine are not entirely separate issues as Hoonercat seems to think. They are mutually consistent, complementary objectives. Clearly one must follow the other...

I think there's a bit of a mix up here, given that I haven't mentioned reunification. My responses were to the two seperate issues that you mentioned, Putin's objection to NATO membership and NATO's response to the invasion of Crimea. The conversation then moved on to the current situation, with you stating that the NATO issue was the only reason for the current invasion, which I disagreed with. It may have played a part in his reasoning, but I don't believe it was the major factor.
As for reunification, it's clear that Putin would very much want that but I don't believe he thought it possible (at least not this time round ) Taking Kyiv would have been the quickest and most efficient way of acheiving that aim, yet depite the size of the Russian force that headed towards Kyiv, it moved with all the speed of a disabled sloth and very few actually engaged, before eventually turning around and leaving, having tied up a large chunk of Ukraine forces long enough to have made the deployment in the south and Donbas an easier affair for Russia.

[slowsider]

... global affairs are being manipulated by the rich+powerful for their own personal benefit ...

Looking here, looking there, conspiracies everywhere.

"America’s billionaire class is funding anti-democratic forces" Robert Reich

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theg ... tic-forces

[DEADPOOL]

... global affairs are being manipulated by the rich+powerful for their own personal benefit ...

Looking here, looking there, conspiracies everywhere.

This is a common misconception. even though the WEF have proposed this so called "great reset" it is not a conspiracy. Each vast ocean of unimaginably huge personal wealth is being accumulated at an ever increasing rate by individuals sometimes in collusion but always for their personal benefit. A simple mathematical analysis will show that the more money an individual has, the more easily they are able to acquire more of it.

It is merely how the game of capitalism must play out but unlike the parody of this game called Monopoly, there can be no winner. Not Bill Gates, not Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, not even the "team" called Black Rock. Eventually this relatively small group of humans will own all the money in the world.

What they have forgotten is that while they are all busy amassing their personal fortunes, sometimes a reward for brilliant work but more often than not by devious manipulation of a flawed system, there are also losers. It is a zero sum game. I win, you lose.

That cannot go on forever. Care must be taken of this precious planet, instead there is a catastrophic race to burn through all of its resources as quickly as possible to amass ever greater fortune. Soon there will be nothing left for the billions of other humans more concerned with mere survival. No fresh food, no clean water, no fuel for heating.

There may yet be a "great reset" but not the festival of greed that Klaus Schwab and his cronies are hoping for. More of a blood bath....

[Horse]

... global affairs are being manipulated by the rich+powerful for their own personal benefit ...

Each vast ocean of unimaginably huge personal wealth is being accumulated at an ever increasing rate by individuals sometimes in collusion but always for their personal benefit. A simple mathematical analysis will show that the more money an individual has, the more easily they are able to acquire more of it.

What they have forgotten is that while they are all busy amassing their personal fortunes, sometimes a reward for brilliant work but more often than not by devious manipulation of a flawed system, there are also losers. It is a zero sum game. I win, you lose.

Hardly anything new, though.

[slowsider]

Hardly anything new

But that's just 'heritage'

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.specta ... ay-job/amp

[Horse]

Hardly anything new

But that's just 'heritage'

And before that was invented, 'history'.



It would be interesting to see an estimate of how distribution of wealth has varied, say through the last 3,000 years.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was something consistent, with 1% population having 99% wealth.

[Horse]

Quick Google finds:

Rome's top 1% controlled 16 percent of the wealth, compared to modern America where the top 1% controls 40 percent of the wealth.

Although ...

what we see as the glory of Rome is really just the rubble of the rich, built on the backs of poor farmers and laborers, traces of whom have all but vanished. It’s as though Rome’s 99 percent never existed.

Of course, when considering that wealth distribution change over time, wealth of religious groups will have changed too. For example, the RC church was '0' in Roman times, but will have built up a bit.

[Hoonercat]

It was all about NATO, honestly comrades...

Russia now controls at least $12.4 trillion worth of Ukraine's energy, metal and mineral deposits, report says
Moscow controls 63% of Ukraine's coal deposits, 11% of its oil, 20% of its natural gas, 42% of its metals, and 33% of its rare earths.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/new ... AAtMre2ijM

Let's not mention that Ukraine has Europe's 3rd largest untapped energy reserves, behind Norway and Russia, which has the potential to not only allow it to be fully independent of Russian energy, but also to become an alternative supplier to the European market, given that the pipeline infrastructure already exists.

[slowsider]

Quick Google finds:

Rome's top 1% controlled 16 percent of the wealth, compared to modern America where the top 1% controls 40 percent of the wealth.

Pfft

The world’s ten richest men more than doubled their fortunes from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion —at a rate of $15,000 per second or $1.3 billion a day— during the first two years of a pandemic that has seen the incomes of 99 percent of humanity fall and over 160 million more people forced into poverty.

“If these ten men were to lose 99.999 percent of their wealth tomorrow, they would still be richer than 99 percent of all the people on this planet,” said Oxfam International’s Executive Director Gabriela Bucher. “They now have six times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 billion people.”

[Mr Moofo]

^ who's up for revolution /

[Hoonercat]

^ who's up for revolution /

We'd just going round in circles...

