How much longer?

[srb7677]

Don't worry on it Toots. Steve has been watching Enemy at the Gates again. The Russian blocking battalions were brutal, but not in the way shown.

Actually I gain my knowledge from over four decades of reading about stuff like WW2, the Third Reich, the USSR under Stalin and so forth, not from watching the odd film or two. Though I have seen Enemy at the Gates once.

When it comes to WW2 I probably know more about the subject than anyone else on this forum, having studied the subject for my entire adult life as a hobby. 

[Borchester]

I need a lie down after reading that. I can never understand cruelty.

Don't worry on it Toots. Steve has been watching Enemy at the Gates again. The Russian blocking battalions were brutal, but not in the way shown.

[Scott777]

I see today in the press and on the news there are those beginning to call for active opposition to Russia. 

How sure is anyone in Governments around the world and in Europe in particular that Putin is going to stop at the Ukraine borders? 

Of course, because the media are warmongers.  It was the media that propagated the threat of Saddam and his WMDs.  War is profitable for certain people.

I think Putin will not attack any NATO country.  If he does, then there will be much more support from us for intervention, I'm sure.

[Sheepy]

I need a lie down after reading that. I can never understand cruelty.

Dunno but I do know the goalposts have moved since it was pointed out Vlad isn't so mad as first thought but maybe just very angry, now he is either terminally ill, which we all know is the process of not producing new cells which starts at a much younger age, yes, I know you can get plastic surgery but that doesn't actually change a thing going on inside, it is only a false reality for vanity, now about this new direction, which disease are we picking general?

[T00ts]

They never really were.

Their tactics in WW2 involved supplying their troops with vodka and then sending them charging towards the enemy in masses, knowing that many would be gunned down, but hoping that their numbers would eventually overwhelm the defenders. They often sent those running forwards behind the first waves unarmed, so they could pick up the rifles of those gunned down ahead of them. And they did not employ specialised mine-clearing troops as both the Germans and Western Allies did. Instead they used so-called punishment battalions filled with soldiers guilty of usually fairly minor misdemeanours, who were given the most dangerous and suicidal tasks. Typically, mines were cleared by sending punishment battallions charging across minefields with a bullet in the back of the neck for any who refused. Every soldier that got blown to bits was one mine cleared. The minority who survived - if any - might then be sent back to their old units if they were lucky.

Any soldiers cut off and surrounded were expected to fight to the death or become partisans. Any taken prisoner were regarded as traitors or cowards, and if they survived a brutal German captivity, they were likely to end up either in front of a firing squad or in a gulag in Siberia. The Russians also employed machine gun detachments in the rear to gun down any of their own men disobeying orders not to retreat. When they reached German soil they made little distinction between soldiers and civilians, and many of the women both in Germany and other east European "liberated" countries faced mass rape. In all too many cases this could be followed by a bullet in the head, especially if there was any resistance.

And whilst the Western Allied and Axis dead were buried in individual graves wherever possible, the Russians just threw all theirs into mass graves like trash. And they didn't even bother informing the folks back home when a loved one fell in battle, though the communist party did if their own party members were killed. For this reason many ordinary Russian soldiers joined the communist party, which propaganda inevitably highlighted as a sign of communist zeal at the front, .

And it is worth bearing in mind that the Ukrainian partisans who rose up against the Germans continued to fight the Russians when the Germans were driven out. One of their attacks included the ambushing and killing of a top soviet marshal, Vatutin. It took the USSR until 1955 to suppress these Ukrainian partisans. It is also worth bearing in mind that in the 1930s -  with Ukraine the bread basket of the Soviet Union - there was mass famine with many millions starving to death simply because the authorities confiscated most of the food for the industrial workforces of other parts of the USSR. This government-imposed famine by diktat is remembered in Ukraine as the Holodomor.

So they have few reasons to love the notion of Russian rule, and many to loathe it.

The current autocrat, no doubt an admirer of Stalin, doesn't give a damn about his own people, let alone his own soldiers. All he cares about is what the map looks like, how big Russia is on that map, and his place in history.

I need a lie down after reading that. I can never understand cruelty.

[srb7677]

The Russians are not squeamish about who gets killed including their own chaps.

They never really were.

Their tactics in WW2 involved supplying their troops with vodka and then sending them charging towards the enemy in masses, knowing that many would be gunned down, but hoping that their numbers would eventually overwhelm the defenders. They often sent those running forwards behind the first waves unarmed, so they could pick up the rifles of those gunned down ahead of them. And they did not employ specialised mine-clearing troops as both the Germans and Western Allies did. Instead they used so-called punishment battalions filled with soldiers guilty of usually fairly minor misdemeanours, who were given the most dangerous and suicidal tasks. Typically, mines were cleared by sending punishment battallions charging across minefields with a bullet in the back of the neck for any who refused. Every soldier that got blown to bits was one mine cleared. The minority who survived - if any - might then be sent back to their old units if they were lucky.

