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[Rods2]

Foreign Office have barred all Russian Government officials from attending the Farnborough Airshow over Ukraine.

With large amounts of captured / destroyed tanks, armour and weapons now positively identified as coming from Russia and more Russian heavy armour still crossing the border including Grad rocket systems that killed 19 Ukrainian soldiers yesterday, it is good to see the UK Government making trading with Russia more difficult with these sanctions.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/britain-bars-russian-delegation-farnborough-115951534.html#iF9GD6L

[chrisgixer]

Indeed. But really, how much difference will it make?

None. At all.

[Sir Tigger KC]

It's good to see the British Government following through on the rhetoric! 

Will it make any difference?  If it's only us that does this sort of thing then Chris is probably right, but if other countries follow suit then maybe. I can't see the likes of Dubai for example barring the Russians however. 

[chrisgixer]

My point being, the Russians hold access to the Sevastopol and the Mediterranean far more dearly than some monk on about an air show.

[cleggy]

Putin has BALLS and won't give two hoots. Camoron learn, Thatcher had bigger ones than you have and she was a girlie.

[Sir Tigger KC]

My point being, the Russians hold access to the Sevastopol and the Mediterranean far more dearly than some monk on about an air show.

The point as I see it Chris, is that if the international community pulls together and denies Russia access to the international marketplace then the Ruskies will have to take notice, no matter how big Putin's balls are Cleggy! 

[chrisgixer]

My point being, the Russians hold access to the Sevastopol and the Mediterranean far more dearly than some monk on about an air show.

The point as I see it Chris, is that if the international community pulls together and denies Russia access to the international marketplace then the Ruskies will have to take notice, no matter how big Putin's balls are Cleggy! 

Why? They are big enough a country to be self sufficient. There might be some slight inconvenience along the way, but frankly I don't think Putin gives a shit as long as he looks tough in front The Russians.

It's fairly clear the further east you go, the moor bigoted views come to the surface from what I've seen at work. I dread to think how pre historic, as we'd call it, the mind set is as far as Russia. They hate blacks and gays as a defining principle and don't care who knows it, as a general rule. There's no concern for socially acceptable behaviour abroad, they come across as worse than the Germans. Skin as thick as a rhino, and its all encouraged by Putin.

Sanctions you say. They don't give a shit Tig. They'd probably shut off our gas supply as a retaliation if we where not paying so bloody much for it.

[Rods2]

If it didn't matter then the Russians would not have reacted angrily to this. The article in The Independent had one Russian arms manufacturer complaining on how it would affect them meeting potential customers and possible sales.

Will the sanctions stop Putin and Russia from doing something if they are determined to do it, no, but it does provide them with a cost and inconvenience which will affect their economy and Putin's long term prospects as the Russian people will only put up with the dictator if he carries on making them richer and that is his current problem, the economy is tanking, so he is using various foreign adventures with Ukraine and Syria and Russian nationalism to boost his popularity but like a drug it is only a short term fix which has to be repeated.

Putin has made a big miscalculation where he was relying when he sent his terrorists into East Ukraine, that it would trigger a locally backed uprising, but the vast majority of the locals, Russians and Ukrainians don't want anything to do with them. Hence, Putin has tried to reinforce them with increasing amounts of tanks, APC's and AA equipment, with those captured and destroyed by the Ukrainian army having their serial numbers traced back to their Russian manufacturing facilities, which has compromised his plausible deniability cover and his terrorists are still gradually losing where the Ukrainian armed forces have now got their act together. Today, there have been unconfirmed reports of a Russian armoured column creating a 3km wide corridor towards Luhansk. If confirmed this will be a further major escalation.

Yesterday, there were tripartite talks between the EU, Ukraine and Russia in which Russia demanded a permanent veto on the EU / Ukraine free trade agreement implementation if Russia objected to any of the provisions or there are any identified potential negative effects on any imports to Russia through Ukraine. Once the EU and Ukrainian delegations has stopped laughing they politely told Russia to Fff fade away.

