Ukraine war mega thread

[OhOh]

Now it's about 70% post invasion

A link would be useful.

[pickel]

A link would be useful.

Recent opinion polls have shown as many as 68% of Finns are in favour of joining the alliance, more than double the figure before the invasion, with only 12% against.

Sweden and Finland agree to submit Nato applications, say reports | Nato | The Guardian

[OhOh]

The Rise and Rise of the Sino-Russian Strategic Energy & Metals Market


Declan Hayes


April 28, 2022

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/04/28/the-rise-and-rise-of-the-sino-russian-strategic-energy-metals-market/


The whys, how's, and ability to deliver to the global market essential goods.

[David48atTD]

The Rise and Rise of the Sino-Russian Strategic Energy & Metals Market

Declan Hayes

OhOh, with respect, do you actually research your sources?

'Declan Hayes'

... other notable works

Following on from his decades of peace activism, acclaimed Irish academic Dr Declan Hayes revisits Irish history to highlight the unlikely roles the

• Nazis,
• MI6,
• the CIA and
• the Israeli terrorist Irgun group

played in disrupting its revolutionary dynamic.


... and in ensuring modern Irish politicians and their social media "influencers" are the paid puppets of

• NATO,
• ISIS,
• the MEK^*
• and similar terrorist groupings,
• as well as of the various pharmaceutical and Silicon Valley conglomerates that own Ireland's Transgender(TM) Inc movement and

...far too much of Dublin's real estate as well.

Access to this page has been denied.

^*The Mek ... had to look them up ... "The MEK was founded on 5 September 1965 by leftist Iranian students affiliated with the Freedom Movement of Iran"

[harrybarracuda]

Hoohoo doesn't care.

He reminds me of the raggies that invited David Duke as a guest speaker to talk about how bad the jooos are.

When it was pointed out to them that he was a white supremacist who considered them intellectually and biologically inferior, they said "We're not bringing him for that".

[bsnub]

Hoohoo doesn't care.

Any clown car that supports the morons narrative, they will latch on too. The Three Stooges are so predictable.

[harrybarracuda]

A link would be useful.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/71/06...bdde743692.jpg

[Backspin]

Another British mercenary captured. Man these guys look rough

[Takeovers]

A map of Eurasia shown on Chinese state TV. A potential near future?!

Unlikely IMO. I don't tink, Finland wants to expand that way.

Telegram: Contact @ukrainenowenglish

[harrybarracuda]

A map of Eurasia shown on Chinese state TV. A potential near future?!

Unlikely IMO. I don't tink, Finland wants to expand that way.

Telegram: Contact @ukrainenowenglish

Is it like this one?

[Takeovers]

Is it like this one?

[OhOh]

A map of Eurasia shown on Chinese state TV

A link to the Chinese source would validate, or not, your statement.

[HermantheGerman]

A link to the Chinese source would validate, or not, your statement.

Why? You accept blindly what The Fuehrers say.

[harrybarracuda]

A link to the Chinese source would validate, or not, your statement.

Certainly

Link

[sabang]

This is interesting- from the BBC no less. "Counter narratives" are now being aired, at least partially. What this may portend, i don't really know. But I do think there is a growing awareness at the Big end of town (no Boneheads) is that 'We' got it wrong. A positive step.



Ukraine - the narrative the West doesn't hear



"Ukraine and its allies, including London, are threatening Russia for the last 1,000 years, to move Nato to our borders, to cancel our culture - they have bullied us for many, many years."

That is what Yevgeny Popov, a member of the Russian Duma (parliament) and an influential TV host in Russia, told the BBC's Ukrainecast on 19 April. "Of course Nato plans for Ukraine are a direct threat to Russian citizens."

His views were both surprising and enlightening as to the very different narrative put out by the Kremlin, compared to the way it's viewed in the West. To European and Western ears, these pronouncements sound almost unfathomable, even amounting to a blatant disregard for carefully documented evidence. Yet these are just some of the beliefs held not only by Kremlin supporters in Russia and across the wider population there but also in several other parts of the world.

After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, the UN held an emergency vote - 141 nations out of 193 UN member states voted a week later to condemn it. But a number of major countries chose to abstain, including China, India and South Africa. So it would be delusional for Western leaders to believe that the entire world shares Nato's view - that Russia is entirely to blame for this catastrophic war - because it doesn't.

So why are so many countries on the fence about Russia's invasion?

There are many reasons, ranging from straightforward economic or military self-interest, to accusations of Western hypocrisy to Europe's colonial past. There is no one-size-fits-all. Every country may have its own particular reasons for not wanting to publicly condemn Russia or alienate President Putin.

'No limits' to co-operation

Let's start with China, the world's most populous state with more than 1.4 billion people, most of whom get their news on Ukraine from the state-controlled media, just as most people do in Russia. China received a high-profile visitor to its Winter Olympics shortly before the Ukraine invasion began on 24 February - President Putin. A Chinese communique issued afterwards said there "was no limit to the two countries' co-operation". So did Putin tip off his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that he was about to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine? Absolutely not, says China, but it's hard to imagine that there would have not been even just a hint of what was to come to such an important neighbour.

China and Russia may one day end up being strategic rivals, but today they are partners and share a common disdain, bordering on enmity, for Nato, the West and its democratic values. China has already clashed with the US over Chinese military expansion into the South China Sea. Beijing has also clashed with Western governments over its treatment of its Uighur population, its crushing of democracy in Hong Kong and its frequently repeated vow to "return Taiwan to the fold", by force if necessary.

