Search results

It's not like they can make serious appeals from the moral high ground though is it?

I think we realised a while ago that knowing what is and isn't part of Russia, isn't one of their strong points

I often wish there was a way to react directly to other people's reactions. Normally when somebody's given me the "shocked" face and I can't work out why. Edit: very good Eric :lolol:

Small point of detail, we finished paying off the war debt to the USA in 2006. I agree with the broader point that we and the rest of Europe should invest more in defence than we have done and do.

I have some doubts about our army's capability to cover for the fire brigade going on strike again, much less a major land war on the other side of the continent.

To be fair, that would have been a hugely unpopular option among lots of people who don't make money from the conflict. There'd have been lots of moaning about NATO going beyond it's remit (not unreasonably) and being imperialist and expansionist and threatening the poor ickle Russians who just...

Have you ever actually read anything about Wilson's policies regarding race and how they compared to his predecessors? Edit: this is well off topic, for which I apologise to everybody. I'll leave it there unless anybody wants to quote that on a more appropriate thread. My point, for what it's...

Although a quick rattle through American history will throw up nonsense like Watergate, McCarthyism, and politicians on both sides making a speech to an audience in one state or city and then another totally contradicting it the next day somewhere else. Or people like Woodrow Wilson who make...

The whole thing sounds like nonsense, but as far as the territories listed are concerned that list includes the territories once part of the Russian Empire, which did include large areas of Poland including Warsaw.

I just need thejackal to claim Russia's invasion of Ukraine was justified by Estonia being part of NATO and I'll be able to fill out my bingo card.

As a group of "developing" countries, it would seem odd to include a country who's economy is best known for finding ever more ludicrous ways to verge on complete collapse. But hey, they've already got Russia in there. What do I know?

Well that's buggered that acronym right up. It's like somebody went on countdown and kept asking for more vowels.

It's all interesting, even if it isn't relevant to this particular ship. Good to keep this thread higher up on the board for a while anyway.

Look, I think the Russian invasion is as horrendous as the next person (unless the next person happens to be the twat I work with who I had a row with at a Christmas party the other day who was saying "Russia's a country we have so much in common with" and "Putin only wants the Donbas" and how...

They extended the lease (rather controversially on Ukraine's side) in April 2010, up to 2042. https://archive.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politics/update-ukraine-russia-ratify-black-sea-naval-lease-65128.html Russia cancelled that treaty in 2014 after occupying Crimea.

There may be a valid question as to when the Novercherkassk passed into the Mediterranean and whether Turkey should have stopped it then. It's possible that it had been outside the Black Sea since the start of the war though. (By which I mean, I don't know if it had been and can't easily find out).

Of course it's more complicated than that, I summarised the relevant parts of a 29 article treaty into a single sentence. The treaty is available here, if you're interested: https://treaties.un.org/pages/showDetails.aspx?objid=0800000280166981 From pages 215 to 241. Half of those pages are in...

My understanding is that under the Montreux Convention Turkey is obliged to allow merchant ships and warships with their home port in the Black Sea through the Bosphurus.

I don't think anything that increases the chance of either side trying to sink cargo ships as they pass through the largest city in Europe would be a good idea.

I don't think the depth would come into it, it'd be easy enough to bomb the approaches and equally as vulnerable as the bridge to truck bombs etc. But realistically there's no way they can build something of sufficient size within any reasonable timeline and no way they can build it while fully...