beautifulthailand99

Ok I'll bite. Where ? Find a previous one and I'll concede. Cue piffle about I haven't got time to trawl through all your pointless garbiage to try and find the gotcha that you think it is. I forgot you are armchair warrioring on 2 fronts here, and Israel. Frankly I don't have the time.

It might surprise you Brian that I'm a pacifist, a Buddhist and a trustee of a charity but I find no satisfaction in watching the death of anybody from my own armchair for whatever reason. These are somebodies sons, somebodies brothers , somebodies husbands but they are all victims.

err "UK introducing mandatory national service" not true - I do have standards.

Any reasonable human being would avoid conscription in such a war, especially considering that most of the conscripts are used as cannon fodder and have a lifetime of days or, in the best-case scenario, weeks at the front line. Would you ? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz994d6vqe5o This latest conscription drive has opened up uncomfortable divisions in society, not only between those serving and those avoiding the draft, but also between female friends, some of whom have partners on the front line, and others who are hiding their boyfriends at home. The topic of mobilisation creeps into almost every conversation, which then often turn heated. Last month someone threw an explosive into the garden of an enlistment officer’s home. There is a striking distrust among the men choosing not to enlist. They do not trust the officers, after some were found to be taking bribes to help men escape the country. Nor do they trust they would be adequately trained.

TBH all of these videos from both sides with moronic music added turing this into some sick video snuff video wargame turns my stomach and serves no purpose other than to glorify war. Soldiers from both sides who probably have little choice in the matter are being blown to bits - I'm not sure what is gained by watching these.

They are refugees who don't want to go back to be enlisted. Good luck to them.

That's one take but the other is western media curates and mashalls raw information to shape and satisfy an agenda. The sin of omission and partiality rather than disinformation per se.

"Russia is never as strong as she looks; Russia is never as weak as she looks." (Attributed to multiple individuals, including Winston Churchill.)

If you keep pulling debt default threats then you force a situation where you will struggle to sell any bonds unless cast-iron goverment guarantees backstops them and it that scenario it's an open ended uncosted check from taxpayers. A year ago there was an apparently a pile on when the Russians looked to be losing. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/bonds/ukrainian-debt-emerging-market-asset-investing-russia-wagner-mutiny-counteroffensive-2023-6 Ukrainian debt is now one of the hottest areas of emerging-market investing as Russian setbacks lift Kyiv's economic prospects. Ukraine's sovereign dollar bonds have returned over 30% in the second quarter, beating other emerging markets, Bloomberg data show. The gains were also concentrated this month, which saw the start of Ukraine's counteroffensive. While reports indicate slow progress, Ukraine's military has made steady advances, with the bulk of its Western-trained and equipped forces still waiting to deploy to the frontlines for a decisive surge.

Not the major ones they are all onboard with the project and will be post election. If Trump pulls the plug though then the cost to make the Ukrainian reisistance effective will rise steeply and we will get the stragglers saying well if that's the cost can we get a rain check ? Orban has alredy checked out and NATO let him. Meloni a year ago let on that Ukrainian fatigue has set in and they wanted an out. Just seen Ukraine is asking for haircuts on their bonds - in the example that kwonitoy highlighted the bond is backed by the Canadian goverment so I guess in that instance if this happened the Canadian taxpayers would be on the hook for the money. This is funding by stealth where the debtor is effectively determining the payments on the loan. https://www.ft.com/content/a0d993ea-48fb-4839-8e51-281f0602bb62 Ukraine has urged international bondholders to accept deep cuts on $23bn of debt to help finance the nation’s war effort, after initial talks failed to produce a deal two months before a payment standstill runs out. Bondholders turned down a proposal by Ukraine to reduce the value of foreign currency bonds by up to 60 per cent in negotiations this month, Ukraine’s finance ministry said. An investor committee that represents holders of around 20 per cent of the bonds instead proposed cuts of just over 22 per cent, but the IMF said that this would fail key debt targets, according to the ministry. “Strong armies must be underpinned by strong economies to win wars”, said the country’s finance minister Sergii Marchenko. And Germany needs the gas - for European partners total war it ain't. https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-blocks-first-ever-sanctions-russian-gas/ The crux of the package was to ban countries from re-exporting Russian LNG from EU ports and financing planned Arctic and Baltic LNG terminals. “Once upon a time, it was said that we should always blame … Hungary — and now it’s Germany,” said one diplomat familiar with discussions on the package, referring to Hungary’s habit of blocking earlier packages of sanctions. Belgium — which currently chairs EU country negotiations — was forced to split talks on the package into two separate discussions amid German opposition to new sanctions against Belarus.

