12 hours ago, SunnyinBangrak said:

More making stuff up (again)

 

😆

The threads title includes "Russia rejects plan".

 

Do you think that Putin will accept the plan? 🤣

42 minutes ago, dinsdale said:

Russia is an energy giant in the region.

 

Fortunately and belatedly, the EU is no longer dependent on Russian energy. The EU currently imports 13% of its energy from Russia with aim of reducing it to virtually zero by 2028 (Source: Google AI).

 

Therefore - not that I accept the premise - if this war was ever in the EU's economic interest, the goal has surely now been achieved and prolonging the war is now nothing more than a drain on the EU's time and resources, and not in its interests.

2 hours ago, RayC said:

 

Why would the EU feel the need to weaken Russia? It posed/ poses no economic threat to the EU.

 

Russia posed no economic economic threat to Ukraine either. Then, on 24 February 2022...

No doubt Putin wants to keep all the land gained during this conflict, as it would appear his ultimate goal is to take over Ukraine completely, and perhaps many other surrounding nations. 

 

Putin must be stopped the terror that he's inflicting upon millions is heinous, and whatever it takes the man needs to be stopped. 

27 minutes ago, RayC said:

 

Fortunately and belatedly, the EU is no longer dependent on Russian energy. The EU currently imports 13% of its energy from Russia with aim of reducing it to virtually zero by 2028 (Source: Google AI).

 

Therefore - not that I accept the premise - if this war was ever in the EU's economic interest, the goal has surely now been achieved and prolonging the war is now nothing more than a drain on the EU's time and resources, and not in its interests.

 

That's all fine and dandy if you can accept a heavily armed, totally deceitful and freshly empowered belligerent on your border. Putin's dream of a resurgent Ancient Rus needs to he completely and utterly snuffed out.

1 hour ago, Enoon said:

 

Because there isn't enough room in the world for several Clans,Tribes,Kingdoms,Nations,Empires or Confederations.

 

There never has been........it's the way of the world.

 

Current situation has demonstrated how relatively weak Russia is.......its thrown everything "conventional" in, but been fought to near standstill by "little" Ukraine.

 

It would not take much more to throw Russia right back on its heels.

 

Too good an opportunity to miss for the West.

 

 

 

 

And then there's TACO in the White House. The only single person on God's good earth who allows Putin to carry on regardless.

1 minute ago, NanLaew said:

 

That's all fine and dandy if you can accept a heavily armed, totally deceitful and freshly empowered belligerent on your border. Putin's dream of a resurgent Ancient Rus needs to he completely and utterly snuffed out.

 

I align with your sentiments. However, unfortunately, imo the opportunities for W. Europe/ NATO to 'face down' Putin directly has gone. It could have happened in 2014, and it most certainly should have happened in 2022. 

 

Unfortunately, in all likelihood Putin will remain in power and will be strengthened. All that free Europe can do now is deal with the reality and build up our defences. By no stretch of the imagination, an ideal state of affairs.

2 hours ago, candide said:

Do you think that Putin will accept the plan? 

He will not accept any plan that calls for a ceasefire. 

1 hour ago, dinsdale said:

He will not accept any plan that calls for a ceasefire. 

 

I think that you are correct and that says a lot about Putin's attitude to peace.

3 minutes ago, RayC said:

 

I think that you are correct and that says a lot about Putin's attitude to peace.

Putin has battlefield momentum. Why would he accept a ceasefire? He wants the territories either through negotiations or battlefield victory. I'm not saying this is just or ideal but it is realistic.

6 minutes ago, dinsdale said:

Putin has battlefield momentum. Why would he accept a ceasefire? He wants the territories either through negotiations or battlefield victory. I'm not saying this is just or ideal but it is realistic.

 

Why would Putin accept a ceasefire? To save further loss of life, destruction and misery, perhaps? After all, many on this board insist that the West is the aggressor and/or that the West are the ones who wish to prolong the war.

 

If Putin is a man of peace as his supporters insist, now is his opportunity to go some way towards proving it.

