Britain and France have declared they are ready to deploy troops to Ukraine in the aftermath of a peace deal, a major new commitment that has been under discussion for months, although one which Russia is likely to block forcefully.
Boots on the ground, eh?
We don’t have enough troops to make a difference – either side here has been taking annual casualties larger than our entire armed forces. The only possible use of British troops here is as a tripwire. Which probably isn’t a good use of British troops.
You know, “If you’re overrun then we’ll draft a really stiff letter!”
I’ve gradually been turning more and more sceptical about Ukraine (and I think Steve here might have got me there). And Mea Culpa, I got it wrong. The thing of bringing refugees here, fine, arming Ukraine, probably not.
It’s the ratchet thing. You start with a bit of sanctions. That doesn’t work, so you send in arms. That doesn’t work, so next it’s “to provide reassurance after the ceasefire”.
And it’s all smothered with a layer of “we should have acted earlier against Hitler” and “Putin is working out where our undersea cable is” (which he wouldn’t have, if we hadn’t armed Ukraine). Then people go all “hero mode” wanting to liberate Ukraine, at least with the blood of someone else’s sons.
So after that, what? Do we bottle it if some soldiers get shot, or full-on war?
It’s important to plan, to draw lines. Work out how much you need to win before day 1, then fight if that makes sense. How many Russians are we going to have to kill before Putin fucks off? If you can’t answer that, you can’t go into this war. And you then have to ask how many British or NATO soldiers have to be killed to do that, and do you accept that price. The truth is, that’s probably a low number. Like Americans deciding that Afghanistan wasn’t worth it after 2000 dead.
“Putin is working out where our undersea cable is” (which he wouldn’t have, if we hadn’t armed Ukraine).
If you believe that evidence-free assertion, I have a bridge to sell you. For starters, consider Litvinenko (2006) and the 14 other suspicious deaths over the last three decades….Russia has behaved aggressively towards the UK long before the Ukraine war.
Besides.. Messing with underseas cables is for the not-so-silent War-in-Peacetime where you can do the Plausible Deniability thing.
If you’re talking actual war, it’s far easier, (and should you win, lest costly to repair), to hit the places where they go landside..
Along with a server farm or two…
Valid military logistics targets, like bridges and railway stations..
Y’know… the stuff any military organisation taking itself seriously has mapped out and at least a basic scenario for to begin with…
And not just Russia. It’s a non-bet the US has a very accurate target list ready even for NATO partners, Just In Case.
Litvinenko was ex-FSB traitor, not a Cleethorpes hairdresser. And I’m guessing the other 14 people are ex-pals of Putin who were going to or had blabbed.
How would you feel if the secret service had flown into Russia and murdered the Cambridge Five. Would you sit in a jury and want them locked up for it, or consider they’d done a useful service?
I’d have condemned the assassination of the Cambridge Five. Extraction, trial and then hanging would have been acceptable, though. Litvinenko, however, had been tried twice in Russia and was acquitted twice. Fifteen extra-judicial killings on UK soil is more than enough evidence of Putin’s malign intent…
Malign intent towards, I presume 15 Russians living here. How many Englishmen would be acceptable to die to prevent Russian #16?
You won’t convince the Diehards (Theo, PJF et al) here unfortunately – they’ll fight to the last Ukrainian and when that’s done they’ll probably throw the Baltics and Poland into the mix as well – in the meantime ISIS will have more than a hundred brigades with tens of thousands of additional fifth columnists in situ, ready to turn the UK into Syria at the first call to do so – but Putin will still be ‘A greater threat’.
Putin is a great external threat, and Islam is a great internal threat. Both are important: it’s not either/or – unless you are a Russophile or Putin apologist!
But it is fucking either or when you’ve got no money , limited resource and the greater threat is on the ground and in situ across every large city in the Uk. Look at Birmingham or Bradford. ISIS control large swathes of both cities – where’s the Russian equivalent to that? Get your head out of your arse – FFS.
