The banks that Germany uses to pay the gas bills are not sanctioned. For the reason to let Germany pay the gas bills.
Indeed, that is where I point earlier the current sanctions are not where things hurts (both sides)
/
The above is standard anti-American stuff (saw it everywhere at university, for example) and doesn’t make any rational sense against the backdrop of modern history and the “continuous expansion doctrine” of the communist movement.
They did the same during WW2. Watched carefully how’s the situation is going and hadn’t sent their troops until they made their calculus
That’s a completely misinformed POV. Pearl Harbour? If it wasn’t for that, the US’s isolationist movement would have prevailed, and Europe would have been lost to Hitler.
Why make an entire post, text and all, as a graphic?
So @Igor does that mean you are in favour of Russia invading the Ukraine because the USA has invaded other countries?
Yes it is double standards. Ukraine is in Europe and this invasion is too close to home.
For years Russia and the UK were on the same side they even shared the same Royal families.
In fact there are still remnants of Russian royal families in the UK to this day.
I would humbly suggest that most Europeans are not, even now, anti Russian, just anti Putin and his cohorts.
But can you think of a better way than the sanctions that are being put in place to show disapproval of what Putin has done and is doing, without actually going to war with Russia?
You mentioned Iraq, well France were against the 2nd war in Iraq without proof of weapons of mass destruction.
Personally I thought that the placing of large numbers of troops in Afghanistan was a big mistake based on historical experience.
The EU has its foundations in maintaining peace in Europe. It is perhaps a shame that both Russia and Ukraine did not see fit to join.
The same goes for NATO it is a defensive alliance and if the the Russian leadership thought that attacking Ukraine would lead to a lowering in the number of countries seeking to join, then they are living in fairyland.
I would agree that the EU have perhaps had too much reliance on the USA for its defence. Germany have paid almost lip service to being a NATO member until this invasion. Perhaps they see a return to the past and a Germany split by an iron curtain with a wall rebuilt through Berlin. So it is now talking of re-arming.
There will be pain both throughout Europe and Russia as a result of these sanctions
So I hope you will forgive me for saying that from a French standpoint if we feel that our President Macron and his government and getting it wrong in this stand against the Russian invasion we will be able to tell them so in a few months. And we do have an alternative in those elections Madame le Pen is a supporter of and supported by Putin.
It’s a shame Russians do not have the same opportunity.
But double standards are not a high priority at this time.
gallois wrote:
The same goes for NATO it is a defensive alliance and if the the Russian leadership thought that attacking Ukraine would lead to a lowering in the number of countries seeking to join, then they are living in fairyland.
gallois, I think the scare in Russia is that if a NATO country attacks Russia and then Russia tries to retaliate, the whole NATO will attack. True or false – got no idea, haven’t read the NATO rules with that much attention. Is there a rule which says that if there is any aggression from a NATO country, said country loses NATO protection? Again, no idea.
But it is all in PERCEPTION. There is nothing stopping any nuclear country sending the submarines closer to any other country and launching a nuclear attack, that country does not have to be close to anything, it could be anywhere in the world. I think that this obsession with ground-based ICBM silos … well, in the modern world just an obsession.
I would agree that the EU have perhaps had too much reliance on the USA for its defence. Germany have paid almost lip service to being a NATO member until this invasion. Perhaps they see a return to the past and a Germany split by an iron curtain with a wall rebuilt through Berlin. So it is now talking of re-arming.
That’s what I was talking about for quite a long time – if there were EU armed forces (which in turn could be NATO member), it would have been much easies to manage and develop. Especially now, as the UK has left the EU, it should be easier to agree on it, as last time it was raised a decade ago, UK government were adamant that it should not happen.
Igor has edited his post to “zero”.
Igor was right about the USA – but that kind of whataboutism does not in any way excuse the Russian war on Ukraine. If Putin felt that NATO threatens his ability to do what he wants with his neighbour countries – well, that’s the whole point, isn’t it?
Igor was right about the USA
I’d say that comparison is a super-galactic-scale perversion of modern history, and in particular the obvious need to counter the continuous communist territorial expansion around the world. Most of the list posted were dumps with zero strategic value which nobody was interested in going into, especially not the US. Well, nobody except the USSR…
As the saying goes, those who won’t learn from history are doomed to see it repeated. The gotcha is that one can’t just choose a particular don’t look-before-year or a particular bit of the earth.
However, it never surprises me how things can be viewed differently according to the chosen historical cut-off year. I learnt that at univ when I was 18 
As another old saying goes: if you are 20 and not a communist, you haven’t got a heart, and if you are 40 and are a communist, you haven’t got a brain. And everyone there was 18-21.
if there were EU armed forces
Until a couple of weeks ago, the EU could not agree on whether the sun shines
UK government were adamant that it should not happen
I’d call that “wholly pragmatic” Until… 2 weeks ago. As this cunning old socialist said, a week is a long time in politics. And 2 weeks is twice as long as 1 week.
But even today a united single-command single-policy militarisation of the EU including, obviously, Germany could not happen. Too much of a hot potato politically, and too hard technically. Maybe a 10km diameter asteroid might do it, but I doubt it. A 1km one certainly would not be enough.
All that is going to happen re Ukraine is W Europeans pulling anti tank missiles, helmets, etc, off their shelves and shipping them to the Polish border. Anything else will have to come from The Great Satan – the US – which has always been relied on to pull Europe’s burning chestnuts out of the fire, while being slagged off in the corridors of the champagne socialists and the self proclaimed intellectuals 
But currently nobody will risk a direct NATO-RU conflict, due to the nukes.
An interesting thought is this:
Latest official Ukrainian summary of Russian losses:
~9200 personnel
251 tanks
939 armoured carriers
105 artillery systems
50 multiple rocket launchers
18 air defense systems
33 manned planes including 2 IL-76
37 helicopters
404 non-armoured vehicles
2 speedboats
60 fuel bowsers
3 heavy drones
Actual figures may be somewhat higher
As of 3rd March.
These are huge losses – far higher than Afghanistan which was 15k Russians over 10 years. The above is over 2 weeks.
~9200 personnel
Even if it’s half of that, those are huge losses. I don’t know how many of you saw pictures or clips of dead or interrogated Russian soldiers – they are mainly very young, probably without much combat experience and, due to propaganda, not prepared at all to resistance delivered by Ukrainians.
