kyle04

I don't doubt it, also the Russian stuff is very familiar to the Ukrainians, no "what happens if I press this" scenerios!

The AZOV "battalion" of Neo Nazis (with several Jewish members) number about 1000, out of an army of around 200,000. Of those, only around 10% you could say have far right leanings. The have long been integrated into the regular army units and do not function as a stand alone rogue fighting force. The term "Nazi" is perhaps the most overused in history, people with "far right" views are not Nazis, racists maybe yes. The Germans who threw live babies onto bonfires were Nazis. As for Elwoods reported plan, WTF? The Ukrainians do not need more tanks, the Russians have generously donated dozens as their troops have fled a battle. They need above all aircraft , which so far NATO has stalled on providing.

It's clear initial Putins objectives have utterly failed. If "phase 1" was the loss of nearly 2000 pieces of equipment, 40,000+ dead wounded or missing and the economic destruction of his country then well done, mission accomplished. His forces are in many places on the back foot, those on the outskirts on Kyiv for example are dug with no way in or out, their only option is surrender or annihilation, thats 12000 men and machines. If Kherson is retaken then more cities will follow. hopefully Mariupol will be liberated in the near future. I think Russian forces may retreat to the Donbas with Putin claiming victory, much as Saddam did when his arse was kicked out of Kuwait, claiming that was the objective all along. I sincerely hope if this happens, the Ukrainians push on and take back the Crimea as well as Donbas, why not, the gloves came off a long time ago.

... having given their nukes to Russia in exchange for guarantees they would never be invaded. That lasted then ...please?

I think your arguments are rather niave Soggy. Nuclear weapons have not been used since their inception in WW2. The US accelerated its Manhattan project because they feared Germany was close to producing a nuclear weapon, which Hitler would certainly have used as his Reich crumbled. As the vast destructive power of nukes developed, as well as the understanding of the dreadful aftermath of a nuclear explosion, they have long been deemed a taboo weapon, only to be used as an absolute last resort. To argue that because non have been used in anger since WW2 proves they are not necessary is counter-intuitive. "MAD only works when no one fires first" - exactly, no one has fired first so it works. If European NATO countries were to turn to more conventional defense systems with the same deterent power as nuclear weapons the entire eastern flank of NATO would have to become a militarized zone, who wants to live in a country full of missile batteries, combat aircraft, armour and hundreds of thousands of battle ready troops.

C'mon Soggy, you're flogging this to death. Bad man has nukes, so must we. Does anyone really know what narcissistic fantasies are in Putin's head, as he stalks the marble halls of the Kremlin or stares at old maps of the Soviet empire. He hates the fact that the Warsaw pact collapsed, while the West continues to grow and prosper. He wrongly believes that the world wants to destroy Russia. The arguments I've read dismissing MAD as redundant are bullshit, penned by "academics" who seem to exist in some other dimensional utopia. The world will not be "nuclear free" for a very long time, if at all, it's the world we live in.

AZOV in action in Mariupol a few days ago. This is intense.

If you're talking about long range ICBM,s , probably not. The US were developing their "Star Wars" programme back in the 80,s a satelite based system of taking out nukes when in high orbit, but it was traded off , probably wouldn't have worked anyway and may have been a huge bluff. It's possible some modern SAM systems may be able to intercept incoming nukes, who knows what the US have in area 51 (apart from alien corpses, right guys?).

I think the confrontational nature of unions v company have been the bane of this country for a long time. Both sides will take the piss when they can get away with it, depending on the balance of power. Remember British Leyland, whos workers spent as much time on strike as on the factory floor. Similarly, stevedores at Southampton docks ,a 4 man shift allocated , 2 of which used to clock in then fuck off home, it crippled the port eventually. Conversely we now have a great brand in P&O , royally shafting it's established workforce because it's losing money, although I seriously doubt those in higher management will be taking a hit. Big business is not a philanthropic project, and the abundance of "cheap" labour in this country, together with the Tories indifference to interfere in the "free" market will on;y mean more of the same to come.

