Base32

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A few bickering comments removed. Come on folks. Do your best to keep it civil. Thank you! ❤️

@Alan Zweibel Post removed that made use of non-standard font to create a vulgar obscenity out of a media figure's name.

An antagonistic post and a reply have been removed. Please don't use purposefully antagonistic language and satirical name calling in posts. Maintain a degree of respect for other members of this forum.

Inflammatory post removed. Please respect other members opinions.

I worked and lived in Northern Ireland in the early to mid 90s. Owned a house there. My view doesn't align with the deeply sectarian view you suggest. You are using the sectarian language of "6 counties" and decided to invoke Northern Ireland to deflect from your argument defending Russia. Yes, Northern Ireland is off topic. It was you who decided to hijack the thread with your Irish Republican claptrap. Predictably, you are now painting the DPR as some sort of socialist fantasy. The self declared head of the DPR is Denis Pushilin. He's a crook. Before getting into politics, he ran MMM, cited as one of the world's largest Ponzi schemes. The head of the LPR is Leonid Pasechnik. As the LPR's head of security, he ran torture chambers and death squads. My view of the IRA is somewhat clouded because they tried to murder my dad in June 1978, when he was home on leave from West Germany. The bastards tracked him because his Austin Maxi was fitted with the BAOR plates. He was medical corps, a biochemist. I don't mind saying that every member of the IRA, live or dead, should rot in hell. Yeah, my world view is different from yours. You're a communist. I'm not. I'm also not Orange, a Prod, a Loyalist, a Bluenose, a Red Hand or any of the terms you want to throw out. You're the person who told the forum you were a communist. You can search the forums to find the post where I stated my voting affiliations. You obviously tried to stalk me out on Arrse.

Of course, what they were there do won't now get done (install production lines); there are lots of good commercial reasons why a Korean company does not want US subcontractors having access to sensitive equipment. Its not about saving money. Allegedly, in the US, the left hand isn't speaking to the right hand in government, so while FDI is being encouraged, the visas aren't being issues to facilitate it, leading to shortcuts. Some MAGA local politician was the one who grassed them. There was no long term ICE surveillance operation. The plant was going to generate at least 40,000 American jobs, probably 100,000 when you count the local supply chain. The pragmatic approach should have been to fine the company heavily, regularise the temporary workforce to get the construction. Now the half finished plant will likely be left fallow as Hyundai struggles to identify local contractors who can do the work, and maintain stringent confidences.

But the challenge there is national sovereignty. Should the US be forced to accept anyone sent to them by another country? Nope. One of the abiding themes is control of the borders. Every country has the right to control their borders. Recalcitrant countries in 2018. Recalcitrant here means countries that don't accept deportees back. 2024 situation More countries are hardening their position. There is carrot and stick. Stick will be sanctions, declaration of war. Carrot would be sacks of cash. And this is assuming you know where a migrant comes from. And if you have a trade policy that is purposely disengaging from the world trading system, sanctions begin to lose their impact, eg North Korea.

Again, you repeat Pro-Russian Lies. By the 9th April 2022, the United Nations reported there were 4,441,663 Ukrainian refugees, 90% of whom were women and bairns. By 2024, Migration Watch were reporting, for the UK, 217,000 Ukrainians in the UK, of which, 210,000 were admitted as part of the Ukraine Family and Sponsorship Scheme, about 30% of them were men, but 18% were men aged 18-64. It is no surprise that you are now calling women, children and old men "cowards". You draw false equivalence between Ukrainians in a War Zone, and Russians thousands of Kms from the fighting. Of course the Russians fleeing Russia are not refugees, but could be described as dissidents., the same sort of dissidents that the USSR was stopping from leaving the USSR when you chose to attend a Soviet Fashion Show in 1979. One estimate Other estimates indicate more than 800,000. Russia's own estimates (Novaya Gazeta) indicated 261,000 Russian men left Russia in a 3 day period during September 2022 (source; the Kremlin). So you are Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.

So why are you comparing Northern Ireland to seperatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, in a naked attempt to deflect? Why do you reference the "6 Counties", deliberately using provocative language that is normally employed by terrorist sympathisers. I think it was an attempt to inflame and provoke, and to avoid a "civil debate" by trying to define the War as some sort of "National Liberation Struggle", with the Russians framed as "Liberators", as you probably viewed them in East Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslavakia. Because in that sense, it fits your ideology, where you have repeatedly indicated this is all the fault of the West. Because West Bad, East Good. You are trying to intimate that Ukraine is an Imperialist Power, when it is Putin talking about evoking "Novorossiya" What conscience did you have in 1979 when you walked past those Jewish protestors at Earls Court, to go look at the Soviet Propaganda Show? Back then, at least, you must have been a man of little conscience, given the world events of that time. When you decided, on this forum, and unprovoked, to draw attention to your attendance at the show, you deliberately chose a playful image showing Soviet fashoin models, to downplay the seriousness of that Regime.