Putin has over extended himself in Ukraine where he should have stopped with his Crimea takeover as at least this made some strategic sense, whereas what he is currently doing in east Ukraine doesn't, but he does not have complete control over the terrorists where many are Far-Right ideologically driven nationalists who want to create a new greater Russian empire. This is why when Slavansk fell and some of the terrorists tried to cross back into Russia but they were fired upon by the Russian border guards as Russia doesn't want these potential trouble makers back, but for domestic reasons, he can't be seen to fail. Probably the smartest way out of it at this time is to stop the support of the terrorists in return for Ukraine agreeing to be a neutral country by never joining NATO and also going no further then the current EU trade agreement with their relations and integration with the west. This would probably be politically acceptable to both sizes as Putin would be seen to gain Russian security and it would be enough for the Ukrainian president as it would be political suicide for the him to accept any independence for the Donbas region.

[Sir Tigger KC]

Russia's a very different place than it was 25 years ago, largely through sales of oil and gas.    They drive VW's instead of Lada's, they wear jeans and t-shirts and can buy things that we've always taken for granted, yet were generally unavailable before the cold war ended. 

If the international community pulled together and isolated Russia, people lost their jobs with foreign companies and couldn't buy the quality goods anymore and had to go back in time, they may not like it!   

Would the international community isolate Russia? No.

Would Putin give a shit if they did? No.

Would the Russians rise up and get rid of him. Well who knows..... 

[Rods2]

Russia's a very different place than it was 25 years ago, largely through sales of oil and gas.    They drive VW's instead of Lada's, they wear jeans and t-shirts and can buy things that we've always taken for granted, yet were generally unavailable before the cold war ended. 

If the international community pulled together and isolated Russia, people lost their jobs with foreign companies and couldn't buy the quality goods anymore and had to go back in time, they may not like it!   

Would the international community isolate Russia? No.

Would Putin give a shit if they did? No.

Would the Russians rise up and get rid of him. Well who knows..... 

He is too smart, calculating and successful opportunist to not take things like sanctions into account. By doing so he will try to avoid backing himself into a political corner.

Russia's doctrine for 21st Century warfare was spelt out by a Russian general in a policy document about a year ago and it is very much a blue print for what has happened in Crimea and is currently happening in East Ukraine. Part of that doctrine is agreeing to things like the Geneva agreement the recent Ukrainian ceasefire by accepting the other sides concessions, agreeing to things themselves and then carry on as usual. The doctrine is also push things and then be seen to look as if they are descalating things, when they are giving nothing away, the rescinding of the law to attack Ukraine in the Duma is good example. Always denying things until they are over, the green men in Crimea were local defence forces, with Putin only admitting they were Russian troops and Special Forces once the take over was complete. Russia is currently pushing hard for a peace keeping force by wildly exaggerating the number of refugees crossing into Russia and how big a humanitarian disaster East Ukraine is, as they see this as continuing the war by other means. The peace keeper will then drive the political forces of the Donbas region in much the same way as their peace keeping force in Transnistria. At all times part of the doctrine is very much taking into account what the opposition will do and taking steps to minimise any negative effects.

This new form of warfare (or an old form revisited as it has many attributes of the Great Game played out in Asia between Russia and The UK in 18th and 19th centuries) will probably be as important to the 21st century as Blitzkrieg was in the 20th.

Russian propaganda will always be much more effective than ours, where all of their press in now under state control, our press freedom places many limits on successful propaganda. Basically they can tell much bigger lies, more often, than our politicians could ever get away with in peace time.

Russia is too integrated into the global economy to be successfully isolated, unlike countries like Iran. The gas issue has no short term solutions unless Russia is stupid enough (unlikely) to cut off Western Europe's gas supplies as it will then provoke the west into creating the equivalent of the Berlin airlift to create energy independence. Their oil and gas sales to Western Europe accounts for about 3% of GDP, cut this off permanently and you would probably lead to a 6%+ recession. The USA now produces more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia, so if push can to shove then the US can do attitude would prevail. The first gas war was a PR disaster for Russia and Gazprom (Gazprom now use western PR agencies), which started the drive for Europe decreasing their dependence of Russian gas from about 50% of gas consumed to now about 30%. This will continue to drop and was part of the reason for Putin agreeing a $400bn gas agreement with China a few weeks ago.

