Hmmm, dunno, doesn't really look convincing to me. Don't think a Javelin will bother even a bit. Nor an SDB. Looks rather desperate...

The EU, NATO and the US have basically turned their backs on Ukraine. They are giving flowers and sympathy cards. Along with some threats of sanctions. We know how successful they have been with Russia before.

Radford Doctrine ?
 

...
Why wait in the cold until the New Year ?

Strike on Christmas Eve. Home by Hogmanay.

Anyone remember the Radford Doctrine ?
...
LFH
:E

Everything seems to be set, all thats missing is the Ukrainian version of Arthur Seyss-Inquart asking for Putins "help".

It will be costly.
The US might retaliate by cutting Russia from the international Swift financial system.

Right, because the Biden administration has demonstrated itself to be so effective at discouraging international bad actors...

From the Telegraph…

…..”The ‘nuclear option’ of expelling Russia from the SWIFT system of international payments has gradually lost deterrent value. The Kremlin has been developing ways to work around it.

The Carnegie Moscow Center says Russia has introduced a national version of SWIFT known as SPFS. The country could probably conduct transactions directly with China through the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System. It has introduced a National Payment Card System (MIR) in case Visa and Mastercard are suspended, and these can be linked with Chinese UnionPay and Japanese JCB.

The loss of SWIFT would be a major financial shock for Russia but it would also be painful for European companies, and untenable in light of Europe’s gas dependency.

“Disconnecting SWIFT is absolute fantasy. Are Germans going to carry money in suitcases to Russia to pay for their gas?” said Vladimir Dzhabarov from the Russian Federal Council. ….”…..

That would leave Europe entirely dependent on Nordstream 2 gas. Not very threatening to Vladimir, imho.

Norwegian gas is available in Europe as well.

No it does not. there are gas lines from north sea, africa and middle east as well.

https://www.bruegel.org/publications...l-gas-imports/

Clem Hafford: "Is there gonna be a fight, Wyatt?"
Wyatt Earp: "I think there must be".

There are also pipelines from Algeria etc - Russian gas is cheap but the Dutch could open the throttles at Groningen and a number of N Sea fields can also go into max production (that may damage the eventual productivity but short term can work wonders (I think it was used in the 1980's coal miners strike). The UK Govt has tested a system ordering oil companies to do this. Its Germany that is really dependent on Russian Gas.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....90b3df590c.jpg

https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/blo...l-land-ukraine

Who thinks they own the farms they bought ?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/w...rope-wn55kztpb

We’ll protect you from Russia, Joe Biden tells eastern Europe

President Biden has stressed America’s “sacred commitment” to defending its Nato allies in eastern Europe, promising them military support as Russia masses troops on the borders.

Biden spoke to the leaders of nine Nato states — Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia — on Thursday to “underscore the United States’ commitment to transatlantic security and our sacred commitment to Nato’s Article 5”, the White House said. Article 5 of Nato’s founding treaty says that an attack on any one ally is an attack on all of them.

It came as President Putin accused Ukraine of committing “genocide” in the east of the country, where Moscow-backed separatists have carved out two breakaway territories. He did not provide any evidence……

Tensions were ratcheted further as Moscow said Kiev had committed a “provocation” by sending a warship towards the Kerch Strait, which divides Russia and its annexed peninsula of Crimea. The Ukrainian ship allegedly failed to react to a Russian request to change course; it later retreated. Dmitry Peskov,

Putin’s spokesman, said the incident on Thursday showed the “potential harm and danger that could flow from such provocative actions”. Kiev said the ship was operating in its territorial waters.…..

https://www.ft.com/content/d86f8961-...e-8251ab139204

Russia demands Nato retract pledge to admit Ukraine and Georgia

Russia has demanded Nato withdraw a 2008 pledge to admit Ukraine and Georgia as part of future security talks that Washington hopes will deter Moscow from invading its southern neighbour.

The Russian foreign ministry on Friday published a list of proposed agreements that offer the most detailed insight so far into the “red lines” Vladimir Putin wants to form the basis of a new European security order.….

Nato’s then-secretary general said in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia would one day become members but the alliance has never specified a timeline and has not entered either country into its formal process for membership.

The Russian foreign ministry said it wanted legal guarantees that the pledge was no longer in force, as well as other agreements that Nato would not deploy weaponry to countries bordering Russia, hold military drills beyond a certain distance from Russia, and setting maximum approach distances for ships in the Baltic and Black seas.

It also called on the US to readopt the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, a Cold War agreement banning land-based missiles with a range of 500km-5,500km from which the Trump administration withdrew in 2019.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, on Friday dismissed Putin’s demands as unsurprising. “It’s the same list of demands that the Russians have been advocating for and voicing for several months, if not years, and that is their prerogative,” she said.

Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, said Biden “clearly and directly . . . made no such commitments or concessions” regarding excluding Ukraine from Nato in his discussion earlier this week with Putin. “He stands by the proposition that countries should be able to freely choose who they associate with,” Sullivan said.

Senior US officials have also said Biden has made “very clear” that one nation cannot force another nation to change its border. “[One] nation cannot tell another to change its politics, and nations can’t tell others who they can work with,” a senior administration official told reporters on Thursday, after Biden spoke to Zelensky and, separately, nine Nato allies along its eastern flank…..

Entirely unacceptable AND undoable.
Firstly: Norway, Poland and Baltic countres are NATO countries and bordering Russia. Should they de-arm and leave NATO?
Secondly: Putin will NOT state his terms on Finland nor whom Finns train with, is visited by or ally with. That is not going to happen,

Soviet union collapsed and there is no more russian dominance as it was within USSR. Putin has to accept it.
But, as a dictator with overly boosted ego tangling to power, he cant. He is a remain of the cold war living in an illusion that HE will return the soviet era influence of Russia.
Bearing in mind that in 2005 already he called the collapse of SU as "the biggest geopolitical catastrophy of the century" tells what this guy is thinking.

Putin does not understand any soft talk. In his mind that is weakness. He only understands and appreciiates tough approach, so he must be placed in between a rock and a hard place.

Good!
A red line is a red line is a red line.
Integrity of NATO territory is a RED LINE. Full stop.
This has to be set in stone and shouldn't be watered down in any way.

Either imprecisely formulated or ridiculous.
The Baltic states are NATO members. Obviously NATO weaponry can and will be stationed/deployed there.

Maybe it's time for the West to move ahead unilateral as well? And then negotiate to move back to the status quo ante? If this is the way they want to go. How about some intermediate range missiles?

I guess we could give the Russians a legal guarantee regarding Ukraine's NATO membership along the same lines as the legal agreement they gave Ukraine back in the 90s to guarantee its territorial integrity etc in return for it giving up its nukes...

All this bolleaux regarding "NATO encirclement" is ridiculous. If I were Russian I'd be much more concerned about what was happening on beyond their eastern border.