Ukraine War

Quoted from Maringer

In not entirely unrelated news, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is apparently being released after 6 years.

I suspect this is an indication that we'll pay the Iranians back for those Chieftain tanks which were never supplied following the revolution, sanctions will be loosened and Iranian oil will start to flow once again quite soon.

Hopefully, a peaceful solution can be found in Ukraine but Putin may have really screwed over the Russian economy in the longer-term.

it has already been paid. Once the Vienna nuclear deal talks had sputtered to a halt UK decided they were no longer going to go in lockstep with the U.S. which had previously prevented the deal from being done
Within a week the money has been paid and she has been freed. And to think this could and should've been settled years ago ,which would've meant that she wouldn't have been detained in the first place..............

Interesting debate on the Moral Maze R4 tonight including a question posed on whether the British public's more proactive and welcoming response to aiding Ukraine and welcoming refugees compared to the response to Afghanistan and Syria was racist?

So why has there been a different reaction? Here is something that occured to me when young migrant men started to arrive across the channel from Syria and now from Afghanistan - why are you here, why aren't you fighting for your homeland? I have then tried to reconcile that and consider the ethics and morality of that thought. Of course, it's all more complex than that, but when it comes to the general perception of us Brits as a nation, of Ukrainian refugees against Afghan and Syrians migrants / refugees, it actually may be quite simple and I don't think it is race. On MM the differences in the perception of nation defending itself against an external aggressor compared to those who may be perceived as economic migrants was highlighted.

The bravery of the Ukrainian nation is out there in media all the time; all able bodied men between 18 and 60 are required to stay and fight. I personally marvel at this. I think this is part of the reason for a different response to the Ukrainian refugees - the men are fighting for every inch of their country, we need to welcome Ukrainian women and children.

Syria was a complex multi-factional civil war but Afghanistan is more clear cut. The Afghan army, unwisely with hindsight, were given 80 billion dollars worth of ordnance by the US and rolled over in days to the Taliban (who now have all those arms). If every non-Taliban aligned man between 18 and 60 had stood up to fight the Taliban for the better lives that their sisters, daughters and partners would have without the Taliban, would they have taken the country at all let alone so easily. Or maybe the male population didn't believe in those freedoms enough to fight.

It may also be, not race, but (argued on MM) that the Ukrainians are linked by us to the many eastern Europeans who now contribute massively to our economy. With the Poles, in this country in particular, there is a very strong connection - they stood up to the Nazis and the Russians, fought alongside us where they could stayed here after the war in huge numbers, and then as a nation stood up to the Soviets again through Lech Wałęsa.

And then there was was one witness (as they call them on MM) who seemed to pushing for some kind of John Lennon Imagine type utopia - very nice (and a great song) but with the current state of the world sadly it's away with fairies.

Worth a listen on catch-up.

Seems a pretty reasonable assessment. By extension could you apply the same logic to the reaction of the other east European countries who have welcomed Ukrainian refugees? Obviously there’s the added factor of their own position as potentially next on the list. With the complication of how the African and Asian refugees from Ukraine were dealt with.

Re the link to “to the many eastern Europeans who now contribute massively to our economy”, there are many, including some on here, who claimed they were not massively contributing.

Quoted from Limerick Mariner

Interesting debate on the Moral Maze R4 tonight including a question posed on whether the British public's more proactive and welcoming response to aiding Ukraine and welcoming refugees compared to the response to Afghanistan and Syria was racist?

So why has there been a different reaction? Here is something that occured to me when young migrant men started to arrive across the channel from Syria and now from Afghanistan - why are you here, why aren't you fighting for your homeland? I have then tried to reconcile that and consider the ethics and morality of that thought. Of course, it's all more complex than that, but when it comes to the general perception of us Brits as a nation, of Ukrainian refugees against Afghan and Syrians migrants / refugees, it actually may be quite simple and I don't think it is race. On MM the differences in the perception of nation defending itself against an external aggressor compared to those who may be perceived as economic migrants was highlighted.

The bravery of the Ukrainian nation is out there in media all the time; all able bodied men between 18 and 60 are required to stay and fight. I personally marvel at this. I think this is part of the reason for a different response to the Ukrainian refugees - the men are fighting for every inch of their country, we need to welcome Ukrainian women and children.