12 minutes ago, dinsdale said:

Putin has battlefield momentum. Why would he accept a ceasefire? He wants the territories either through negotiations or battlefield victory. I'm not saying this is just or ideal but it is realistic.

Battlefield momentum, 4 years in the same area...........😄

4 hours ago, dinsdale said:

It's a proxy war. The EU wants to militarly and economically weaken the Russian state. If anything on the military side Russia has strenghtened it's military from what it was in 2022.

It is a proxy war, and you’re right about that. But the bigger strategic loss is that the West has driven Russia and its sphere into a lasting alliance with a rising China when not long ago they were largely Europhilic. This has happened just as Western power begins its long, inevitable decline, pulling Iran, North Korea, and others into the same orbit and accelerating BRICS into a credible alternative to dollar hegemony.

 

Meanwhile, AI under Western capitalism is set to decimate domestic electorates enriching shareholders while hollowing out jobs on a scale we haven’t seen before. Authoritarian states, by contrast, can use AI to consolidate power and accelerate national development.

And the West’s geopolitical approach increasingly resembles prison logic: when you’re inside, you look for protection and try to curry favor with the boss of the strongest wing. In this case, the West assumed it would always be the dominant faction, even as its leverage eroded.

 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Ukraine might have been better off pivoting toward China as a protectorate rather than relying on a declining West.

 

3 hours ago, RayC said:

 

I align with your sentiments. However, unfortunately, imo the opportunities for W. Europe/ NATO to 'face down' Putin directly has gone. It could have happened in 2014, and it most certainly should have happened in 2022. 

 

Unfortunately, in all likelihood Putin will remain in power and will be strengthened. All that free Europe can do now is deal with the reality and build up our defences. By no stretch of the imagination, an ideal state of affairs.

Crimea was always Russia's - 'we' in Britain fought Russia over it back in the day - like Israel then Ukraine didn't exist.  

 

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke,
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

2 minutes ago, beautifulthailand99 said:

Crimea was always Russia's - 'we' in Britain fought Russia over it back in the day - like Israel then Ukraine didn't exist.  

 

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke,
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

 

Crimea is an automonous region within Ukraine.

 

"With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Ukrainian independence in 1991 most of the peninsula was reorganised as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. A 1997 treaty partitioned the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, allowing Russia to continue basing its fleet in Sevastopol, with the lease extended in 2010" (Source: Wikipedia)

9 minutes ago, beautifulthailand99 said:

It is a proxy war, and you’re right about that. But the bigger strategic loss is that the West has driven Russia and its sphere into a lasting alliance with a rising China when not long ago they were largely Europhilic. This has happened just as Western power begins its long, inevitable decline, pulling Iran, North Korea, and others into the same orbit and accelerating BRICS into a credible alternative to dollar hegemony.

 

Meanwhile, AI under Western capitalism is set to decimate domestic electorates enriching shareholders while hollowing out jobs on a scale we haven’t seen before. Authoritarian states, by contrast, can use AI to consolidate power and accelerate national development.

And the West’s geopolitical approach increasingly resembles prison logic: when you’re inside, you look for protection and try to curry favor with the boss of the strongest wing. In this case, the West assumed it would always be the dominant faction, even as its leverage eroded.

 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Ukraine might have been better off pivoting toward China as a protectorate rather than relying on a declining West.

 

 

Putin has never been a (Western) Europhile.

 

Aligning more closely with BRICS may prove to be detrimental for Russia. It may prove to be little more than an observer, as China and an increasingly powerful and vocal India decide upon the direction of travel between themselves.

Just now, RayC said:

 

Crimea is an automonous region within Ukraine.

