Scary times | Page 5 | Vital Football

Scary times

Just listening to Lavrov without a hint of irony saying that they have no option but to overthrow a non democratic regime which is oppressing its people and committing genocide, while at the same time peaceful protestors in Russia are dragged off by the police.
You have to wonder what goes through their minds when they spout such stuff
 
Red Wimp said:
Just listening to Lavrov without a hint of irony saying that they have no option but to overthrow a non democratic regime which is oppressing its people and committing genocide, while at the same time peaceful protestors in Russia are dragged off by the police.
You have to wonder what goes through their minds when they spout such stuff
Click to expand...
Fear!.
Fear of loosing power.
For a 'lighthearted' slant, if there can be such a thing in this conflict, watch 'The Death of Stalin', Armando Iannuchi's film.
 
lets hope of his own puts one between his eyes.

Putin isn’t a communist he is a criminally insane madman.

the cold-war followed rudimentary rules and was to a large extent predictable. This chap is the complete opposite. He needs to be removed.

if he attacks a NATO state it will massive.
 
The end of day 2 of the invasion and the much vaunted Russian military still has not taken Kyiv, a city a mere stones throw in military terms from the border they invaded from. Every day Kyiv survives is another day of hope for Ukraine that they are slowly breaking the will of Russia to continue. There is almost no chance the Ukranians can win this, but they can make the price so high that the consequences bear much bigger fruit down the line.
A heroic resistance indeed, the Ukranians have armed their civilians and are distributing instructions on making Molotov cocktails. These are desperate measures but probably more importantly they signal to Putin that the fighting in Kyiv might be much much harder than he thought it would be. Quite what the impact on the civilian population would be should those same civilians engage Russian forces is too dreadful to think of, let's hope it doesn't come to that...
 
The countries of the western world and politicians of all persuasions have all happily taken the dirty Russian money for years without blinking an eye.
London is awash with Russian oligarchs , there is one at Chelsea for example.
Are we all naive enough to believe that the money these guys are making isn't helping finance the Russian war machine?
But too many people in power are benefitting from this money has well so don't expect to see massive sanctions on the lijess of Abramovic any time soon.
 
hulloutpost said:
Did I miss the announcements from IOC, FIFA, UEFA?
Click to expand...
isnt the FIFA president a pal of Putins?
I know this is probably unfair on all
the individuals involved and would deny some spectators from watching some of the greatest sportspeople in the world. But I think all Russian teams and individual competitors should be given a world wide ban. The only way we will ever put pressure on Putin is by turning the Russian people against him. They love seeing their sportspeople competing against the best in the world and this would add some more pressure on top of the other so called sanctions.
 
Sincilbanks said:
The end of day 2 of the invasion and the much vaunted Russian military still has not taken Kyiv, a city a mere stones throw in military terms from the border they invaded from. Every day Kyiv survives is another day of hope for Ukraine that they are slowly breaking the will of Russia to continue. There is almost no chance the Ukranians can win this, but they can make the price so high that the consequences bear much bigger fruit down the line.
A heroic resistance indeed, the Ukranians have armed their civilians and are distributing instructions on making Molotov cocktails. These are desperate measures but probably more importantly they signal to Putin that the fighting in Kyiv might be much much harder than he thought it would be. Quite what the impact on the civilian population would be should those same civilians engage Russian forces is too dreadful to think of, let's hope it doesn't come to that...
Click to expand...
Before the invasion started the RAF flew several C17 flights into Kyiv packed with surface to air missiles and anti tank weapons. When, as it will, it becomes more street to street fighting, where the Russians complete air superiority will be less of an issue, these arms are going to make life a lot tougher for Putin's army. Given the fact that it has taken the Russians longer to take control of Kyiv than they expected then I'm guessing that these arms are already being used to some extent. If the Ukrainian will is there, and given the fact that France has confirmed it will supply arms to Ukraine, I can see that this invasion isn't going to be the walk in the park Putin thought it might be and could end up being extremely costly to him.
 
Poland football team have now said they will not play Russia in the world cup playoff game. That could make FIFA/UEFA get of the crapper grow a pair and just ban Russia from all international games.
 
Kyiv survives another night. It looks like Russia infiltrated some special forces into the city and tried to cause some chaos by engaging reservist units. Right now Kyiv is still in Ukranian hands. If the Russians don't take it today there are going to be some serious questions being asked of the Russians capability to take it with only minor casualties, both civilian and military. It's been verified that Ukraine shot down two IL76 transport aircraft yesterday, that's interesting because it is the primary transport aircraft used by their parachute and airlanding units. If they are flying these guys into a contested area in transport aircraft (which are sitting ducks for pretty much any kind of anti-air system) then that speaks volumes for how well they are doing.

The Russians did parachute and helicopter in a specialist airlanding unit onto an airfield near Kyiv on day 1 and actually took it. Ukranian forces then retook it later in the day, presumably those forces were expecting the Russian tank columns to link up with them in fairly short order, that obviously didn't happen.