Money is not an issue when it comes to the defence of the realm: funds could be found. ISIS simply does not “control large swathes of…Birmingham or Bradford”, although the islamist threat is real. Likewise, the Russian and Chinese threats are real and must be confronted. It is not either/or unless you imagine (falsely) that Russia does not have malign intentions towards the West and the UK. Now, calm down, dear.
Money is not an issue when it comes to the defence of the realm: funds could be found.
So there’s no constraints on the Defence Budget – at a time when there’s a massive recruitment crisis, the Armed Forces are being gutted by a government which has close links with both China and the Islamic extremist fringes globally (Hamas/ ISIS) – we have anti-semites (As many as a fifth of the MPs and maybe more openly want every Jew in the world murdered). Anti-Western and Anti English narratives are baked in at all levels of our public sector – do you really think we should ‘spend more’ without massive institutional reform
Likewise, the Russian and Chinese threats are real and must be confronted. It is not either/or unless you imagine (falsely) that Russia does not have malign intentions towards the West and the UK.
And Yet Russia, a second rate power with a declining population is more of an issue than a religion that has millions of adherents and dozens of countries as well as near complete control of the UN? For real? I will admit I don’t think Putin’s and our interests coincide but the Islamist threat is real, clear and present and all our attention has to focus on that, closing down Mosques, barring Islamic immigration and remigrating large numbers.
I’m not against fighting in Ukraine, I just want to hear the objective and the costs in money and lives, and the workings of that.
Find everybody on social media with a Ukraine flag in their bio and offer them the chance to sign up?
And every last person in those public buildings that fly the flag, too? Conscripted to the Infantry? Even (especially) the lardarses?
For which side, Martin?
It’s goodies v. baddies isn’t it?
Quite a few of us have been saying from the start that it makes no sense at all for us to give a shit about Ukraine, and that Russia at least has a point so why won’t our media allow us to hear it?
Some of our more sentient countrymen are finally having that penny drop moment that ‘Ha ha ha Russia is fucked it can’t even take Ukraine in four years’ does not comport with ‘OMG Putin wants all of Europe, Finland and Poland are next and he’ll he at the Channel by May’.
Eventually the penny will drop further with the unavoidable realisation that your government (and our media) doesn’t remotely work for you, and you don’t know who it does work for but it must be someone.
Interested, I agree that ideally Ukraine is nothing to do with us, but seeing as Boris fucked up a peace plan tentatively agreed between Z & P in 2022, perhaps we do share some responsibility. Not to the point of putting boots on the ground though.
Remember when the Government and the Media assured that Russia was on the verge of collapse in the second week of the war?
‘OMG Putin wants all of Europe, Finland and Poland are next…’
Yes, that is exactly what Putin wants, though it is a longer-term goal
Putinism resembles islamo-fascism. Leading Russians believs that the West is decadent and oppressive, Moscow is the Third Rome, and Russians are God’s chosen people. So, as the contemporary Russian philosopher (and Putin advisor) Alexandr Dugin advocates, Putinism aims for an illiberal totalitarian Russian Empire to control the Eurasian continent from Dublin to Vladivostok in order to challenge America and the West.
Putinism also draws on previous pan-Russian thinkers. Putin and his circle has read Lev Gumilyov’s bizarre theories of Russians as a “super-ethnos” with the “passionarity” to expand and dominate other ethnicities and states. Another such ideologist is Ivan Ilyin – a White Russian religious fascist. Putin ordered Ilyin’s posthumous repatriation, having his remains moved from Switzerland to the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow.
Putin is as bad as Stalin and Hitler, and he needs to be contained.
Putin is as bad as Stalin and Hitler
Blimey, really?
Because if you’re right, we should nuke Moscow now. Why wait for HitlerStalin to nuke us first?
Of course, 95% of us will be incinerated in the crossfire, or die soon after from rad poisoning.
But at least we’ll have stopped Hitler.
Thanks for the trademark non sequitur, Steve. Putin is as bad as Hitler and Stalin in that he has expansionist aims and a belief that Russians are a master race…
Theo – I’m always keen to understand the neurotypical, so please explain where the nonsequitur is?