No, you didn't read my reference did you. Because West Bad, East Good, your type is quick to jump to conclusions and make assumptions.

Not a Nazi Russian Yeah, that part of the world, Ukraine, Russia, have these moslty football hooligans who are into their Nazi symbology. As a Pole you will know about your Nazi fellow countrymenm such as those <deleted> from the Obzo Narodowo Radykalny.

Obviously for you Russia is incapable of stopping their War Machine. Again, nothing from you about Katyn. Putin doesn't believe Katyn existed as a war crime; he argues that at the time, Poland ceased to exist, so therefore no warcrime. You back him. If you really are Polish, I find that curious. You are basically backing the same forces who were all ready to massacre your countrymen in Gdansk. And earlier, in 1970, Communist troops killed up to 700 people in Gdynia protesting (officially 45, but evidence shows there was a cover up).

They recruit proxies for sabotage https://www.counterterrorism.police.uk/group-convicted-after-russian-ordered-arson-attack-in-london/

Correct, plus a lazy MP. I assume "Arthur Mullard", despite their pen name evoking a popular Cockney character actor, is a non-native English speaker, maybe an Uzbek or Eritrean, who naturally misunderstood my posting, which did not mention immigration at all. He is skilled in recognising people's general concerns about life, and then manipulating that to align with his own prejudices. So far he has created two scapegoats. Since he is a Gen Xer, I can predict who the next scapegoat will be.

One of which was a twit who got lost in a desert, became embroiled in dodgy arms deals and end up financing a failed Dogs of War style Coup.

Enforcing maritime safety rules might be a suitable ruse. Its likely less about roaming the seas looking for shonky-looking tankers under false names. That means working with the Port States to enforce IMO standards. Ukraine is pushing for international recognition of high risk shps being those from outside the G7/Non-EU flags AND are insured by a provider from outside the nternational Group of Protection and Indemnity Clubs. 90 Russian tankers switched to owners based in the UAE; pressure can be brought to bear on the Emirates. The EU regularly updates lists of sanctioned vessals. While sanction evading will always happen, reducing the number of ports these ships can dock in will reduce Russia's freedom to operate, making them a pariah fleet, increasingly (if not already) decrepit and unreliable. Russia's ability to sell oil might become irrelevant if it can't deliver. Some interesting analysis: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2024/766242/EPRS_BRI(2024)766242_EN.pdf

That's an opinion based on the journalists you like to read. Its a claim that doesn't actually stack up. You're just parroting what they are saying, without offering any evidence of your own. The U.S. sanctions are “tougher” in legal reach and enforcement, since they bite globally through the dollar system and blacklists. The EU sanctions have been tougher in economic impact, especially with oil and gas bans, because Europe was a critical market for Russia. Its plainly clear that the US and the EU (and UK etc) need to coordinate; European sanctions has a different impact on Russia that US. The US has always brought the grand sum of FA from Russia, so that limits how it can impact Russia. State Department sanctions on sensitive technologies go back a long way, from before the war. The US can best impact Russia through the Dollar. The EU of course cannot manipulate Dollar transactions in the same way, but Russia was much more dependant on trade with European companies than elsewhere.

He/She went an posted a 4 year old clip thinking it was new. He meant

So you would take Putin at his word. The parties to do the implementing of Minsk I and II were Moscow and Kyiv. Russia backed the separatists militarily and politically while denying direct involvement. Russia did not allow Ukraine to regain control over its international border before demanding that Ukraine grant political concessions to the separatist-held areas. Russia continually supplied heavy weapons and fighters, undermining the ceasefire. Ukraine did pass some decentralization and special status laws, but refused to hold elections in Donetsk/Luhansk while Russia/separatists still controlled the territory. For Ukraine, it was unacceptable to legalize Russian-controlled “republics” without first restoring security and border control. Add to that, political resistance in Ukraine (across society and parliament) made Minsk’s political concessions almost impossible to implement. The Normandy Format, France and Germany, pushed for implementation but had no enforcement tools. Seperatists continually interfered with the OSCE, even kidnapping them at times. Russia remains the primary culprit for the failure of Minsk, because it never wanted it to succeed. The only thing driving the Istanbul talk's was Moscow;s realisation that their military was basically <deleted>, and they needed to buy time for the next phase.