 

"With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Ukrainian independence in 1991 most of the peninsula was reorganised as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. A 1997 treaty partitioned the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, allowing Russia to continue basing its fleet in Sevastopol, with the lease extended in 2010" (Source: Wikipedia)

Borders are fluid just ask Israel, or consider the Soviet Union's collapse where rough deals brokered then still reverberate today. Russian paranoia exists for a reason, much like the Monroe Doctrine: they lost 27 million people in WW2, more than virtually every other combatant nation combined. Failing to respect or at least understand that history, then meddling militarily from afar in a neighbour's internal disputes, was the worst thing we could have done. Especially when the consequences have been so catastrophic: exposing European impotence, accelerating Trump into a position of unparalleled power, destroying Ukraine, revealing the endemic corruption at the heart of the Ukrainian state, and tilting global power decisively away from our sphere of influence.

The US and its proxies should have stayed well away from Maidan and internal Ukrainian politics, let the pieces fall where they would, rather than fuel the national fractures within the state and ultimately help accelerate the war.

Can you imagine a Chinese general in Mexico cheering on a coup in Beijing's favour? No. Yet we expect Russia to accept precisely that on its doorstep. Pure evil from PAX Americsn and another state destroyed to add to Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and all the other failed adventures. 

 

 

14 minutes ago, RayC said:

 

Putin has never been a (Western) Europhile.

 

Aligning more closely with BRICS may prove to be detrimental for Russia. It may prove to be little more than an observer, as China and an increasingly powerful and vocal India decide upon the direction of travel between themselves.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/russia-nato-putin-ukraine-join-b2028101.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com

 

A certain Vladimir Putin was asked by broadcaster David Frost during a BBC interview in 2000 whether Russia could ever join Nato.

“I don’t see why not. I would not rule out such a possibility – but I repeat – if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner,” he said.

The-then Nato head, former British defence minister George Robertson, thought Putin was genuine. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he later said

 

 

 

Not forgetting all his oligarchs investment in the west - not China and the rest. All this money , where it can along with their owners have come back to Russia where their cash and 'talents' are aiding the Russian economy like taking over Mac Donalds for a song along with much else. As for China I agree it's vassalage and an alliance born of necessity but important and strong nevertheless. 

6 minutes ago, beautifulthailand99 said:

Borders are fluid just ask Israel, or consider the Soviet Union's collapse where rough deals brokered then still reverberate today. Russian paranoia exists for a reason, much like the Monroe Doctrine: they lost 27 million people in WW2, more than virtually every other combatant nation combined. Failing to respect or at least understand that history, then meddling militarily from afar in a neighbour's internal disputes, was the worst thing we could have done. Especially when the consequences have been so catastrophic: exposing European impotence, accelerating Trump into a position of unparalleled power, destroying Ukraine, revealing the endemic corruption at the heart of the Ukrainian state, and tilting global power decisively away from our sphere of influence.

The US and its proxies should have stayed well away from Maidan and internal Ukrainian politics, let the pieces fall where they would, rather than fuel the national fractures within the state and ultimately help accelerate the war.

Can you imagine a Chinese general in Mexico cheering on a coup in Beijing's favour? No. Yet we expect Russia to accept precisely that on its doorstep. Pure evil from PAX Americsn and another state destroyed to add to Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and all the other failed adventures. 

 

 

 

I don't doubt that Putin shares your belief that, "borders are fluid". That's the problem, and that's why he is a danger to the rest of Europe.

2 minutes ago, RayC said:

 

I don't doubt that Putin shares your belief that, "borders are fluid". That's the problem, and that's why he is a danger to the rest of Europe.

The US/Europe should have stayed out of Ukrainian politics  it was that simple - but they did and they along with Putin have much blood on their hands and if you don't acknowledge that then you will never truly understand what happened and why. 

 

 

Just now, beautifulthailand99 said:

The US/Europe should have stayed out of Ukrainian politics  it was that simple - but they did and they along with Putin have much blood on their hands and if you don't acknowledge that then you will never truly understand what happened and why. 

 

 

So you think it was OK for Russia to invade Ukraine, do you also think it was OK for Hitler to invade Poland, then the rest of Europe....?  🥴

7 minutes ago, transam said:

So you think it was OK for Russia to invade Ukraine, do you also think it was OK for Hitler to invade Poland, then the rest of Europe....?  🥴

 

Here is my belief beautifully expressed by the wonderful Chris Hedges. 

