Of course this is not meant literally. All I was trying to show was how flawed the analogy is.

As for propaganda, have a look at the NZZ article I posted this morning.

You don't show that by claiming it's not realistic, it doesn't need to be. How many people have literally tried to push a camel through a needle's ear? How many people have literally searched a haystack in search of a needle?

Again, if you believe there's no US propaganda and everything you read is the truth I have land on the moon to sell.

And btw, Biden's domestic popularity is through the bottom, the army has no purpose lately and Nato has been looking for one for decades. It's common practice for politicians to conjure up, or create, a foreign enemy to improve their popularity.

This conflict is way older than Biden's presidency. They didn't just create a foreign enemy.

I agree with the principle, but in this particular case, Biden was reactive, Putin was proactive. So if there's someone whose conjuring foreign enemies in this case, that ain't in the White House

Nothing happened as of yet.

Unless your position is that the troop buildup is indeed "something". In which case however you need to consider Nato manoeuvres and similar as well, in which Biden was far from re-active only. Including, most notably, the british HMS Defender "patrolling" last year in the disputed waters around the Crimea it had no business being in in the first place. Supposedly the ship was on its way to Georgia, the very same country that attacked Russia in 2008 a few months after Bush proclaimed that Georgia and UA were on a direct path to Nato membership.

Even Wiki says that the HMS Defender incident was a planned and deliberate provocation, and that the UK was well aware of the risks and dangers involved. As proven by the documents someone left (or "happened" to leave?) at a bus station.

As for each nation's right to decide for themselves:
Where's the outrcy about Biden's clear order to Scholz to tear down NS2?

Disputed waters, huh?

This is true. However, for every NATO provocation there's at least 10 Russian ones. I think I mentioned a few pages back about the monthly incursions of Russian jets into the Romanian and Bulgarian airspace from the Black Sea forcing Greek jets to scramble and push them out. Russian Blackjack bombers flew all the way from Norway to Spain. BTW, the Blackjacks are supersonic strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Tu-95 Bear bombers were intercepted jointly by the UK and Belgium. The list can go on and on for a very long time, my point is, Russia's provocations are the daily life of NATO jet pilots. Literally.

Even better.

I've just read an account of Liz Truss's visit.

We're doomed.

Lavrov was as usual giving her a masterclass in diplomacy and no surprise, she failed miserably.

"...two diplomatic sources as saying that during their earlier closed-door meeting Lavrov had asked Truss if she recognised Russian sovereignty over Rostov and Voronezh - two regions in the south of the country where Russia has been building up its forces.

Truss replied that Britain would never recognise them as Russian, and had to be corrected by her ambassador..."

Just come back from the gym... are we dead yet?
Seriously, you Swissies got your bombshelters dusted and stocked?

This is some Kobayashi Maru stuff. A no win situation.
The best outcome of this situation could result in a limited incursion to create a corridor to the Donbas. Not enough to give Nato a casus belli but enough to force "The West" to word a strong complaint to the UN. Sanctions, saber rattling etc. etc.
Everybody goes home and everybody claims victory.......!
Also the rest of the world sees tha the US is a toothless tiger and won´t come to their aid, perhaps Taiwan decides to get the bomb, along with Indonesia. Japan sees a bellicose China and also builds a bomb.
Hmm! For that matter why not Australia?
Iran thinks that as the sanctions are not being stopped, so why not get the bloody bomb too? Israel won´t like that of course.
Or it all goes Tango Uniform and humanity goes out with a bang and a whimper.

__________________
Back in Bavaria, god´s own belly button.

Toothless tiger? We all know it's a unibrow morally correct eagle

Could Britain see The Return of the Greenham Common Women during the Ukraine crisis ?

BBC News - Greenham Common, the women who fought to ban the bomb

At the time I lived in Cardiff and knew many unscrupolous foolishly optimistic men who went to Greenham Common pretending to be supporters in the hopes of a quick one.

Nuclear dogging?

Well they wouldn't have got one from this one! Not at Greenham Common, not at Molesworth either.

Back to the subject, June 2020.

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday endorsed Russia’s nuclear deterrent policy, which allows him to use atomic weapons in response to a conventional strike targeting the nation’s critical government and military infrastructure.

By including a non-nuclear attack as a possible trigger for Russian nuclear retaliation, the document appears to send a warning signal to the U.S. The new expanded wording reflects Russian concerns about the development of prospective weapons that could give Washington the capability to knock out key military assets and government facilities without resorting to atomic weapons.

In line with Russian military doctrine, the new document reaffirms that the country could use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack or an aggression involving conventional weapons that “threatens the very existence of the state.”

https://www.defensenews.com/global/e...uclear-strike/

Damn. Let's hope the Ukrainian army won't take Moscow then.

More and more an invasion looks less likely. I think Putin has achieved his goal by showing the unwillingness and inability of the west to actually protect Ukraine and all of this was achieved without incurring any costs to his regime. On the contrary, a cohort of EU leaders were flown into Moscow to avert the crisis, a clear signal, he's in command of the situation and the west is merely reacting by pleading.

To Ukraine it is now even more clear: nobody will save it in case the Bear decides to invade, the calculus of any Ukrainian leader in the future has been changed.

I think the Russians will continue to support the Donbas separatists, but at this point I don't think Russian tanks will invade.

Unbelievable. I didn't know that Russian propaganda worked so good outside Russia as well.

Putin said many times that he regrets the breakup of Soviet Union and he doesn't believe in Ukrainians as a nation, doesn't consider their language is a real language etc. But it's still the Americans to blame for Russian aggression?

There was no real revolution in Ukraine. The president fled but the parliament remained fully operational and appointed a temporary person for this post for a few months before the preterm elections of the new president took place. The change of the will of Ukrainian population to go towards NATO was a result of Russian aggression, not Maidan.

And yes, my whole family lives in Ukraine and their lives are under threat right now because of the ambitions of a crazy Russian leader whose goal is to build USSR 2.0.

Not sure if nuclear weapons are that much a deterrent these days. When we think about nuclear war we imagine a world ending conflagration, but That won´t happen and if you consider that even after over 2000 have already been detonated since 1945 we are still here, more or less.
Also the weapons are small enough and precise enough to be used without much of a consequence.
So why should militaries be afraid of using them?