There you are. You equate the Russian-Ukrainian war with the troubles. Your use of the term "6 Counties" marks you out as what some would call "Fenian", a sympathiser of the IRA etc. You don't believe in the right of Northern Ireland to exist. You analogy of comparing Northern Ireland to Luhansk and Donetsk is completely arse about face. Northern Ireland is NOT a breakaway statelet of the Republic of Ireland. You clearly don't believe Ukraine has any rights as a sovereign nation, hence your earlier quip dismissing the war as a Slavic civil wat. To apply Ireland as an analogy; a correct comparison would be for the Irish government to send arms and support to Armagh, Londonderry and Fermanagh (the Catholic majority counties). There was a fear in the 60s that the Irish Army would take over the North, hence Operation Banner, one of the outcomes of which was the construction of actually a really good road network in the North, created to aid the rapid deployment of the army to reinforce the border. At the time, most of the British Army was outside the UK, and it could have been achieved. The Irish Chief of Staff even drew up war plans, Operation Argamageddon, on the orders of the Irish PM Jack Lynch. An Irish takeover of the North would have left the UK in a difficult position. But it didn't happen, so you can quit your filthy accusations comparing the present Putin Government to Harold Wilson.

Why do you think I am active on that forum?

Seems like a troll. I suspect not Polish. There are a few on the forum who are not what they seem. Eg there was someone claiming to be Russian who was probably British, in his mid-50s. Now gone silent.

Its baked into him since adulthood. He has self-identified himself as a Communist and a supporter of the USSR until at least the early 1980s. He attended pro-Soviet conferences, walking past the protestors with clear placards accusing the USSR of Anti-Semitism (this was when the USSR blocked the emigration of Jewish dissidents. His enthusiasm for Communism seems to have wained when Gorbachov arrived, suggesting he is old school Communist. They are well trained, the Soviet's Western supporters. Instinctually West is Bad, East is Good. They hunt for stories to support that, ie always seeking out negative stories about the Ukrainian military, and never once mentioning the similar manning problems the Russians have (arguably greater). Occasioanlly, the other training kicks in; this idea to let drip into the conversation a few opposing, but always conditional viewpoints, to create the impression they are more even handed, honest brokers. At the 1920 Comintern, Lenin told the foreign communists they should not be "doctrinaire but flexible" and should not "spurn the opportunities that the capitalist world affords through its rotten freedoms." So, communists ought not to reject the chance to use parliaments, and to work through trade unions; if an occasion warrants, they should join in a bloc or even enter the opportunistic socialist parties. Russians, mostly men, walking across the border into Georgia to avoid conscription. Never saw such images during the Vietnam War

Curious about someone who identifies himself as Polish, bangs on about "Russophobic" comments, yet gleefully brings up Stepan Bandera. He's a Pole, what the hell does he care about supposed Russophobia, any more than he cares about Sinophobia, Francophobia or Anglophobia. He ontably, and tellingly, keeps silent about the Russian massacre of 22,000 Polish army officers and police in May 1940, at Katyn. The same government later would want to move Soviet troops into Poland to try and massacre striking shipyard workers at Gdansk, blocked by the Polish government declaring martial law. Even now, Moscow refuses to release historical documents related to the act of genocide, nor cooperate on the fate of Poles sent to the Gulags. There has been no apology from Russia. Further, in an insulting act, the Russian government downgraded the Katyn memorial in 2021, and by 2023, had ripped down all Polish flags from the site. When the Katyn massacre was discovered, the Germans investigated. Naturally the Russians claimed the Germans were planting bodies They used exactly the same line over Bucha. Ah, but you might say this was a natural Russian reaction to Polish government taking down memorial dedicated to glorifying the Soviet occupation army. But it started earlier. In recent years the Kremlin has actively worked to turn commemoration of Katyn into a story of Russian patriotism. In 2018 a museum was opened near Katyn which contains a permanent exhibit about four centuries of Polish aggression against Russia. Putin said that it was the Polish governments fault for provoking war with the Nazis, so that therefore Soviet annexations of territory were just to “protect” the Russian and Ukrainian inhabitants of Eastern Poland, once the Polish state had ceased to exist. Thus no Soviet invasion, no Soviet culpability. Putin is clearly a complete Berkshire Hunt.