 

https://www.salon.com/2022/03/01/is-the-greatest-evil-was-baited-into-this-but-thats-no-excuse/

 

Preemptive war, whether in Iraq or Ukraine, is a war crime. It does not matter if the war is launched on the basis of lies and fabrications, as was the case in Iraq, or because of the breaking of a series of agreements with Russia, including the promise by Washington not to extend NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany, not to deploy thousands of NATO troops in Eastern Europe and not to meddle in the internal affairs of nations on the Russia’s border, as well as the refusal to implement the Minsk II peace agreement. The invasion of Ukraine would, I expect, never have happened if these promises had been kept. Russia has every right to feel threatened, betrayed and angry. But to understand is not to condone. The invasion of Ukraine, under post-Nuremberg laws, is a criminal war of aggression.

 

The dangerous and sadly predictable provocation of Russia — whose nuclear arsenal places the sword of Damocles above our heads — by expanding NATO was understood by all of us who reported from Eastern Europe in 1989 during the revolutions and the breakup of the Soviet Union.

This provocation, which includes establishing a NATO missile base 100 miles from Russia’s border, was foolish and highly irresponsible. It never made geopolitical sense. This does not, however, excuse the invasion of Ukraine. Yes, the Russians were baited. But they reacted by pulling the trigger. This is a crime. Their crime. Let us pray for a ceasefire. Let us work for a return to diplomacy and sanity, a moratorium on arms shipments to Ukraine and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the country.

 

 

 

 

5 minutes ago, beautifulthailand99 said:

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/russia-nato-putin-ukraine-join-b2028101.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com

 

A certain Vladimir Putin was asked by broadcaster David Frost during a BBC interview in 2000 whether Russia could ever join Nato.

“I don’t see why not. I would not rule out such a possibility – but I repeat – if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner,” he said.

The-then Nato head, former British defence minister George Robertson, thought Putin was genuine. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he later said

 

 

 

Not forgetting all his oligarchs investment in the west - not China and the rest. All this money , where it can along with their owners have come back to Russia where their cash and 'talents' are aiding the Russian economy like taking over Mac Donalds for a song along with much else. 

 

I will limit my comments to Putin's relationship to/ with the EU.

 

Putin's attitude to the EU may have been similar in some ways to his view of Russia's stance towards NATO. However, the telling phase is, " ...if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner ...".

 

Russia would have been treated as one among 16/24/27/28 within the EU, and therefore had an equal voice in that sense, but Russia's views on development within the bloc would not have carried as much weight as those of the economic heavyweights i.e. France, Germany and the UK. I very much doubt that Putin would have found such a situation tolerable.

 

It is even more unlikely that Putin would have found the surrendering of some sovereignty, which EU membership necessariates, acceptable.

 

For those reasons, I very much doubt that Putin was ever serious about joining the EU.

2 minutes ago, beautifulthailand99 said:

 

Here is my belief beautifully expressed by the wonderful Chris Hedges. 

 

https://www.salon.com/2022/03/01/is-the-greatest-evil-was-baited-into-this-but-thats-no-excuse/

 

Preemptive war, whether in Iraq or Ukraine, is a war crime. It does not matter if the war is launched on the basis of lies and fabrications, as was the case in Iraq, or because of the breaking of a series of agreements with Russia, including the promise by Washington not to extend NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany, not to deploy thousands of NATO troops in Eastern Europe and not to meddle in the internal affairs of nations on the Russia’s border, as well as the refusal to implement the Minsk II peace agreement. The invasion of Ukraine would, I expect, never have happened if these promises had been kept. Russia has every right to feel threatened, betrayed and angry. But to understand is not to condone. The invasion of Ukraine, under post-Nuremberg laws, is a criminal war of aggression.

 

The dangerous and sadly predictable provocation of Russia — whose nuclear arsenal places the sword of Damocles above our heads — by expanding NATO was understood by all of us who reported from Eastern Europe in 1989 during the revolutions and the breakup of the Soviet Union.