I like Japanese ones better .....

We've got an election going on in the UK - no-one is talking about defence it is all about the NHS, pensions, education, the state of the countries infrastructure , the cost of living , housing ect. There is a lot of sympathy for Ukraine and a lot of displeasure at Russia but if people were given the stark choice as to guns or butter in a straight debate (which they won't be given) I know which they would choose.

This is the biggie - we are playing poker against a player that has a suitcase of money next to his chair who if we rasie the stakes too high he bring's it out and he says bust. Or we call his bluff. Oh but the US dod drop the A-bomb on 2 cities. So we know who would. My brother's daughter went out with a British nuclear submariner for a while and I had a good chat with him. He said it wasn't the Russians they were wortied about it was always the Americans. They may just do it. Because ''freedom"'.

Here's one and like Thailand you can buy your way out of the army it's just a lot more expensive.

Watching too much RT can do that to you. I would have to go out of my way to watch it in the UK so I don't bother but is is a slick alternate reality still available free to air in many parts of the world. Probably Thailand too ?

And....I could find many dozens of videos of the same thing happening in Ukraine, crowds of women protesting but they would all come from unapproved sources so I can't post unless the mods allow it.

As a rough guess an average Russian's freedom is probably as the same as the average Thai's and the average Russian probably loves their country as much as the average Thai. Civil liberties for most not so much and that's one of ther reasons a lot of westerners find the place very accomodating, the cheapness is being paid for by someone who is either dead,in prison, broken, silent or poor.

What Hitler was trying to get back was lands that had been ceded in the Treaty of Locarno in 1925 - these were lands that Imperial Germany had lost to the other imperial European powers by the fact of losing a pointless and bloody war. Negotiations at gunpoint are not negotiations in good faith. It was the Minsk of it's time and to the victor the spoils. The Munich Agreement for all it's faults bought time for the allies to rearm and prepare for war something that is forgotten by many today. Sound familair ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locarno_Treaties

The problem isn't necesarily the ex SS guy - yes that was a problem that should have been vetted out by those civil servants around the visit. The more problematic issue, which you may have some knowledge of, is that of Ukrainian nationalist history is often seen through the lens of an anti-Soviet "my enemies enemy is my friend". It would be helpful if all Ukrainians were to unequivocally condemn that part of their heritage ,but many won't and therein lies a problem of optics and perception. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66914756

Oh yes, Canada I am reminded of a notorious Canadian incident when Zelenskiy visited. The "difficult" Banderite connections who before Zelenskiy's heroic stance was the most famous Ukrainian nationalist.

Firstly massive respect. I mean it, you are backing your moral universe with your own money - putting your money where your mouth is. Can you make money ? Canadians who participate in the Ukraine Sovereignty Bond are, in effect, purchasing a regular five-year Government of Canada bond at a 3.245 per cent rate of return So basically AAA rated back by the Canadian goverment and a five year fix at that. If interest rates go down then it's a surefire winner as you lock in that rate - but I'm getting 5.25 to 6.0% on various fixes in the UK so that's a 2 -2.5% premium to support Ukraine over a market rate. If you could hedge that with a short on the Ruble the you could probably make up the difference. That said I'm long on physical gold have been since the invasion as I'm a doomster in temperament.Things can always get worse and that's the way the wind is blowing sadly.

Well if Trump wins that's it.Game over. With the Economist giving him a 2/3 chance of that. But it's also the beggining of the end of the US as a Great Power - he's a symptom not the cause. At a campaign rally in Detroit, Trump criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling him “the greatest salesman of all time” for Kyiv’s push to secure U.S. support in its effort to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression more than three years after Moscow's all-out invasion. “He just left four days ago with $60 billion, and he gets home, and he announces that he needs another $60 billion. It never ends,” Trump said. “I will have that settled prior to taking the White House as president-elect,” said Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the U.S. election. https://archive.ph/zSMUq

He's a sleazy nutter who is grifting for himself. No one serious takes him seriously.

Your reply is noted.

He's about as legitimate as the Thai PM which isn't much and he neuters any possible contenders as soon as he can and has the state media punting him. That said he probably would get 50% approval and probably a lot more on a fair plebiscite if such a thing could be done. He's no Saddam. We can't know the current popularity of Zelenskyi as we still have martial law - but general opinion suggests that Zalunhyi his sacked head of the armed forces would probaly win a presidential election if it was a 2 horse race. https://kyivindependent.com/poll-ukrainians-trust-in-zelensky-declines-trust-in-zaluzhnyi-is-high/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Vladimir_Putin