[tigers_gonads]

Russia's a very different place than it was 25 years ago, largely through sales of oil and gas.    They drive VW's instead of Lada's, they wear jeans and t-shirts and can buy things that we've always taken for granted, yet were generally unavailable before the cold war ended. 

If the international community pulled together and isolated Russia, people lost their jobs with foreign companies and couldn't buy the quality goods anymore and had to go back in time, they may not like it!   

Would the international community isolate Russia? No.

Would Putin give a shit if they did? No.

Would the Russians rise up and get rid of him. Well who knows..... 

He is too smart, calculating and successful opportunist to not take things like sanctions into account. By doing so he will try to avoid backing himself into a political corner.

Russia's doctrine for 21st Century warfare was spelt out by a Russian general in a policy document about a year ago and it is very much a blue print for what has happened in Crimea and is currently happening in East Ukraine. Part of that doctrine is agreeing to things like the Geneva agreement the recent Ukrainian ceasefire by accepting the other sides concessions, agreeing to things themselves and then carry on as usual. The doctrine is also push things and then be seen to look as if they are descalating things, when they are giving nothing away, the rescinding of the law to attack Ukraine in the Duma is good example. Always denying things until they are over, the green men in Crimea were local defence forces, with Putin only admitting they were Russian troops and Special Forces once the take over was complete. Russia is currently pushing hard for a peace keeping force by wildly exaggerating the number of refugees crossing into Russia and how big a humanitarian disaster East Ukraine is, as they see this as continuing the war by other means. The peace keeper will then drive the political forces of the Donbas region in much the same way as their peace keeping force in Transnistria. At all times part of the doctrine is very much taking into account what the opposition will do and taking steps to minimise any negative effects.

This new form of warfare (or an old form revisited as it has many attributes of the Great Game played out in Asia between Russia and The UK in 18th and 19th centuries) will probably be as important to the 21st century as Blitzkrieg was in the 20th.

Russian propaganda will always be much more effective than ours, where all of their press in now under state control, our press freedom places many limits on successful propaganda. Basically they can tell much bigger lies, more often, than our politicians could ever get away with in peace time.

Russia is too integrated into the global economy to be successfully isolated, unlike countries like Iran. The gas issue has no short term solutions unless Russia is stupid enough (unlikely) to cut off Western Europe's gas supplies as it will then provoke the west into creating the equivalent of the Berlin airlift to create energy independence. Their oil and gas sales to Western Europe accounts for about 3% of GDP, cut this off permanently and you would probably lead to a 6%+ recession. The USA now produces more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia, so if push can to shove then the US can do attitude would prevail. The first gas war was a PR disaster for Russia and Gazprom (Gazprom now use western PR agencies), which started the drive for Europe decreasing their dependence of Russian gas from about 50% of gas consumed to now about 30%. This will continue to drop and was part of the reason for Putin agreeing a $400bn gas agreement with China a few weeks ago.

Putin has just signed a deal with the drag queen leader of Argentina to upgrade and develop there harvesting of natural resources.
Expect to see a Gazprom rig and associated vessels off the coast of the Falkland Islands in the near future 
Looks like we just might need one or two of those aircraft carriers after all 

[Kevin Wood]

Looks like we just might need one or two of those aircraft carriers after all 

Not to mention some aircra.. Oh! bu66er! Now, where did we put that Vulcan? Oh! That did make it to Farnborough. Now, some Victors...

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Looks like we just might need one or two of those aircraft carriers after all 

Not to mention some aircra.. Oh! bu66er! Now, where did we put that Vulcan? Oh! That did make it to Farnborough. Now, some Victors...

No.  Just send in a Trident missile or six.  That should set things off!!

[Kevin Wood]

Looks like we just might need one or two of those aircraft carriers after all 

Not to mention some aircra.. Oh! bu66er! Now, where did we put that Vulcan? Oh! That did make it to Farnborough. Now, some Victors...

No.  Just send in a Trident missile or six.  That should set things off!!

About the only option open to us these days... assuming we're still paying the leccy bill at Faslane, and the yanks allow us to press the button.