This Russia bad, Ukraine good narrative is beyond a joke. Almost everything they claim on the MSM is literally made up nonsense. The West is desperate for Putin to attack and are literally poking the Bear in the eye. Its scary to see how this is shaping up because there is absolutely ZERO public appetite for any kind of conflict with Russia.

Terrifying to realise just how corrupt the West has become because this what we are being told through the supposedly respectable news sources is just utterly ludicrous if you take the time to just investigate it all a little deeper. They really do take us all for fools.

Edited by Matov (24 Jan 2022 8.10pm)

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.

Personally I think Putin is the most astute politican of the 21st century. And he puts Russia first. A true leader. Listen/watch his speeches.

No Russian ever dropped a bomb on London. Or blew themselves up on a tube train. Why would we want to risk a single British soldier to defend a nation like Ukraine which is effectively a failed state, rotten with a corruption that beggars belief at times.

We are fed lie after lie about the threat Russia poses when the reality is that the West has broken promise after promise it made to Russia and is trying to control how it sells its gas. My understanding is that Russia sends most of its gas exports to the West via a pipe line through Ukraine. And it wishes to change that with the US wanting to stop that happening for a whole variety of reasons.

If we end up in any kind of shooting war with Russia then I am on the streets protesting because it will be a manufactuered conflict, deliberately set off by a US regime that has been bought, lock stock and barrel.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.

When the Soviet Union fell apart, Russia was told that NATO would not expand towards its borders. Assurances given. And now? NATO exercises right up against it. Russia is by far the sinned against rather than the sinner, at least on this issue.

I have recently been trying to make sense of what is going on in terms of recent gas finds/pipe line construction. Fascinating, at least to a saddo like me, along with being bloody confusing because there are all kinds of complexitiy and nuances to the wider-geo politics but essentially it all boils down to control of pipe-lines. Huge recent finds for both Turkey and Iran, along with all kinds of shenanigans in the Eastern Mediteranian linked to the supply and sourcing of it.

Its a geo-political gold-mine, if you like that kind of thing, and given the amount of nations with an interest in it, more akin to 3-D chess than anything else I have ever come accross.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.

Perhaps the thread title should be changed to, Are we all toast?

If it came to a shooting war then NATO has the capability to beat the Russians but it would be bloody messy and I suspect they will not commit combat troops, at least in terms of direct hand to hand fighting with the Russians. Suspect it would be more airstrikes and the like, with perhaps some artillary support but not actual pitched battles with NATO forces. And the West never truly lost in Afghanistan, they merely just upped and left. A huge difference and making what happened even more shameful.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.

The only news I have seen recently (back in December) is about Russia withdrawing troops from the Ukrainian border. And nobody has yet given me any upsides to Russia actually launching this invasion.

We get all sorts of hype, and film footage of troops in trenches, but it is all, at least in news reporting terms, pure froth. Nothing actually concrete unless I am missing some coverage from it.

If Russia was planning an invasion then you would be seeing, night after night, news of Russian forces moving forward, even if only from their own embedded journalists.

It all strikes me as an illusion of an invasion threat being created rather than the actual reality of it. I am genuinely happy to be corrected on all of this but I really cannot see anything other than a huge hype being created around this with all the sabre rattling coming from both a US and UK administrations desperate to divert attention from domestic woes.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - 1984 - George Orwell.