[The Weeping Angel]

No it's three nations who joined NATO. None of them border Russia, none of them were former Soviet republics and all three had good historical reasons for wanting to join NATO.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I don't believe you understand 20th century European history and Russian foreign policy imperatives.

And East Germany pretty much counts as it went from Russian to NATO alignment...

[The Weeping Angel]

Malcolm I do understand 20th European Century. In 1956 the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact sent troops into Hungary to put down an uprising and remove it's leadership, in 1968 they did the same thing to Czechoslovakia and in Poland well let's consider the list shall we

1. The Nazi-Soviet Pact

2. The Invasion of Eastern Poland and the subsequent terror that involved

3. The Katyn Forest Massacre

4. Allowing the Nazis to crush the Warsaw uprising

5. Imposing a communist government on Poland without the consent of the Polish people

As for Russian foreign policy imperatives well their clear they regard Eastern Europe as within their sphere of influence and they don't like the idea of nations within their sphere of influence acting independent like becoming Democracies or joining the EU or joining NATO. As for East Germany well here's what a former ambassador has to say on the subject.

https://www.friendsofeurope.org/insight ... largement/

[Malcolm Armsteen]

No, you don't understand.

There are unchanging imperatives to Russian foreign policy:

a) Access to warm-water harbours (ie the Baltic States)
b) A buffer zone to prevent invasion across the North European plain to prevent invasion.

These go back to Tsarist policies, and were in effect during and after WW1.

You tend to see things in rather depressingly shallow terms. Try looking at Russia's actions in the light of a and b above, and you will see that the imperatives have not changed, and Putin is essentially pursuing Tsarist objectives.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That Churchill thing reminds me of this.

Two Men a Drum Machine and a Trumpet- Tired of Getting Pushed Around, who jazzed up their TOTP appearance with a Humphrey Bogart impersonator (Bogart being sampled on the record.

[Youngian]

The Bogey double did the rounds like appear in sketches on 321. Even Ted Rogers wasn’t a sad enough act to interview him in character.

[The Weeping Angel]

Ok I misunderstood you, yes I do know about those objectives actually. I was pointing out how they view Ukraine and other Soviet Republics as nations within their sphere of influence.

[RedSparrows]

There's also a kultura aspect to it. Ukraine is Slav. Russia is Slav. What's the difference, drozya?

Putin has called parts of Ukraine 'Novorossiya', even, as I think I reference elsewhere on this forum.

[satnav]

Who in their right minds would tune in to watch this gruesome twosome?

[Youngian]

Who in their right minds would tune in to watch this gruesome twosome?

Richard and Judy for Satanists

[Boiler]

I understand the radio station has now launched.

[Watchman]

Yeah, and we’re going to do it with sign language as well, coz the Marxist at the BBC hate the deaf!

[Tubby Isaacs]

GB News guy includes special Covid funding, and doesn't understand demographics. Otherwise, this is spot on.

[satnav]

I notice the Mail are running a number of articles along the lines of why are we putting all this extra money into the NHS without seeing any improvements. Stephen Pollard led the charge earlier in the day and tomorrow's foot pages hammers the point home.

[Cyclist]

I wonder if all that money which was given to mates for PPE is being counted as NHS money, even though the NHS never saw a penny of it, or received much of the PPE?

[Boiler]

As has been pointed out by others - currently there are c. 100,000 vacancies in the NHS so how do they intend to fill those posts in order to address the current problems?

[MisterMuncher]

By blaming the lazy and feckless benefit scroungers, of course. Possibly making rumbles about sending in the army.

[Spoonman]

[Cyclist]

I hope those figures are forwarded to Dorries. It would appear that in spite of everything she believes, people are still turning to the BBC for news they can trust.

Nice to see Planey MacPlaneface got six times the number of viewers than the silent majority channel.

[The All New KevS]

Looks like we need to change the name of this thread to KGBeebies.