There's so many contradictions in your statement Soggy : I don’t know if he would have invaded Ukraine if they still had nukes but it didn’t stop the Argentinians from invading the Falklands. Didn't need to use nukes, a patched up BEF did the job quite nicely. Putin but he seems to be sticking two fingers up to our nuclear threat by putting his own systems on alert when we have not threatened Russian territory. Do you seriously think the west hasn't responded to this, only not advertised it? Another thing to remember about the MAD theory supposedly working is that there has been no direct armed conflict between any of the nuclear powers since the middle of the last century. Exactly, why do you think that is, could it be the possibility of MAD should two nuked up countries start a war? Russia has already used chemical weapons, including here in the UK. A clumsy assassination attempt, hardly a dirty bomb or a mass sarin attack. I think Russia's shocking actions in Ukraine have taught us that you can take nothing for granted. We (the West) were getting on fine with Russia, Macdonalds and Prada in their high streets, buying their energy in vast quantities, their artistic output allowed to flourish on the west's porn websites (allegedly), turned a blind eye in Chechnia, Syria etc, but the old Cold War dog that is Putin wants to live in the 1950's. While there's still people in the world like him we need the ultimate deterent.

Regarding MAD, there is a difference between using nukes first and using them in retaliation as a last resort. The acronym was never more apt but you could argue that it's kept World War at bay for 70 years. The world would be a better place without these terrible weapons certainly, but you have to ask why has Russia still got such a huge number of them , over 6000 I think ? The argument that no one would use them I hope is true, but it wouldn't be out of some moral rationale, rather that it would be suicide. I would hope that one or two of Putins generals are ready should his finger go anywhere near the button.

Nice lad is KWP, often said in interviews how grateful he is to SFC for giving him his opportunity. I fear he'll be off at some point though, but I would wish him the best of luck should that happen. One of the few players we have that you love seeing on the ball, I think you could play him as a winger he's that talented. Whoever wants to buy him, £40M+ please.

Not to be underestimated, those fuckers can do some serious damage, DDos, malware attacks etc. Russia has been targeting Ukraine with this sort of thing for a while now, and yet their military is communicating on unencrypted 4G because the dopey fuckers blew up the 3G mast in Kyiv.

Who knows what Putins long term goals are, if he has any. Will he try to annexe some of the former USSR (non NATO) countries next? I doubt it, his actions in Ukraine have been a disaster for his country so far. The "wests" involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan were for completely different reasons, I don't recall any planes being crashed into the Kremlin, and after Saddams invasion of Kuwait he was viewed as a legitimate threat to the region (oil) , despite the fact that WMD proved to be total bollocks. I think the Iraq invasion was a catastrophic blunder though, but "W" can sit in his summer log cabin and tell himself he did the right thing. I really don't know what more NATO can do for Ukraine, other than to go "all in". Khrushchev withdrew his ships form the Cuban coast in 1962, in the nick of time. Putin may not prove to be as pragmatic, and whatever he does, he'll blame NATO .

I think it's a shame that players like Jesus more than likely practice scenarios like the penalty. The slightest contact from Salisu and he was going down, and the contact was very slight. Was Dean right to give it straight away, I don't know what view he had but it can't have been that clear. If he had waved it away would VAR have called a check, who knows. If AA for example had done the same there would be no complaints (except from Pep). Overall I thought Dean had a good game, despite pre-match reservations. IMO it was a 50/50 that went against us, we would still have lost the game. I think the way City pass the ball, the intricate triangles and space they find in tight areas is quite breathtaking sometimes, and a bloody nightmare for our lads. But they didn't perform like that for a good deal of the game, we won the ball from them as much as any team could have I think, so credit to us for that. As for the Long penalty shout, sorry no , not for me.

Might have something to do with the $650M of SA exports per year to Russia, or it just could be that Cyril Ramaposa is indeed, a cunt.

I think Zalensky's repeated call for a NFZ may be an attempt to draw NATO into direct conflict with Russia, and to keep Putin guessing to an extent. As badgerx16 pointed out, the damage to cities is largely being done with artillery and multiple rocket launchers, of which Russia has masses. The Ukrainians have taken out some of this arsenal but nowhere near enough. There were reports today of many civilians being virtually kidnapped and sent to Russia, of women being gang raped then executed by the Russians. Do you think Putin gives the slightest damn about any loss of life, yet alone if his own population can't buy a Macdonalds right now? Forget war crimes trials, they're never going to happen and may take a decade to organize anyway. If the west are unwilling to implement a NFZ, supply MiG planes etc we must continue supplying as much lethal aid as possible, and maybe stop telling Putin what we're sending every time. A US aircraft carrier appearing in the Black Sea on "excercises" wouldn't go amiss either!

