We shall indeed have to deal with Russia again but, as long as Putin remains in power, there will be limits to that engagement. The truth is that we were completely open to a Russia that was part of the international community and had some form of capitalist economy and were willing to overlook certain excesses of that country - 'it is only the Russians after all - what can you expect, etc?'. Who in their right mind is going to rely on supplies of Russian oil and gas ever again? The harsh reality is that all the people with the big oil reserves are people with an extremely shady human rights record. We can whine all we want, and with good reason, but the bottom line is that the UK (and less publicly several others) have had to go cap in hand to Saudi Arabia to secure oil supplies. No one wants it, but the alternatives are not too great either.

Having had over a number of years experienced the attitudes of ordinary Russians. It seems that to me that when they come to visit one's country either as a visitor or on business, one is left with the perception that they already "own" your country by their vulgar and arrogant attitude to the citizens, they just have not decided to invade, or annex it yet.

This does not bode well for any future rapprochement.

IG

Not all of Belarus are in favour, in fact a lot are not into the war, look at the rail system, plus the system could be hacked.

I still think the West need to go in, sorry, but that is how I see it, Define war crime, standing by knowing you can help but choosing not to is in my eyes just as bad.
I see Boris is now wanting to give anti ship missiles to Ukraine, good. but again too late, they should have been given before the attacks on Odessa even started.
I would give them cruise missiles to hit at thge Russian airbases and naval carrying out the attacks

The talks are just that, hot air, Putin will not agree to anything until he has decimated those of military age and destroyed the Countries ability to grow and sustain itself. The one thing that Bucha has shown the male population is they WILL kill them, so they have nothing to lose in fighting back and resistance will be greater.

Nutty, bang on the button again. Intervention looking necessary sooner rather than later.

My small rifle club still has one of these heavy target barreled 7.62x51 conv P14 rifles as it's 'club rifle' for guests/probationers to use....its a great target rifle.
However, the old No.4's big advantage as a battle rifle was the sights (less so with the SMLE) the 10 rd capacity and the speed the bolt could be worked in combo with the trigger.
I know I now have old eyes, but how the Germans ever hit anything with a K98k with the poor sights they have amazes me, but they were all 40+ years younger than I am now.

I am in total agreement with Nutloose. Thinking of all the wars we got involved in over the last 40 years, and for much less evidence or cause or national interest, there stands no reason to deny UKR all the aid they need, of whatever kind. Especially giving stuff ( trade).

I cannot understand the reluctance to face up to Pootins nuclear blackmail, it cannot stand, or will set a tone for the next 50 years of international 'nuclear gunboat' diplomacy and encourage proliferation in many countries.

Agreement here too. As the Russian forces draw back from Kyiv and Mariupol, Ukraine should be allowed to request foreign military assistance to secure those areas, deliver humanitarian aid, begin clearing up. This would free up their own forces to chase the Russians out of other areas, and out of the country. Any foreign troops helping Ukraine would have the right of self defence in case of Russian attack.

Even if you don't agree, surely it's easy to understand- there is a significant worry that this passes the nuclear threshold because of Putin's perceived instability. That apart, it would breach the NATO treaty which would inevitably lead to open conflict between members and give comfort to the Russians. It could lead to the break-up of the alliance;

Today we have all seen the pictures and read the reports from Bucha: mass graves of civilians definitely dug with excavators and then filled with gravel, pink jacket sleeves still sticking out. Civilians with hands tied behind their backs and executed with a bullet in the back of the heads. Women raped and mutilated, HRW has confirmed evidence of a case in which a russian soldier raped a woman and cut her face.
Families shot dead in their cars and set on fire.

This is one village, this is just the beginning. As more villages are liberated the more we will learn of atrocities by russian troops. The entire northern border and the majority of Black sea coast has been under russian command for five weeks. We will see more and more eyewitness accounts and have confirmed evidence of war crimes as time goes by.

The Russian doctrine is: bomb everything into rubble, rape everyone and kill em all. They dont care if its children or adults, civilian or soldier.

The west must do everything in its power to stop the madness and prevent the Russians from taking this any further. And by that I mean not a step further in Ukraine, not to Kazakhstan which has announced it will not be used to circumvene the sanctions towards Russia. Not to Poland nor the Baltics. Not to Finland or Sweden.

The Russian people are living in a bubble. In the Russian medias there isn't a single word of Russian troops being in Kiev area. Not a word. There is sh*tloads of news how Russian troops are demining Donbass and arresting nazis in Mariupol. From other areas: absolutely nothing. I've spent quite some time reading TASS, RG, Gazeta, Izvestija, Pravda, and the amount of propaganda is making one mad. Russian soldier is good, Russian soldier is pure, Russian soldier is treating the bloodthirsty nazis with respect even though they are bloodthirsty nazis. Russian soldiers are saving thd women and children from the nazis and providing them milk and cookies.

The Russians do not know what is happening until the war is on their home yard. Hopefully we'll get to call Pootin as Meyer one day.

We have great Evil virtually on our doorstep.