This provocation, which includes establishing a NATO missile base 100 miles from Russia’s border, was foolish and highly irresponsible. It never made geopolitical sense. This does not, however, excuse the invasion of Ukraine. Yes, the Russians were baited. But they reacted by pulling the trigger. This is a crime. Their crime. Let us pray for a ceasefire. Let us work for a return to diplomacy and sanity, a moratorium on arms shipments to Ukraine and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the country.

 

 

 

 

Not interested, you support aggressors............😒

16 minutes ago, beautifulthailand99 said:

The US/Europe should have stayed out of Ukrainian politics  it was that simple - but they did and they along with Putin have much blood on their hands and if you don't acknowledge that then you will never truly understand what happened and why. 

 

 

 

Not that old chestnut again? How many more times are Russian apologists going to suggest that a phone call between US diplomats proves that the US instigated the Maidan uprising? It is complete and utter nonsense. Of course, the US had a preference for who formed part of any subsequent Ukrainian government, but the fact is that the Maidan revolt was a popular uprising resulting from the then Ukrainian President, Yanukovych, under pressure from Moscow, refusing to enact the main pillar of the mandate - namely the EU - Ukraine Association Agreement - on which he was elected. The Ukrainian public refused to accept this complete volte-face, and rose up in protest. Anyone who does not acknowledge the timeline of events and these facts is delusional.

 

The bottom line is Russia should have stayed out of Ukraine both politically and physically. It is as simple as that and the person with blood on their hands is Vladimir Putin.

3 minutes ago, RayC said:

 

I will limit my comments to Putin's relationship to/ with the EU.

 

Putin's attitude to the EU may have been similar in some ways to his view of Russia's stance towards NATO. However, the telling phase is, " ...if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner ...".

 

Russia would have been treated as one among 16/24/27/28 within the EU, and therefore had an equal voice in that sense, but Russia's views on development within the bloc would not have carried as much weight as those of the economic heavyweights i.e. France, Germany and the UK. I very much doubt that Putin would have found such a situation tolerable.

 

It is even more unlikely that Putin would have found the surrendering of some sovereignty, which EU membership necessariates, acceptable.

 

For those reasons, I very much doubt that Putin was ever serious about joining the EU.

 

When the West backed Yeltsin to advance their interests in a collapsed Soviet Union and presided over the country's descent into poverty and chaos, they gave birth to Putin. He is the bastard child of US triumphalism in the same way Hitler was born from the rubble of the Treaty of Versailles.

These are the moves of great power politics, and they stink. They stink because they sacrifice hundreds of thousands of ordinary lives for abstract geopolitical advantage. They stink because they're conducted by people thousands of miles from the consequences comfortable men in Washington and Brussels who'll never dodge a shell or bury their children. They stink because they create the very monsters they later claim moral authority to fight.

 

And they stink because they're built on rank hypocrisy: rules and red lines for others, but carte blanche for ourselves and our proxies. The dead in Mariupol and Bakhmut are the price of this arrogance, and we have the gall to call it defending freedom.

On 11/25/2025 at 4:20 AM, Sir Dude said:

"...and the clock is ticking for the Kremlin as the Russian economy is getting fragile to say the least."

Does that mean more or less Russians in Pattaya and Phuket?

6 minutes ago, transam said:

Not interested, you support aggressors............😒

You would have been no good in a school debate assuming your borstal had such things - now we go over to Transam to reply -  2 minutes !

3 minutes ago, TDCNINJA said:

Does that mean more or less Russians in Pattaya and Phuket?

The Ruble / Baht is back to the 5 year trend - the war has hardly impacted the price it had pre war. So the answer is probably more, it's baked in and there number one destination where the host country doen't care what they get up to elsewhere.

 

 

3 minutes ago, TDCNINJA said:

Does that mean more or less Russians in Pattaya and Phuket?

Hopefully less, as from how it seems now, it's getting hard to get out of Russia legally if you are male and under 60... think the Russian authorities have gone all 1984 Orwell style on that now.