Is it time to close the Ukrainian air space?

[miasmum]

So what’s the answer Suff? Should Ukraine just give in?

[Suff]

Hell no!

But if we are going to sort this mess it will come with deaths of our own people.

Once we accept that this is a cost of policing the world we can go in, bolster Ukraine, crush the invasion and make sure everyone knows that old style imperial conquest is dead.

That is the safest course but it means some of our people will die.

Right now I see no appetite for this.

The Russian economy is smaller than the UK, but they have different priorities and twice the population. They have funneled their money into a very large military force, something we consider unnecessary (with good reason).

Ukraine has no way to win against this even with all the supplies we could give them because their bases of operations are constantly under fire whilst Russian bases are secure.

The only way to win this is if we do the same.

But I hope everyone understands the consequences to a country where two large forces use it as their battlefield.

[cromwell]

But I hope everyone understands the consequences

This is what upsets me. The media are banging the drum and being very jingoistic. They seem to be all for a no fly zone.
Actions have consequences, but they aren't saying that.
I think that we are (as one commentator said) cheering the Ukranians on to destruction.
What I would really like is a ceasefire, asap.

[Suff]

A ceasefire will solve nothing. Russia is determined to invade and dominate the Ukraine. All a cease fire will do is allow them to get more organised to finish Ukraine off.

What we need is a massive counter attack which crushes a full Russian front.

That is the message which needs to be sent.

[cromwell]

Last week there was a "conspiracy theory" that the USA had biologial laboratories in the Ukraine.
Today the Americans announced that they were working with the Ukraine to prevent biological research facilities from falling into the hands of Russians.

These conspiracy theories that keep coming true eh?

[Suff]

There are Biological labs and there are Biological Weapons labs.

Your local lab for testing blood is a Biological lab. It may be that Ukraine specialised in certain Bio work that falls outside the weapons range. Or it might be otherwise.

The US has a history of being "clean" as far as certain tech is concerned. Only because they are working with a partner to develop it and have offshored it.

[Workingman]

Biological laboratories, eh?

Yes, it is scary stuff bringing all those vaccines, antibiotics and treatments for cancers and dementia etc, to us. Some of the viruses and bacteria being looked at in laboratories and universities all over the world are lethal - that's one reason why they are being researched; it is also why the facilities need protecting. And don't forget the $£€ value of that research.

Look up the BBSRC for the dozens of "biological laboratories" in the UK.

Suff's first sentence is right.

[cromwell]

A little bit more has come out now.
I don't pretend to understand all of this but it is obvious there is some sort of story here, a story that is being kept pretty quiet.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... raine.html

[Workingman]

I have read the whole thing and it looks a bit like a non-story.

The only mentions of Biological Weapons are from the Mail itself, some Russian Military spokesperson and a former CIA agent with an obvious grudge.

However, when you put biological, toxic, laboratory, pathogen and research, as well as the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) - the place that Covid-19 was allegedly "created" - into a piece it is easy to come up with a biological weapons facility.

WIV is world renowned and research fellows from universities, medical institution and pharmaceutical companies from around the world have all worked there. I suppose they all chipped in to make Covid.

I do not disagree that the practices used by those individuals are dodgy but alcoholics and cocaine addicts are not the normal sorts building biological and chemical weapons factories.

[Suff]

I'm going to back WM up on this. That article is nothing more than the DM wanting to be contrary to generate page hits and news.

Let us level set. Did Russia announce it was going into Ukraine to remove a biological weapons threat?

No it did not.

In fact Russia claimed, to almost the last minute, that it was Not going into Ukraine.

Now, when Russia is at very real risk of losing this conflict, due to western arms flooding in to support the Ukrainian army, Russia starts bleating about how Ukraine was running biological weapons labs.

Sorry but every single word out of Russia, today, needs to overcome a very reasonable doubt that every word is a lie. This article does not meet that litmus test. In fact it uses suggestion and innuendo to try and make people believe that there is something there which is not. Very typical DM stuff.

Go back, re read it without the filter and ignore all the "we found" and "this supports". Supports what? A Russian lie that the DM is playing up.

Let me give you two clear instances.

But emails from Hunter's abandoned laptop show he helped secure millions of dollars of funding for Metabiota, a Department of Defense contractor specializing in research on pandemic-causing diseases

the company's monitoring of medical data could become an essential tool for governments and companies looking to spot outbreaks of infectious diseases

Now strip away all the DM added stuff about how these biological labs study diseases which could be used as a weapon. Or that somehow the ability to monitor infectious diseases has suddenly become some clandestine way of making biological weapons more powerful.

Let's apply occam's razor in opposition to Russian assertion and DM rhetoric.

On the one side you have to believe that Russia invaded Ukraine to get rid of nuclear and biological labs which were created weapons of mass destruction. Without, first, as the US did in Iraq, making a big case about that is what they were going to do. Then we have to believe that when the war is going badly and Russia says this, that they were doing this all along but never bothered to justify their internationa act of aggression with it. Then we have to believe that the DM has found a "smoking gun" with emails from a hedge fund manager who was working for US interests to create biological weapons. Weapons which the US claim not to have and whom the US states, if they should be used against them, will be met with the only weapon of mass destruction the US claims to own. Nukes.

In case you missed the inference from Biden and just how much Biden is out of it, he said that if Russia used chemical weapons then the US would "respond in kind". Read what I just said above and work out what he really said.

Now, on the other hand, there is the other side of occam's razor.

Russia didn't do this to remove these labs, they did this to annex part of Ukraine, once they had taken over and set up a government which agreed with it. Now they are pretty much bogged down and almost losing, they are trying to justify the use of more powerful weapons. Like chemical. The Hunter Biden documents show that his hedge fund found exceptionally good technical knowledge and ability in Ukraine in the infectious diseases sphere and decided to invest in it. Why not, the average wage in Ukraine is $500 a month! Also, for those who don't know, in the USSR years, Ukraine was a core part of the USSR space business and also built some of their very best military aircraft.

I leave it up to you to decide.

As an aide memoir, Al Jazeera news listed the following during the invasion.

The attacks began on Thursday after Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address that he had approved a “special military operation”. The move came after Moscow earlier recognised rebel-held territories in Luhansk and Donetsk and said they had asked for its “help”.