The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

The West is doing little more than virtue signalling and, I suspect, will revert to a sort of normality with Russia as soon as it thinks a decent interval has passed.
To a small degree I exempt the UK, which seems to be more pugnacious than most, but the West has the means of stopping this wickedness and it's vested interests are putting the brake on.

Agreed, but how? Do we (the civilised World) jack up the nuclear threat? Engage on the ground or in the air or at sea? I share the expressions of shock and horror at what we are seeing … that the Russian people don’t, of course. Our civilised and safe options are few.

This saying is often used to motivate those who think of themselves as good. John F Kennedy (who knew a few things) said of it :

So how do we stop the perpetrators from being strong and determined and show that evil does not prosper?

I look on the situation like we are standing at the fence of Auschwitz with the means to stop the Genocide within that fence, but instead we are standing by and watching it happen.

It sickens me to think the West has come to this, we are being held to ransom by a bunch of thugs, we all decry the Russians military and their incompetence, but at the end of the day they are systematically destroying a Country, it’s culture and it future generations, while we standby and let it happen.

By allowing this to happen the West is already showing that they are weaker and are sending signals to Russia that whenever they wish to occupy a Country the West will stand back and let it happen.

Operating in the Ukraine at their behest is not invading a country, tell me WTF is the difference to operating in Syria .

Well that we are already doing. I hope that in the coming months Russian economy will plummet down the GDP table ( already they are #11). Maybe When they drop below Iran #17 they will get some kind of message.

They are only a world power these days because of their nukes, they cannot be allowed to use that as any leverage.

Let me suggest an escalation in Western response that I have not seen put forwards before. The next bit is not a digression.

On another thread someone has asked what the post-war implications might be for the Russian armed forces, and has suggested that all three have failed significantly. I would actual demur slightly from their hypothesis that all three have performed equally badly. In general terms the Russian Navy has delivered on its primary objectives of 1) blockade Black Sea and Sea of Azov; 2) bombardment of shore from sea, 3) poised amphibious forces, some unopposed landings; 4) preservation of Russian fleet (mostly) despite many opportunities for major fleet losses (so far they have only lost one sunk LST, two damaged smaller amphibs, one damaged patrol vessel ..... not so bad given Russian aviation and army losses).

The Russians have been able to do all this because the Ukraine does not have a fleet that could do anything (and the small bit that it had was sunk/scuttled in the first few days), and the Ukraine does not have land-launched anti-ship long/medium range guided missiles. The Ukraine got one good shot at a Russian patrol vessel using unguiided MLRS and since then the Russians have carefully stayed out of range of that. The Ukraine's indigenously developed anti-ship missiles (Neptunes) had not been delivered prior to the war, only the launcher vehicles (TELs). The Ukraine has to prioritise its few aviation assets either for the air war, or for anti-ground missions.

So where am I going with this ?

1. Give the Ukraine Longer range anti-ship missiles out of stocks of any Western nation willing. Give them the means to obtain targetting data. Give them the means to run the comms to mesh that together. Obviously that cannot be using NATO assets or active western military assets. So instead that could be near real-time satellite data (Maxar or similar, though Maxar itself is under new ownership) plus unblockable real-time comms (Starlink). I think the Maxar revisit rate is good enough to get targetting solutions with a little bit of help from other sources. The missiles & launchers will need to be either land-launched Harpoon or Exocet, or aviation-launched Hellfire or similar shorter range anti-ship - the Switchblade 600 would just about do given the observed Russian naval loitering boxes. The Switchblade solution would be the easiest to deliver even if it was the least effective in a naval scenario. Some of the smaller ATGMs are light enough to mount on the bigger drones that folk are getting creative with. Even if such attacks were not successful they would have the benefit of preventing the Russian navy from full freedom of action.

2. Break the blockade. Unfortunately because of the Montreux Convention the main western navies cannot just rock up and protect their nation-flagged fleet in the normal way using their grey funnel lines. And it is quite a big ask to expect Romania or Bulgaria or Turkey to do this. So this would require some creative thinking by the West to utilise existing civil shipping in the Black Sea to break the blockade. I think there are varieties on the theme of putting Western armed forces onto their flagged shipping (or flags under their protection) and using the civilian vessels to break the blockade. For example reflag UKR merchant fleet to UK, then put armed parties on the vessels. Being realistic one would need to identify vessels that could take helicopters on, then one has decent enough assets to call the bluff. As many of the issues here are normal law of the sea/Montreux Convention legal ones, as military (naval) issues but of course are for political impact. Once broken it becomes possible to move heavy cargo into Odessa more easily.

3. .... and of course all the other more obvious stuff that everyone else is saying.

Just a thought that others may wish to biite on.

Cut the gas. Today.

?? sorry what?

Stop using RF gas and oil. Same as the Baltic states did yesterday, completely.

Once again all I read are wishful words as with your last post. State exactly what you feel other states need to do and what risks are linked to those actions

Is there such a thing as land-launched Harpoon ? I couldn't find it on wiki. Other than that I certainly agree that medium/long-range anti-ship missiles could well give Putin another nasty surprise and should be supplied;