You said: Putinism aims for an illiberal totalitarian Russian Empire to control the Eurasian continent from Dublin to Vladivostok and that Mr P is another Hitlah/Uncle Joe.
If you’re right, that makes direct war with Russia inevitable right?
And Russia is the world’s largest nuclear power. If war with them is inevitable, we’re going to be nuked.
So, logically, why aren’t we stopping this Hitler fella now? Why wait till he’s finished with his 4 year conquest of a bit of Ukraine, and give the Russian menace time to complete the conquest of Europe? Why let them do a first strike? That would be madness. We only have 16 Trident missiles….
Logically and morally, if you are right, the nukes should fly now. Am I the only one who wants to win the inevitable war with Russia?
If you’re right, that makes direct war with Russia inevitable right?
I am right; but that only makes war with Russia inevitable, if we do not deter Russia! Duh!! Appeasing Russia will only make war more likely.
So we negotiate a repartitioning of Ukraine and then arm ourselves to the hilt…
Theo – I am right; but that only makes war with Russia inevitable, if we do not deter Russia! Duh!! Appeasing Russia will only make war more likely.
Well, thankfully – rather than cheap appeasement – Britain has spent £22Bn so far on supporting Ukraine’s war effort.
That should deter them, right? Or will £23Bn be enough?
So we negotiate a repartitioning of Ukraine and then arm ourselves to the hilt…
We’re not renegotiating anything I’m afraid. The Americans and Russians are negotiating, Ukraine and Europe will be informed of the outcome if any agreement can be reached. Yesterday’s announcement is just a lame stunt by TT, Le Midget, and Zelensky. Sort of like Channel 4’s sad and gay annual unofficial Christmas message, it doesn’t actually mean anything because the UK, France and Ukraine aren’t in charge and don’t have the capability to force Russia to do anything.
Redrawing the borders, yarp, that’s inevitable. But NB Zelensky still swears blind Ukraine won’t “accept” losing territory. (Perhaps Germany simply shouldn’t have “accepted” losing WW1?)
Arm ourselves to the hilt – well, we do have 16 x Trident missiles, each MIRVed up.
What else do you think we should do? The British Army’s record of spending money isn’t very encouraging – Ajax has already caused more British casualties than it will ever cause Russian casualties. We could literally double the size and expense of the British Army and it wouldn’t be enough fighting power to last us 6 months in the kind of war Ukraine has been fighting for 4 years.
We’re an island off Western Europe, seems our best (non-nuclear) deterrence option is to ensure we can control the GIUK gap?
Of course, Ajax is still “world class”
You are NOT going to arm yourselves, and Putin knows it. He can incrementally gobble up Europe, east to west, and you will NOT DO WHAT IT TAKES TO STOP HIM.
Actions in Ukraine are irrelevant. Europe must put forth a defensive barrier to Russia. Period. All else is intrigue. Your lack of defense is what makes peace negotiations in Ukraine impossible.
Understand that depending on the US is over. You do it, or it won’t get done. So, it won’t get done. Move your assets to Spain; the alligator will eat them last.
If you are right then by your own analysis deterrence is impossible.
They have a divine mandate, right? That is what you said they believe.
Where has Putin said the Russians are a master race?
Even if he said that, so what?
He’s entitled to think whatever he likes, mad or otherwise.
Does it mean he intends to invade Finland and Poland?
For that matter, where has he said he wants to invade Finland and Poland?
I know people like Starmer and Macron and Biden and Boris all the other wankers you support say he believes and intends all of this… where’s the evidence?
He has an arguable – I don’t say correct, I say arguable – case in respect of the expansion of NATO and what that means for his own country’s national security.
He has no case in respect of Finland or Poland, and zero chance of taking either if he wanted to and tried it, something I’m pretty sure he knows very well indeed.