[DEADPOOL]

Let's not mention that Ukraine has Europe's 3rd largest untapped energy reserves, behind Norway and Russia, which has the potential to not only allow it to be fully independent of Russian energy, but also to become an alternative supplier to the European market, given that the pipeline infrastructure already exists.

I seem to recall that was the motivation to build Nord Stream 2; to stop Ukraine from becoming a major supplier in Europe.

[DEADPOOL]

It was all about NATO, honestly comrades...

Thought you said earlier NATO was "a completely seperate (sic.) subject to the invasion"...

Again, I asked you in what way you felt NATO didn't take Putin seriously with regards to Ukraine joining NATO. That's a completely seperate subject to Russia invading Ukraine - in his speech attempting to justify the invasion, he made no mention of Ukraine joining NATO.

So if Putin wants to take control of Ukraine, how is he going to do that if Ukraine becomes a member of the EU and subsequently NATO?

Would Putin invade a NATO country?

There are many ways to subvert power in nation states you wish to control. These are most often by nefarious political means (much like Putin would suggest Ukraine became more "westernised" when we installed a friendly leader). That is a long game but ultimately less expensive than a costly invasion. I think that was the game plan for Putin but when he received no firm assurance that Ukraine would not ultimately join NATO, he went for plan B.

There was talk early on during this military action of Ukraine being granted accelerated membership of the EU. Complete tosh of course, they're not "woke" enough for softy European tastes so it was just clutching at straws. But it does indicate the possibility for Europe to deliver a political coup d'état and nab all that lovely Russian** oil/gas/farmland for ourselves...


**oops I mean Ukrainian....

[Hoonercat]

It was all about NATO, honestly comrades...

Thought you said earlier NATO was "a completely seperate (sic.) subject to the invasion"...

I was referring to the conversation we were having, not the situation itself. If I'd used the word 'conversation' instead of 'subject' that would have been clearer.

[DEADPOOL]

It was all about NATO, honestly comrades...

Thought you said earlier NATO was "a completely seperate (sic.) subject to the invasion"...

I was referring to the conversation we were having, not the situation itself. If I'd used the word 'conversation' instead of 'subject' that would have been clearer.

I thought we were having a conversation about the situation?

But yes, using the correct words in the right order would help.

[Hoonercat]

Would Putin invade a NATO country?

There are many ways to subvert power in nation states you wish to control. These are most often by nefarious political means (much like Putin would suggest Ukraine became more "westernised" when we installed a friendly leader). plan B.

Agreed, Bulgaria this year being a prime example of how Russia still has its hooks in the country. Gazprom's decision to stop gas supplies to BG was seen by many analysts as an attempt to destabilize what was perceived as an anti-Russian/pro-EU government. Two months later the coalition govt collapsed directly because of the Gazprom issue, the pro-Russian president appointed an interim govt who replaced the head of the national energy company, only accepted one of seven LNG delivery offers from the US (despite them being priced lower than other EU countries were paying), began giving mixed messages over the certification of the new gas pipeline from Greece (it should have been running by now) before declaring they intended to open negotiations with Gazprom as Bulgaria wouldn't have enough gas for winter otherwise The interim govt only has another few weeks in power, yet seem intent on not only overturning all the work the previous govt did to make the country independent of Russian gas, but also destroy Bulgaria's legal case against Gazprom.

[Hoonercat]

Thought you said earlier NATO was "a completely seperate (sic.) subject to the invasion"...

I was referring to the conversation we were having, not the situation itself. If I'd used the word 'conversation' instead of 'subject' that would have been clearer.

I thought we were having a conversation about the situation?

But yes, using the correct words in the right order would help.

My bad, I've become so used to not having to spell everything out for everyone else that I forgot to make an allowance for you. I'll stick to the other Russia thread from now on, I can see why it gets far more engagement

[DEADPOOL]

Would Putin invade a NATO country?

There are many ways to subvert power in nation states you wish to control. These are most often by nefarious political means (much like Putin would suggest Ukraine became more "westernised" when we installed a friendly leader). plan B.

Agreed, Bulgaria this year being a prime example of how Russia still has its hooks in the country. Gazprom's decision to stop gas supplies to BG was seen by many analysts as an attempt to destabilize what was perceived as an anti-Russian/pro-EU government. Two months later the coalition govt collapsed directly because of the Gazprom issue, the pro-Russian president appointed an interim govt who replaced the head of the national energy company, only accepted one of seven LNG delivery offers from the US (despite them being priced lower than other EU countries were paying), began giving mixed messages over the certification of the new gas pipeline from Greece (it should have been running by now) before declaring they intended to open negotiations with Gazprom as Bulgaria wouldn't have enough gas for winter otherwise The interim govt only has another few weeks in power, yet seem intent on not only overturning all the work the previous govt did to make the country independent of Russian gas, but also destroy Bulgaria's legal case against Gazprom.

What is surprising is how little time much of Europe has before we run out of gas. The average appears to be hovering around Feb/March.

I'll be out the back chopping up logs and fixing up the old generator. Not seen the numbers for the UK but I'll be doing everything I can to avoid funding Shell during their multi billion pound profit bonanza.