Syria was a complex multi-factional civil war but Afghanistan is more clear cut. The Afghan army, unwisely with hindsight, were given 80 billion dollars worth of ordnance by the US and rolled over in days to the Taliban (who now have all those arms). If every non-Taliban aligned man between 18 and 60 had stood up to fight the Taliban for the better lives that their sisters, daughters and partners would have without the Taliban, would they have taken the country at all let alone so easily. Or maybe the male population didn't believe in those freedoms enough to fight.

It may also be, not race, but (argued on MM) that the Ukrainians are linked by us to the many eastern Europeans who now contribute massively to our economy. With the Poles, in this country in particular, there is a very strong connection - they stood up to the Nazis and the Russians, fought alongside us where they could stayed here after the war in huge numbers, and then as a nation stood up to the Soviets again through Lech Wałęsa.

And then there was was one witness (as they call them on MM) who seemed to pushing for some kind of John Lennon Imagine type utopia - very nice (and a great song) but with the current state of the world sadly it's away with fairies.

Worth a listen on catch-up.

Interesting post. Although I do take issue with the old ‘they stood up to the Nazis and the Russians’ storyline! I don’t know if they have started teaching this in schools yet but I’m not in favour of whitewashing history.

Quoted from Humbercod

Interesting post. Although I do take issue with the old ‘they stood up to the Nazis and the Russians’ storyline! I don’t know if they have started teaching this in schools yet but I’m not in favour of whitewashing history.

It fits our propaganda at the moment however the Ukranian Nazis from WW2 were  notoriously savage toward Jews.
What's a little revisionist writing of history to fit the narrative though, we all lap it up because everything is black and white and we are supporting the good guys aren't we ?

I agree if history is presented in anything but a nuanced way it is usually wrong. It’s fair to say there was a spectrum of responses to WWII in Ukraine. Some nationalists jumped on the chance to stick one on the Soviets, some went further and were murderous to Jews, Bolsheviks and many others, some fought against both Soviets and Nazis without being Nazi-like, some were wholly loyal to the SU. The problem comes when the exploits of one group in WWII (80 years ago) are used to justify the invasion.

The stories about Nazis in Ukraine are being propagated by Moscow to die doubt in other countries. Make enough people doubt in order to weaken resolve. Standard operating procedure. It’s all part of the wider Maskirovka doctrine.

Quoted from Humbercod

Interesting post. Although I do take issue with the old ‘they stood up to the Nazis and the Russians’ storyline! I don’t know if they have started teaching this in schools yet but I’m not in favour of whitewashing history.

I maybe wasn’t clear that was a reference to the Poles in WW2 not the Ukrainians.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

I agree if history is presented in anything but a nuanced way it is usually wrong. It’s fair to say there was a spectrum of responses to WWII in Ukraine. Some nationalists jumped on the chance to stick one on the Soviets, some went further and were murderous to Jews, Bolsheviks and many others, some fought against both Soviets and Nazis without being Nazi-like, some were wholly loyal to the SU. The problem comes when the exploits of one group in WWII (80 years ago) are used to justify the invasion.

The stories about Nazis in Ukraine are being propagated by Moscow to die doubt in other countries. Make enough people doubt in order to weaken resolve. Standard operating procedure. It’s all part of the wider Maskirovka doctrine.

Absolutely both sides using the same event with a different narrative, what we are told by our media will always colour our views, history as they say is written by the victors, but when the victors are both us and Russia there are still two tales of the same event. And no country likes looking back at the less savoury episodes of their own history. The Russians are not forward in mentioning the famine caused by Stalin that resulted in similar Ukrainian deaths in the 1930’s

‘Ah but….that was the Soviet Union. A different state. Not modern Russia.’

When it suits the RF is the inheritor of the Russian Empire and the USSR. They even claim the Kievan Rus when it suits for God’s sake. All the nasty stuff. No no no. Nothing to do with them.

Just like Brexit.

https://www.thejournal.ie/boris-johnson-compares-ukraine-brexit-5715580-Mar2022/