The only verified city the Russians have taken is in the South after an amphibious assault. Those troops will be highly trained specialists with a lot of practice and training and represent the cream of their ground forces.
 
Sigiriya said:
Before the invasion started the RAF flew several C17 flights into Kyiv packed with surface to air missiles and anti tank weapons. When, as it will, it becomes more street to street fighting, where the Russians complete air superiority will be less of an issue, these arms are going to make life a lot tougher for Putin's army. Given the fact that it has taken the Russians longer to take control of Kyiv than they expected then I'm guessing that these arms are already being used to some extent. If the Ukrainian will is there, and given the fact that France has confirmed it will supply arms to Ukraine, I can see that this invasion isn't going to be the walk in the park Putin thought it might be and could end up being extremely costly to him.
Click to expand...

I think the worry is that if Putin can't take Kyiv cheaply in terms of troop cost he will simply roll up his artillery and flatten it. He's done it before...
 
He needs results soon. His troops will be getting knackered, they are against a nation fighting for its life. Its not been as easy as he thought.
 
Sincilbanks said:
I think the worry is that if Putin can't take Kyiv cheaply in terms of troop cost he will simply roll up his artillery and flatten it. He's done it before...
Click to expand...
In much smaller countries when he knew he could get away with it. In this day and age of the internet, when the Russian people start seeing the true scale of destruction that this man is not only threatening to do, but actually doing to a population that is very similar to theirs, and where there must be very close persons links with for many Russians I would like to think that there support for him will soon wane. Probably wishful thinking. Word will soon spread, though, of Russian combat losses and the longer this goes on the higher those will rise. This is Putin's personal war, not the Russian people's. The more that this conflict can be reported in that manner, the more likely support for Putin amongst his own people will plummet. Again, probably wishful thinking, but you can only hope.
Interestingly, Waddington and Coningsby were meant to be hosting a big exercise involving Saudi and Indian aircraft from 7th March. That has now been cancelled. I expect to hear of more Typhoon deployments to Eastern Nato members soon, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Waddo's Rivet Joints are relaying Russian troop movements to Ukraine forces. If we hadn't have scrapped the Sentinel I'm pretty sure they would have been very active as well.
 
Sigiriya said:
In much smaller countries when he knew he could get away with it. In this day and age of the internet, when the Russian people start seeing the true scale of destruction that this man is not only threatening to do, but actually doing to a population that is very similar to theirs, and where there must be very close persons links with for many Russians I would like to think that there support for him will soon wane. Probably wishful thinking. Word will soon spread, though, of Russian combat losses and the longer this goes on the higher those will rise. This is Putin's personal war, not the Russian people's. The more that this conflict can be reported in that manner, the more likely support for Putin amongst his own people will plummet. Again, probably wishful thinking, but you can only hope.
Interestingly, Waddington and Coningsby were meant to be hosting a big exercise involving Saudi and Indian aircraft from 7th March. That has now been cancelled. I expect to hear of more Typhoon deployments to Eastern Nato members soon, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Waddo's Rivet Joints are relaying Russian troop movements to Ukraine forces. If we hadn't have scrapped the Sentinel I'm pretty sure they would have been very active as well.
Click to expand...

Polish tankers are in-flight refuelling what's left of the Ukranian air force over Polish air-space so I'm pretty sure we are doing whatever we can, including passing satellite surveillance on. There's no doubt that Putin is risking everything on this invasion, but he's not shown a very rational response so far, so I don't have much hope that the kind of calculation you allude to above is probably very high on his agenda. 3 weeks ago Kineton base was alive with C130 and Airbus transport flying over us and I spotted 3 helicopters flying in with whisper mode engaged clearly practicing something...
 
Sigiriya said:
In much smaller countries when he knew he could get away with it. In this day and age of the internet, when the Russian people start seeing the true scale of destruction that this man is not only threatening to do, but actually doing to a population that is very similar to theirs, and where there must be very close persons links with for many Russians I would like to think that there support for him will soon wane. Probably wishful thinking. Word will soon spread, though, of Russian combat losses and the longer this goes on the higher those will rise. This is Putin's personal war, not the Russian people's. The more that this conflict can be reported in that manner, the more likely support for Putin amongst his own people will plummet. Again, probably wishful thinking, but you can only hope.
Interestingly, Waddington and Coningsby were meant to be hosting a big exercise involving Saudi and Indian aircraft from 7th March. That has now been cancelled. I expect to hear of more Typhoon deployments to Eastern Nato members soon, and you can bet your bottom dollar that Waddo's Rivet Joints are relaying Russian troop movements to Ukraine forces. If we hadn't have scrapped the Sentinel I'm pretty sure they would have been very active as well.
Click to expand...

they needed major upgrade, the airframes were ok but the kit in it was obsolete. Interestingly they have been sold back to defence contractors who will gut the insides and the Americans will put their special kit in it.

there was a new spy plane (drone) being used by the Americans there the other day call sign Forte.

I think you are correct i don’t think the average Russian wants this either
 
You must log in or register to reply here.