Putin venerates pan-Russian thinkers – like Gumilyov – that claimed the Russians were a master race. His advisors include people – like Dugin – who believe in a Russian empire stretching from Dublin and Lisbon to Vladivostok. Already the Russians are behaving threateningly towards Finland, Poland and Moldova….There’s more evidence for Russia’s hostile intentions than any of the conspiracy theoriesyou float here…
As for “Starmer and Macron and Biden and Boris”, I do not support them, and I certainly don’t agree with everything they say about Ukraine. And Russia has no arguable claim to Ukraine – none whatsoever.
“Putin is as bad as Hitler and Stalin”. I’m sorry, but that is pretty self-evident nonsense.
Theo
If you do believe that, you should sign up now! Me, I’m looking for a retirement home in Texas.
Balls to that. My retirement plan is When The Wind Blows…
Oh fuck off.
Leading Russians believe that the West is decadent and oppressive
And sadly, they’re not wrong, but at least we now have Trump and Meloni.
One of t’tings that pisses me off is the assumptive sale that we Have Always Been Allies With West Eurasia.
We’re not actually friends with Ukraine, we have no shared history or culture, we have no strategic interests there, we don’t even speak the same language and Ukraine (like Russia) is a horrible low trust society where people are scamming and robbing each other all the time.
We have been here before, in the first Crimean War, where Britain and France opportunistically supported Muslim slavers over Russian Christians. O tempura!
Ukraine (like Russia) is a horrible low trust society where people are scamming and robbing each other all the time.
That’s Brits you’re describing there, Steve. Compared with Brits most Ukrainians & Russians are honest trustworthy people.
C’mon BiS, you know better than that.
Read up on the marriage scams Ukrainians love playing on gullible Brits. Place is basically White India. (And so is Russia!)
Admittedly their women are extremely fit.
Hence the danger.
It would be fascinating to dig through the news about Ukraine before the war All the corruption and so forth.
It’s all gone away because everyone has to make it Luke vs Palpatine. And I get it if you’re one of the participants. But we’re not.
The British elite fucking love war, though. Because we did great in WW2 (but then the generation that knew the cost passed on) we are now like the kid going “pick me pick me” so we can show off how much of a big boy nation we are. Why are we sending a lot more military aid than France? Does Putin plan on spreading his “master race” to Kent and not bothering with Aquitaine?
Putin doesn’t have to lift a military finger against us when he knows that Cambridge Benders and silly woke cunts will do his job for him for a few quid. Same with Xi, who simply appears to have bought everyone.
Russia has no point about or claim on Ukraine. Duh!
We don’t have to care about Ukraine but the idea that ‘well, a long time ago Ukraine was conquered by Russia, therefore it belongs to Russia forever’ is not a point.
Neither is ‘we have to protect the Russian speaking people who *chose* to live there’.
I think you’ll find that Ukraine is actually the original Russia, Kieva its Capital, and Moscow and surrounds a latecomer, for the Czar to better dig in against the Nobles..
*After* the Russians….”secured” the area…
Just sayin’…..
And OK this is a bit conspiracy theorist, but would you want the still just about based and patriotic infantry here twiddling their thumbs in their barracks if you’re overseeing the collapse of the country, or somewhere else far away, watching (or not watching) while it happens?
That is mad, I accept, but I am increasinly running out of sane-sounding suggestions for what is going on in the UK.
When you realise that the British Establishment hates the British People – particularly the English – everything starts to make sense…
If you’re going to wear Tinfoil: Thought Crime to be sentenced to forced conscription into the Uk section of the Unitary Ukrainian Peace Force.
The current set of nutcases don’t have an Australia to send the Otherwise-Inclined to, so a “peace force” in Ukraine is a christmas gift to them…
You aren’t conspiracy theorist in the least. The army (certainly the junior ranks) tend to be quite Conservative – hence the constant pushing of DEI crap and the enforcement of left wing crap by Senior ranks who whether through being paid or being ideologically captured. However, as per Gladiator it’s all very well putting in commanders who the men despise but when push comes to shove will they follow orders? Far better to have them half a continent away so that by the time their families have been arrested and the assets given to ISIS sympathisers and other Labour voters even if they could get back it will be a fait accompli and all their weaponry and kit will have been given to the ISIS recruits who will be manning prison camps for Reform voters.
