This is Ukraine - Do not Panic.

[pdw1]

I think the lack of snow and ice is one of the things that is slowing the russians down. If the ground is not frozen hard then its a mud bath and impossible to move off road.

[Rufus_the_dawg]

Question?

Would you stay in Kiev and fight or would you Flee?

Me, I would like to say "stay" but I can not fight against 1000LB bombs (I'm only 185lbs) so I would flee and fight in the underground.

A dead body can not fight. The Russians are going to flatten Kiev. I would fight though. I'm fit and can fight.

[dom]

Number of companies or individuals sanctioned for links to Putin:

🇪🇺 EU 446
🇨🇭 Switzerland 351
🇺🇸 USA 148
🇬🇧 UK 24

Come on Johnson! Get your finger out! Any reason for the stalling?

[Slim]

On a more positive note, the UK government has without question led the way with assistance to Ukraine. We've been training and provisioning the Ukraine military since 2015 when the EU was doing nothing. The Germans even refused permission to fly over their airspace, and blocked other NATO countries from transferring weapons to Ukraine.

We had to embarrass Germany and Italy in getting support for the SWIFT suspension.

Boris Johnson has become a hero to the Ukrainian people, and he received a standing ovation when he visited a Ukrainian Cathedral in London the other day. Zelensky has thanked him personally for his support. Boris is actually the only NATO leader to visit NATO countries on the Ukrainian border.

[Nick]

Interesting analysis, to me it looks like the Eu has led the way, the U.K. is very much on the sidelines. Massive amounts of defensive weaponry sent to the Ukraine and an open refugee policy shows how the EU has strengthened itself.

German and French leaders have met and spoken with Putin in the flesh, none of that for our clown of a leader. Ukraine, Georgia and Albania now all looking to join the EU.

Looks like we walked out of the best club in town. Farage and his mob are looking increasingly isolated, I can see the U.K. rejoining the EU far faster than we thought if we survive this.

[Nickslikk2112]

German and French leaders have met and spoken with Putin in the flesh, none of that for our clown of a leader.

And that's managed precisely what?

Ukraine, Georgia and Albania now all looking to join the EU.

Giz some dosh, go on, giz some dosh

[Nick]

German and French leaders have met and spoken with Putin in the flesh, none of that for our clown of a leader.

And that's managed precisely what?

Ukraine, Georgia and Albania now all looking to join the EU.

Giz some dosh, go on, giz some dosh

A fashion for long tables? Once the Ruski money has exited the U.K. we may well be in that queue.

[Nickslikk2112]

German and French leaders have met and spoken with Putin in the flesh, none of that for our clown of a leader.

And that's managed precisely what?

Ukraine, Georgia and Albania now all looking to join the EU.

Giz some dosh, go on, giz some dosh

A fashion for long tables? Once the Ruski money has exited the U.K. we may well be in that queue.

But with all the dosh we can hold back we've got a better grip on their short and curlyskis

[Slim]

I think Boris might just have grown up in the last few days. I wouldn't wish the responsibility that rests on his shoulders on my worst enemy. If this opens his eyes to the realisation that his front bench requires a massive Spring clean then my respect for him would grow immensely. I think there's a decent man in there somewhere if he kicks the kidology into touch and recognises that he was indeed blinded by his blind ambition. Lose the three stooges please Boris.

Well I'm pleased to see a bit of respect for the PM here, albeit grudging - but this notion that he's not quite "grown up" by virtue of his occasionally irreverent personality is a wishful-thinking caricature, in my view.

He's been the "clown" who won an 80 seat majority and got Brexit done in a matter of months. He was the "buffoon" who led one of the most successful vaccine rollouts in the world, and led his country out of the worst of the pandemic sooner than any other Western nation.

I don't think all of his front bench are stellar but I can't doubt that we have the most talented and capable government I've known for a very long time.

[dom]

Number of companies or individuals sanctioned for links to Putin:

🇪🇺 EU 446
🇨🇭 Switzerland 351
🇺🇸 USA 148
🇬🇧 UK 24

Come on Johnson! Get your finger out! Any reason for the stalling?

Still think this question needs answering. With so many Russian oligarchs having made their homes here and invested so much of their ill gotten gains in the UK why has its response been so poor compared to the likes of the US and the EU?

[Slim]

Interesting analysis, to me it looks like the Eu has led the way, the U.K. is very much on the sidelines. Massive amounts of defensive weaponry sent to the Ukraine and an open refugee policy shows how the EU has strengthened itself.

German and French leaders have met and spoken with Putin in the flesh, none of that for our clown of a leader. Ukraine, Georgia and Albania now all looking to join the EU.

Looks like we walked out of the best club in town. Farage and his mob are looking increasingly isolated, I can see the U.K. rejoining the EU far faster than we thought if we survive this.

Couple of things here - firstly, there are many reasons that I don't think this country will want to rejoin the EU, but I don't think the current crisis has a bearing on it either. If anything, to be fair, there are negatives in Georgia and Albania wanting to join up. I hear Moldova is keen, as well. It's not the sort of prospect to soften your average Brexiteer's heart. And I believe we would have led the European effort to assist Ukraine even if we hadn't left the EU.

After all we were in the EU in 2015 when we started providing training to the Ukrainian military. I don't know of another EU country that was doing that at the time.

I'm genuinely surprised to see dissent from the view that the UK has led the effort to assist Ukraine because I honestly thought this was commonly understood, but in any case while our example may have helped the other European countries get their arses into gear, it's only a positive thing that the EU countries have started to help now, and it's not a competition.

But for the record, the US and UK have been providing military assistance since 2015. The UK has also sent military forces to the Eastern Mediterranean and Estonia to reinforce NATO's front line there. I have to credit France for contributing military assistance as well since 2021. But then the UK, and to a lesser degree France are Europe's pre-eminent military powers; it comes with the territory and with being key players in NATO.

Ultimately NATO is considerably more important in this than the EU.

[Nick]

Think we trained some of the Belarus forces as well.

[Slim]

Number of companies or individuals sanctioned for links to Putin:

🇪🇺 EU 446
🇨🇭 Switzerland 351
🇺🇸 USA 148
🇬🇧 UK 24

Come on Johnson! Get your finger out! Any reason for the stalling?

Still think this question needs answering. With so many Russian oligarchs having made their homes here and invested so much of their ill gotten gains in the UK why has its response been so poor compared to the likes of the US and the EU?

I honestly don't know what the real figures are; my own information was that over 100 people and entities had had their assets frozen by Feb 24th. So this notion of a poor response sounds a bit like spin to me. There's no doubt in any case that we've been pushing for harder sanctions on the international stage. Worth remembering also that the EU is a collection of countries so aggregating their effort, welcome though it may be, into a single score is not really helpful.

It might well be something like wanting to ensure that proper culpability is established, rather than just targeting people for being Russian.

Just read that two Kremlin associates were sanctioned this evening. It's a work in progress, as it must be.

[dom]

This article (from 2019) doesn't seem to suggest that the UKs contributions are anything special compared to others...?

https://www.csis.org/analysis/not-contributing-enough-summary-european-military-and-development-assistance-ukraine-2014

[Slim]

This article (from 2019) doesn't seem to suggest that the UKs contributions are anything special compared to others...?

https://www.csis.org/analysis/not-contributing-enough-summary-european-military-and-development-assistance-ukraine-2014

A2 in that piece, an answer to "How much military aid does Ukraine receive from European countries and Canada?" seems to suggest otherwise to me.