Any soldiers cut off and surrounded were expected to fight to the death or become partisans. Any taken prisoner were regarded as traitors or cowards, and if they survived a brutal German captivity, they were likely to end up either in front of a firing squad or in a gulag in Siberia. The Russians also employed machine gun detachments in the rear to gun down any of their own men disobeying orders not to retreat. When they reached German soil they made little distinction between soldiers and civilians, and many of the women both in Germany and other east European "liberated" countries faced mass rape. In all too many cases this could be followed by a bullet in the head, especially if there was any resistance.

And whilst the Western Allied and Axis dead were buried in individual graves wherever possible, the Russians just threw all theirs into mass graves like trash. And they didn't even bother informing the folks back home when a loved one fell in battle, though the communist party did if their own party members were killed. For this reason many ordinary Russian soldiers joined the communist party, which propaganda inevitably highlighted as a sign of communist zeal at the front, .

And it is worth bearing in mind that the Ukrainian partisans who rose up against the Germans continued to fight the Russians when the Germans were driven out. One of their attacks included the ambushing and killing of a top soviet marshal, Vatutin. It took the USSR until 1955 to suppress these Ukrainian partisans. It is also worth bearing in mind that in the 1930s -  with Ukraine the bread basket of the Soviet Union - there was mass famine with many millions starving to death simply because the authorities confiscated most of the food for the industrial workforces of other parts of the USSR. This government-imposed famine by diktat is remembered in Ukraine as the Holodomor.

So they have few reasons to love the notion of Russian rule, and many to loathe it.

The current autocrat, no doubt an admirer of Stalin, doesn't give a damn about his own people, let alone his own soldiers. All he cares about is what the map looks like, how big Russia is on that map, and his place in history.

[T00ts]

I thought that the Russians were only maintaining their ceasefire for minutes on those exits that they don't approve of. Their MO is simply a repeat of the tactics used elsewhere. The Russians are not squeamish about who gets killed including their own chaps.

[Sheepy]

Why not? you mean you don't understand why people don't want to run in to the arms of those invading and destroying their country.Nothing to do with east and west,there are plenty of east European countries they do want  go to and would be welcomed there like Poland.

Well, it seems they do and have to be stopped each time they try. Don't let the facts get in the way of a good drama though. 

[cromwell]

Why not? or does saving civilian lives now come under some other West and East option?

Why not? you mean you don't understand why people don't want to run in to the arms of those invading and destroying their country.Nothing to do with east and west,there are plenty of east European countries they do want  go to and would be welcomed there like Poland.

[Sheepy]

What you mean corridors in to Belarus and Russia,why on earth would they want to go there.

Why not? or does saving civilian lives now come under some other West and East option? 

[cromwell]

Might I suggest that whoever keeps closing the humanitarian corridors stops doing it then, after all he keeps opening them and somebody keeps closing them. If you don't want a lot more civilian killed that is, which it seems somebody does. Not much of a nice way of buying time one might say.

What you mean corridors in to Belarus and Russia,why on earth would they want to go there.

[Sheepy]

If he bombs Ukraine enough there won't be a country left, and that seems to be the plan so far.

Might I suggest that whoever keeps closing the humanitarian corridors stops doing it then, after all he keeps opening them and somebody keeps closing them. If you don't want a lot more civilian killed that is, which it seems somebody does. Not much of a nice way of buying time one might say.

[T00ts]

How many threads do we need on the Ukraine?

I have tried a few alternatives but with little impact. There's not much else happening. It's like the world is holding it's breath.

[T00ts]

I thought he wasn't winning and was being humiliated and has forces made up of crying conscripts, not battle-hardened regulars? Who just want to go home?

If he bombs Ukraine enough there won't be a country left, and that seems to be the plan so far.

[Sheepy]

I see today in the press and on the news there are those beginning to call for active opposition to Russia. Up to now I think most have agreed that a no fly zone is a non starter but suddenly today there seems to be a shift.
How sure is anyone in Governments around the world and in Europe in particular that Putin is going to stop at the Ukraine borders? If he succeeds in Ukraine as he currently seems likely to do, if for no other reason than as we might be supplying arms, we are still sitting tight while only the Ukrainians actually stand up to him,  who is prepared to say that that will be the end of the story? I keep remembering those famous miserably false words 'peace in our time'.

I thought he wasn't winning and was being humiliated and has forces made up of crying conscripts, not battle-hardened regulars? Who just want to go home?