This is the worst government in human history – not even a close-run thing. Maduro had nothing on these guys and they have 3 and a half more years to go. Anything, quite literally, is possible. There is no depth they will not plumb
“The only possible use of British troops here is as a tripwire.”
Per old cars – there are gauges, and there are idiot lights.
I’m assuming a tripwire is more idiot light? When it lights up, it means you need a new engine?
Sir Jetalot won’t defend our borders but he will defend Ukraine’s. Twat!
His oldest child is old enough to become a boy soldier. Will 2TK encourage him to try that? Ha, ha, ha. Dying in war is for other people’s children. It’s hard to deny that in 1914 the ruling class proved far better than that.
That was back when the Ruling Class still had a sense of Noblesse Oblige; completely absent from our new masters.
I’m sure TTK now thinks that of all those Muslims he’s importing “There must be a couple of rich gay ones”.
He thinks of it as the coalition of the willies…
How generous of Starmer to offer an unlimited commitment of British blood and treasure for the protection of Ukraine while illegals are flooding across the Channel in their tens of thousands, thousands of English girls are being raped and tortured every year by Muslim men and British people are being jailed for mean tweets.
Makes you proud to be British doesn’t it.
Putting UK and French troops on the ground following a peace deal would inevitably be followed by some incident where they came to harm with “evidence” suggesting that Russia did it. Things would escalate quickly. The peace would be gone and Nato troops would be getting killed supporting Ukraine rather than Ukrainian’s. A win win solution for Zelensky as he would finally be on a path where victory was possible.
NB both Two Tier and Le Grannyshagger are not part of the peace talks and this is all performative bullshit by the main losers of the Ukraine war.
They’re trying the malicious compliance route of pretending to want a peace settlement, but actually they just want to slip poison pills into the process because they can’t accept losing but have no plans to win.
Very unlikely Russia will allow the UK or Frogs to militarise Ukraine (which is why they announced this). The Yanks are also going to be pissed off at the presumptuousness of Starmer and Macron declaring that the US should “monitor” the peace, which is about trying to keep the US locked into a project they want to wind down.
When I think that the idea of NATO countries having “boots on the ground” is a complete red-line for Russia in any peace deal, I can see this photo of Starmer and Macron for the cynical and 2nd most stupid thing I have ever seen. The 1st most stupid is Zelensky sitting down and gurning with them, which shows what a liability he has become for his country.
We just have to take Zelensky’s word for it that Ukrainians still want to keep fighting to the last Ukrainian, because the expired comedian refuses to hold elections, has taken control of the media, and his political opponents have an unfortunate tendency to be arrested.
Elections are tricky in wartime. And I’m guessing they’re more inclined, but who knows? Honestly, I really don’t think I know enough about the motivations of either, or who wants to be Russian or Ukrainian there or whatever. And I’ve learned to be sceptical about the MSM and the politicians, considering how blatantly they will lie now.
We could conscrpt all new boat people, give them boots and send them to eastern europe. Mighr solve a couple of issues
Hasn’t Ukraine suffered enough?
Give them boots?
FGS, I’m not made of money.
Boots possibly. Guns no.
Eastern Europe sounds good, though really it’s distance not destination that matters.
They have invoked ‘international law’ – an unbreakable geas.
Radon is an inert element so Radon gas is not poisonous
Grauniad ignotance has no limits
Sorry, wromg thread
If I was still serving I’d be resigning, if I hadn’t already.
this government is setting the human rights industry on our military, I wouldn’t trust them to back me up having sent me there.
and anyway this situation is even worse as regards our military, it’s fast becoming a Potemkin military.
Gamecock can’t help but see Brit troops in Ukraine as history not repeating, but rhyming, with the Anglo-Polish Pact of Mutual Assistance.