Also it's cold on the streets in winter. But if you wanted to campaign for Finland to join NATO getting Putin to say they can't would be your core strategy. Actually during the cold war there was planning with NATO, assuming a war meant a Russian advance to through Finland and they expected tactical nukes to be potentially used on Finnish soil to hold up the advance.
I was listening to one of The Economist podcasts and they have an audio diary from this young Ukrainian guy, living in Karkiv. He doesn't se to have been very interested in the conflict before war arrived and is instinctively anti-nationalist and not familiar with millitary stuff but is stuck in this war and is coming to terms with it. Really worth a listen, it's the first item in the podcast if you're not interested in the rest but totally worth your time.
It's refreshing after a nice sauna. Finland after the winter war have pretty much been happy enough dealing with military issues themselves. It's a big ol' border mind which is why it may be more of a talking point and his current behaviour has certainly made them think if it needs reassessing. Them and Sweden always get threatened when it's mentioned though, it'd be a surprise if they didn't. The whole NATO is getting too close is a bit of a smokescreen, Russia already borders 5 NATO countries and if they steal Ukraine there'll be a massive border with NATO.
Back channels from the Oilgarchs are wide open - give us an out or we spill the beans on just how much of our money you've shovelled into your retirement accounts.
I know they have decent defensive capabilities. Neutrality should not be confused with disarmament. But I do think that at this time, being hold not to do something by Putin would have an impact, just not the impact he was planning.
You clearly need Canadas PM Justin Trudeau. He'll get the job done. I wonder what all the companies cutting ties with Russia over this will do when/if China invades Taiwan. Hopefully that doesn't happen.
The UA has reported that Ramzan Kadyrov's elite task force, sent to liquidate President Zelensky, has been eliminated. They credited the FSB for providing them with intel that helped their elimination. Is the last part true? I don't know but now the Russians are probably looking for moles.
Considering how many people don't particularly like him (to be extremely generous) I wouldn't be surprised at all if someone in the FSB simply took an easy opportunity to settle an old grudge with Kadyrov.
I read some speculation that the Z markings on some vehicles is to identify conscripts from the separatist regions, which might go some way to explaining why the hardware has all been kind of old, and more over, the considerable lack of information, training, and equipment provided. Has me wondering if that column headed to Kyiv is the parts of the Russian army that has actual training and might well present a tougher obstacle to the Ukrainians than the rest has. Could also explain why there have been attempts to assassinate Zelinskyy in the midst of an invasion. Send crap troops as distraction, try and remove the head with slightly better troops, have a softer target for the slightly more valuable facets of the military. Obviously speculation, but honestly, who knows what is and isn't accurate in this mess.
Just caught a bit of PMQs and Boris exclaiming about his massive package. As usual it is highly disappointing. Our political system is corrupt, it has been for a long time but it is glaringly obvious now.
Well we all know that Boris' package is tiny. On a more serious note, the lack of guts from the UK to take drastic steps is highly disappointing. We, as a nation, bang on about WW2 and how we saved Europe from tyranny. Do we not want to do that anymore?
I mean, we're introducing pretty much the same laws against protest as Putin's currently using to jail his citizenry, so...
Why actually do anything when you can just say you've done it knowing most will follow along with it.
