@watso - dear Magnificent One - I have read the links to some of your posts and the precursory (and post-curses!) discussions as well and am as confused as ever - and I am not even being humble. I feel I understand why Putin felt threatened, but I condemned him the moment he first ventured into Ukraine and aimed at civilian infrastructure, people, hospitals etc. - we know it all by now - they are out to indiscriminately destroy everything Ukrainian.
Even if Putin had reason to fear the encroachment of NATO - there was a road to negotiation right at the beginning - seems it is too late now. I am hoping that Russia's civil population will grow some guts, especially if they are experiencing shortages too, and tell their government to pull out.
A friend of mine describes this war as another one of America's proxy wars.
I am not sure at all myself, too many fault lines are opening wider and wider within Europe as well - but my loyalty lies with my country and of necessity with the U.S.A. even though they are at fault too, in this.
Too many 'what ifs' in the history between the West and the former Soviet Russia - did you know, for example, that just after the fall of the Soviet Union, in 1992 Russia under Boris Yeltsin applied for membership to the Council of the EU and becoming members over a period of 10 years, eventually failing the 'democracy' test by their many regional wars - the war on Chechenya being the first 'democratic lapse' !?
Please take your response, if political, over to the relevant thread, oh Magnificent One, this is not the thread to discuss these things - we concentrate on the important things of life: like friendship, diet, music, cats and dogs, children and families - and sometimes - on the blue lint found in some people's navels.
......and we all have a favourite share of the moment - right now it is LTR (Liontown), but hints on other 'goers' are posted from time to time. Feel free to do the same!
Right now I am going to solve the problem of 'Beef Wellington' as done by me yesterday, great crust, but meat no good. The 'Web' is amazing for the many answers it provides to problems real, imagined and fabricated. the humble Taurisk