Good effort, but we're not good enough to trouble the likes of City, who I think only bothered to play for about half the game. Shocking in defense and wasteful up front, does the scoreline seem unfair to some, no it wasn't, City wasted a few chances of their own, it could have been 6 or 7 TBF. Glad RH picked a "strong" team, after all the speculation (bar the 2 up front), but the gulf in quality is almost embarrassing really. The only positives are we didn't concede 2 or 3 more after the 4th went in and kept trying to the end. We've had a go and got stuffed, as expected. When Broja leaves we are really going to struggle for goals, Adams just isn't clinical enough and AA is not a PL striker. 4 defeats in a row now, with tricky games coming up.

I'm trying hard to understand the rationale behind BJ's comparison. Give me a minute. No sorry still not there. Yes Brexit was a "choice", and I don't buy all this Kremlin backed brianwashing troll the thick UK public bollocks, Brexit was a result of years of dissatisfaction with the UK's relationship with the EU, immigration concerns etc. That was 6 years ago, the EU did not implode, the UK muddled through, the US survived the worst president in their history and the Chinese freighters continued docking at the wests ports. Oil and gas flowed from Russia uninterupted by the UK's Brexit tantrum. The Ukrainians don't have the luxury of easy choices, fight, die or be enslaved, possibly all three who knows. If BJ had cited the Battle of Britain that would have been a reasonable comparison, not in living memory certainly but still important as a symbol of resistance. I voted Tory, the lesser of two evils if you like ( and before Warriorsaint climbs on this I voted for Blair too), now I think Boris in particular in a class A cunt and totally unfit for high office. I'm not sure about Starmer yet, he needs to subtly up his game a little but he seems a more stable and trustworthy individual than his opponent, although the hard left in Labour will probably scupper his chances (again).

Er, I mean winning the FA cup

I agree with most here, theres little to play for in the league - were not going down or getting into Europe either. At full strength and all performing well, we have an outside chance. If Walcott plays we are effectively down to 10 men from the start, if 4 or 5 first other teamers are left out, including FF, we're into giant killing mode. We have a chance of a rare Wembley outing, and possibly once in a generation glory, we must give ourselves the best chance possible, we've nothing to lose.

Their disinformation strategy is as poor as their military one, next will be that Macdonalds (funded secretly by the CIA) were planning to make all of Russia morbidly obese by upping the fat content in their otherwise healthy food.

"According to a memo sent to schools by the education ministry, lessons for children in Years 6-8 (12-15 year-olds) should focus on "heroes of our time... to help form a stable and grounded understanding of the feeling of patriotism". Pupils were to be asked to sit in a circle to hear an explanation of how ideas of "duty, dignity and patriotism are inextricably linked with the concepts of exploits and heroism". Teachers would then show a video to show that people with military roles were more likely to become heroes than anyone else." It makes you want to vomit, put thousands of poor young bastards in a uniform and trick them into joining a war they neither want nor understand, only to die horribly, freezing and half starved, betrayed by Putins egomania and their generals ineptitude. That's your heroes Russia.

The US tactics in Iraq were better planned though, and the bombing was largely strategic precision strikes. Yes, many civillians were killed, they always are and always will be, but the aim was to render the country's military impotent and limit casualties to a minimum. A month to control a country the size of Iraq, I think thats quite an achievement. What the Russians are doing now is indescriminent shelling, the only aim is to literally flatten cities. The tactic is barbaric and archaic, the Ukrainian soldiers are not going to emerge en masse from the rubble with their hands up. The devastation is plain for all to see, and yet Russia still denies what they have done. They have lost all credibility in the world. The peace negotiations I don't think will get too far. Putin has demanded that Ukraine not join NATO (more or less accepted), will recognize Crimea as Russian land (disputed), recognize the Donbas as Russian (no chance), no further arms to be imported from the west (unlikely). I can't see a way out for Putin, his army is being gradually decimated by a force with little air power, no navy, a modest artillery, hand held launchers and a handful of lightweight drones. My advice to anyone is if you spill a Ukrainians pint, just smile and buy him another one.

How far back in history do want to go? It was Stalin who put ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine in the 1950's. WW2 ended in 1945. Banderas was assissinated in 1954 (USSR - poison). If you're trying to justify Russia'a actions on the de-Nazification idealogy and an annual gathering around a statue you'll have to clarify a little further...?