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Russia vs NATO

Oh my, this is worrying... can the world cope with WW3 after the 2 years we've all had? I'd sincerely hope that Putin and the other world leaders would exhaust all other options before resorting to that...

Out of interest, how do we think WW3 might play out if it happened? Would it be a worldwide emergency on the scale of WW1 and WW2?

Worrying times... my, I'm nervous.
 
There's is very little chance of World War three, he is playing political games. For a start a war in Ukraine wouldn't necessarily start world war three and wouldn't even likely involve forces from western countries. This crisis is of Putins manufacturing and he certainly cannot cope with such a war.
 
World War Three is extremely unlikely.
Little local war in the east.
Have we offered troops?
Not a single fighting soldier.
Where are the massed NATO troops?
Anywhere but the Ukrane border to Russia.
Will the West get involved in the fighting?
No no no, we will hit them with sanctions, that are already not working...
So they will buy more from China...that will really teach them.
We will stop them money laundering in the UK...been threatening it for decades, not actually happened.
We will stop them buying our energy...oh.
 
I think it would be different if Ukraine was a fully fledged NATO member but they aren't, so countries whilst being angry aren't going to send soldiers over for it. I think Russia will take Donetsk and Luhansk like they did with Crimea and then try to act for peace saying its a buffer zone.
 
I disagree. I think there is a significant risk of a larger war. For several reasons:

1. If Russia invades all of ukraine, you will have the Russian military face to face on the borders with a beefed up NATO presence. The risk of a miscalculation here is huge.

2. If Putin invades Ukraine and causes mass bloodshed, or reports come out that there is genocide or people being put into detention (concentration) camps, then the West will have to act on principles of morales. We can’t sit back and watch while fellow Europeans are murdered. There has to come a point when we say enough is enough.

3. Putin is isolated, has no advisors, wants the old USSR back. Will he stop at Ukraine? Or will he go after the other old USSR countries too? He’s obviously self obsessed, not firing on all cylinders, he might not stop at just Ukraine.

4. The US and U.K. are looking to supply Ukraine with more military items, possibly surface to air missiles - how do you think Russia will react when a British missile takes out a Russian plane, or a British anti tank shell takes out tanks and kills Russian soldiers?

5. There has to be a clear message not just to Russia but also China who will go for Taiwan if it sees the west being weak. It wouldn’t surprise me if NATO is considering putting troops in Ukraine and having a Cuban style missile crisis on the point of principle that another country can’t just walk in and invade another without the west intervening.

6. Finally, I think Putin is isolated and crazy enough to actually push the red button if it came to it. I get the feeling he has nothing to lose and would take Russia down with him if it came to it. He reminds me of Hitler when they invaded Poland and everyone around him is too afraid to stand up to him. (As we saw in the comical Russian security meeting yesterday)


The big question is how do we resolve this? Putin was right in that NATO has expanded right up to Russia borders, but he is in another works when he thinks Russia is going to be under attack. He obviously feels very threatened, I think not from NATO but from EU and Western values and way of life. He doesn’t want to lose Russia to this, which in turn would make him weaker.

At the moment the only way I see it is if his generals stand up to him and refuse their orders, or he gets assassinated.
 
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"1. If Russia invades all of Russia"...
Eh?
It already has!
There is unlikely to be mass bloodshed, it will likely be a walkover with a minimum of losses, the forces on each side are not balanced.
Putin has his advisors...lots of them, and he has support from China...they both know that their role in world politics is changing, and the West is not the mighty power it once was.
NATO has around 4000 forces around the Ukraine border...a drop in the ocean compared to Russian forces.
World War 3 is a very long way off in my mind.
 
Sorry I meant Ukraine!

It has only gone in to a very small part of the country so far. There are borders between the Russian controlled areas and Ukraine itself.
 
rob666 said:
World War Three is extremely unlikely.
Little local war in the east.
Click to expand...
Little wars become world wars ... World wars don't start as such, after all.

Anything could happen. I guess these light sanctions are hopefully a sign that they think he might well pull back yet but they're not remotely punitive. Looks ridiculous. It's like making an axe murderer go to bed early.
 
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Someone posted this to the town ask page on facebook

Sent from my SM-A217F using Tapatalk
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Agreed. As much as I don’t want WW3, we are basically allowing Putin aka Hitler to get away with invading another country and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people. At what point do we stand up for our morals and principles? I too feel for the people of Ukraine tonight.

News is that the Russian separatists have asked for Russian military help so the Russian military are now moving in. I think it will all kick off tonight. Good luck Ukraine.
 
Alsty said:
What do you propose Europe should do?
Click to expand...
Now? Nothing, it's too late.

We should have got Nato and EU membership for them sorted far sooner. I get that it's a lot more complicated than that, and I'm not saying it would have been without challenges, but there was a window when it was viable. The overriding reason it was blocked AIUI was so as not to aggravate Russia - we turned a blind eye because we (London) wanted the money and we (Europe) needed the gas. It's shameful really.
 
WillPS said:
Now? Nothing, it's too late.

We should have got Nato and EU membership for them sorted far sooner. I get that it's a lot more complicated than that, and I'm not saying it would have been without challenges, but there was a window when it was viable. The overriding reason it was blocked AIUI was so as not to aggravate Russia - we turned a blind eye because we (London) wanted the money and we (Europe) needed the gas. It's shameful really.
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Ukraine’s membership of NATO hasn’t happened because it’s got open major territorial disputes. It’s the same reason Georgia hasn’t been able to join. It’s been a bit of an unwritten rule for a while now.
 
JAperson said:
Ukraine’s membership of NATO hasn’t happened because it’s got open major territorial disputes. It’s the same reason Georgia hasn’t been able to join. It’s been a bit of an unwritten rule for a while now.
Click to expand...
That's a symptom of us not sorting out their membership in a timely fashion though. There were no border disputes in Ukraine nor Georgia until Putin sent the boys in to the latter while we dithered.

There's a reason he's not parking his tanks outside Latvia, Estonia or Lithuania (yet).
 
Does make you wonder if we had turned a blind eye when Hitler invaded Poland what would have happened and what world we would be living in now.
 
GaryH said:
Does make you wonder if we had turned a blind eye when Hitler invaded Poland what would have happened and what world we would be living in now.
Click to expand...

Much like with NATO now we couldn’t turn a blind eye with Poland as we had a mutual aid treaty with them.

You can’t really compare 1939 with 2022, the Socio-economic conditions are different and war games have changed massively in the global repercussions.

If I Was a betting man China will use this distraction to invade Taiwan. Putin is doing this for home consumption so I think he will stop at Ukraine (particularly if sanctions are hard enough), but it will just long term push Russia closer to China.
 
I was thinking the same @Dave - get a puppet govt in Ukraine and then sue for peace. Whilst people say the sanctions won't work, this has to be an eye opener to wean the west off the need for Russian gas. The UK thankfully uses less than 5% so not a huge issue here

But to hit Russia where it hurts is to stop using the fossil fuels they supply and go into greener areas
 
If we have chance in the future I hope to god people now see we have been doing nothing but pumping china full of money by means of cheap goods which they will use in their military against us.

You’ve heard a Putin on the news, he’sa modern day Hitler and this is a start of new world order. The Coronavirus was made in a lab in China to destabilise the world and cripple economies and to give Russia and China the upper hand. It’s been planned for years.

What next after a Ukraine odd the bigger question now. God bless the people of Ukraine. Kids over there must be absolutely terrified.
 
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