So China and Russia have a common enemy in Nato, and their governments' worldview percolates down to both countries' populations with the result that, for the most part, they simply do not share the West's abhorrence of Russia's invasion and alleged war crimes.

India and Pakistan have their own reasons for not wanting to antagonise Russia. India gets much of its arms from Moscow and, after its recent clash with China in the Himalayas, India is betting that one day it may need Russia as an ally and protector.

Pakistan's recently ousted Prime Minister, Imran Khan, has been a fierce critic of the West, especially the US. Pakistan also receives arms from Russia and it needs Moscow's blessing to help secure trade routes into its northern hinterland of Central Asia. Prime Minister Khan went ahead with a pre-planned visit to see President Putin on 24 February, the very day Russia invaded Ukraine. Both India and Pakistan abstained in the UN vote to condemn the invasion.

Hypocrisy and double standards

Then there is the accusation, shared by many, especially in Muslim-majority countries, that the West, led by its most powerful nation - the US - is guilty of hypocrisy and double standards. In 2003, the US and UK chose to bypass the UN - and much of world opinion - by invading Iraq on spurious grounds, leading to years of violence. Washington and London have also been accused of helping to prolong the civil war in Yemen, by arming the Royal Saudi Air Force which conducts frequent airstrikes there in support of the country's official government.

For many states in Africa there are other, even more historic reasons at play. In Soviet times, Moscow poured arms into the continent as it sought to confront US and Western influence from the Sahara to the Cape. In some places, a legacy of western European colonisation in the 19th and 20th centuries is a lasting resentment of the West that plays out even today. France, which rushed troops into Mali in 2013 - to prevent an Al-Qaeda takeover of the whole country - is not popular in its former colony. So now the bulk of French troops have left, to be replaced by the Kremlin-backed Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group.

And where does the Middle East stand on this? No surprises that Syria - along with North Korea, Belarus and Eritrea - has backed Russia's invasion. Syria's President Bashar Al-Assad relies heavily on Russia for his survival after his country risked being overrun by ISIS fighters in 2015. But even long-time Western allies, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) although they backed the UN vote, have been relatively muted in their criticism of Moscow. The UAE's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, has a good relationship with Vladimir Putin - his previous ambassador to Moscow has been on hunting trips with him.

It is also worth remembering that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has a largely dysfunctional relationship with President Biden. Such is their mutual dislike, that the two men reportedly refuse to take each other's phone calls. Before that, when the world's leaders gathered in Buenos Aires for the G20 Summit - in late 2018, just weeks after the West accused the Saudi crown prince of ordering the grisly murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi - most Western leaders gave the Saudi prince the cold shoulder. Putin, by contrast, high-fived him. That's not something the Saudi leader will have forgotten in a hurry.

None of this means that all those countries mentioned actively support this invasion, apart from Belarus. Only five states voted in favour of it on 2 March at the UN, and one of those was Russia. But what it does mean is that, for multiple reasons, the West cannot assume the rest of the world shares its view of Putin, nor of the sanctions, nor of the West's willingness to openly confront Russia's invasion with ever more lethal supplies of weaponry to Ukraine.

Ukraine - the narrative the West doesn't hear (msn.com)

[David48atTD]

Ukraine - the narrative the West doesn't hear

"Ukraine and its allies, including London, are threatening Russia for the last 1,000 years, to move Nato to our borders, to cancel our culture - they have bullied us for many, many years."

That is what Yevgeny Popov, a member of the Russian Duma (parliament) and an influential TV host in Russia, told the BBC

There is no endorsement from the BBC, they are just reporting what the Russian dude is crying about.

That's what a News Service does. Good to see they are reporting both sides.

[sabang]

That's what a News Service does

Fully agreed David. It is when you see a concerted lack of that, you should question the narrative. The author, however, was-

By Frank Gardner
Security correspondent

[bsnub]

It is when you see a concerted lack of that, you should question the narrative.

It is just more of the same crap you have posted over and over again.

Yevgeny Popov

The guy is a full stop loon who barks nightly on Russian state propaganda TV that the Russians should start a nuclear war.

It is when you see a concerted lack of that, you should question the narrative.

You reject facts and reality and embrace lunacy.

[sabang]

Tell that to the BBC snub.

[bsnub]

Tell that to the BBC snub.

It was not the BBC, you imbecile, it was a person's opinion. The BBC was just the transmission vessel because free speech and all.

[sabang]

Ukraine - the narrative the West doesn't hear
By Frank Gardner
Security correspondent

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61272203


Like stealing candy from a baby. I almost feel guilty sometimes.

[bsnub]

Like stealing candy from a baby. I almost feel guilty sometimes.

The fact that you insist on embarrassing yourself is a sad testimony to your idiocy. You after all got this whole thing wrong from the very start. You should have fucked off at the start of the war.

[sabang]

Tell Frank Gardiner, BBC Security correspondent, and the BBC snub. As you well know, I'm not listening.

[bsnub]

As you well know, I'm not listening.

No, you never do you suffer from a strong case of Dunning-Kruger like the other Three Stooges. You bleated on and on about how the Western intel and press was lying about the fact that war was imminent. In fact, they were spot on and made a complete clown out of you.

But you keep coming back like a clueless buffoon.

You push propaganda and fake narratives.

[sabang]