I found the Indian WION Channel and they have a unique Indian/Asian point of view on the conflict. Also the Indian prime minister is in regular contract.
Besides a lot of Indian students live in the Ukraine and are fleeing how as well. Well for me this channel is new but they do have some interesting points to bring to the table. Maybe Modi can help foster a political solution with the 69 y/o Putin. Any views are very welcome!
There other point that having been a former colonial power does not give a right to rule is very true ;-).
Iâm not always sure about how I feel about Modi. He is a fascinating character and India has some unique leverage as well as strong mistrust of China. I get news from them on a you tube channel that seems a lot of anti Chinese sentiment.
At GE, i worked with a lot of Indian employees. Their country has poor infrastructure but a very well educated populace. I think there is a strong sense of Nationalism and identity. I would not mess with them.
Speaking of Texas btw, Larry Childress from NASCAR just pledged more than a million rounds of ammunition to Ukraine. Thatâs definitely a Texas donation
I watched your link and yes I have watched this channel before. Good international coverage is hard to come by and I agree that different networks can add interesting view points.
I am watching WION for some weeks. It is Indian and only so. It is a good source to to know more about the world outside the American and European bubble. Their insistence to that svastikas are not hakenkreuze is an example.
Thanks for the feedback I discovered the channel only yesterday. I wasmanden zwart of this when I took some courses in the âFar Eastâ to use an Euro-centric term. For one I like there analyses blocks which seem to be well made instead of some âexpertâ who often is politically biased and very predictable. Happens here a lot.
As for India, there is a huge knowledge hole in NL as few Dutch people know we colonised part of it and were kicked out. Same with Formosa/Taiwan, Brasil, Etc etc. In India Mostar not all people know but I never seen one bring it up.
Anyway I like the fresh view and I always enjoy working with Indian people.
anti Pakistani too. Hardly a day goes by in Indian news without mentioning Pakistan as an absolutely evil country (I am exaggerating but that is basically the gist).
Anti Chinese sentiment can be summed up by basically the 1962 war where India and China had good relations and Nehru could not believe that the Chinese incursions were true and the road constructions would be a plan to invade India. Then China strikes and India loses badly. (At least that is the story I know. Our history in schools end with the Independence of India.) It is also called 1962 humiliation and the war most people donât want to talk about. Wars with Pakistan? Heck yeah. They will talk about them to infinity and beyond as they âwonâ all 3 of them (4 if you count kargil). And the border skrimishes. One in 1967 and one in 2020⊠though it is technically ongoing as no decisive result has been achieved in the talks.
China also holds parts of Kashmir such as the Aksai Chin and China also claims Arunachal Pradesh. I have been there and it becomes hard to distinguish between the Indian living there and Chinese based on their looks. Though I have met no one there that speaks Chinese.
So if you want to be friends with an Indian guy simply say Pakistan sucks and Kashmir belongs to India⊠and most important of all⊠cricket⊠and whammo⊠you are best friends forever. (I am exaggerating again).
Not possible. India doesnât want to affect itâs relations with Russia and has close ties to it and also buys military equipment from it. So if India does send itâs volunteers, they will not have the moral to fight the russians and Russia can respond with cancelling the deal with India.
But India also doesnât want to affect itâs relations with America because well⊠China. If China does attack India, America would then be Indiaâs strongest ally.
So currently India just sits on the fence by appeasing both sides.
Totally yes On anti Pakistan as well as China. But knowing this we can use them to help balance other biased coverage. I like Al Jazerha for Middle East coverage. Not because itâs totally honest but because there is so much that I cannot get from Western media.
As to Flying Tigers I was thinking this more as a eauropean or American thing. We could do lend lease too. Send them weapons today for payment later. Supposed we transferred the, a couple squadrons of working F-15âs and they could âhireâ consultants with F-15 experience.
I also saw where Germany was going to send old East German anti tank missiles to UkraineâŠâŠwhat a joke if you are sending help send real help not missiles that have been stored so badly they have mold on them.
No need to do that. The EU will pay for the weapons Ukraine need. Not as a loan. Finally EU found itâs role as a Geopolitical power. Also the new agreement is that EU will do the economic warfare, and NATO will do the military and political part. No more talk about an EU army.
For the first time ever there is a majority in Sweden and Finland that wants to join NATO. They just realized that alone and neutral donât mean safe. Sweden are already present at all NATO meetings.
And to use Zelenskys words: the fight will be in Europe, and we are not all confident that we can count on US in the future. That why Germany wants European build fighter jets.
Who would have thought this would happen just 10 days ago? Crazy times it is.
The most crazy thing that nobody in europe (exept Putin) is freaking out that Germany reacted to the invasion of Ukrain as the US reacted to Pearl Harbour. Germany has not decared war, but made clear no real estates deals are now avaiable in Natoeurope (I do not know if this includes Greenland). Putin is no longer demanding talking with an Amerikan president about this. To the actual situation: Finnland is in the position to be trusted by Russia. The only way to get out of this mess without killing humans in real forgotten numbers is to find any facesavig thing to Russia accept stopping the murdering. Good Friday Agreements may be something.
I am believing yor are Suomi. I am German and nearly everybody else than Suomi have a thing about a Germany with a efficent military. Including me.
Nope, I am danish, so the German army are a part of our history, because they have been on a visit now and then. Many danish fought for the Germans on the eastern front and they have claimed to this day, that the Russians were the real enemy. Were they right and do we have to reconsider the postwar blame?
Otherwise Denmark was treated gently by Germany. Partly because our agricultural supplies I guess, but also because we already had a EU kind of relationship, and did not really see each other as enemies. Also German soldiers was generally treated well by the danish population with no personal hatred. Of course we wanted to be free, but it was not as brutal as in other theaters.
A Dane
yes the Danish people had not been on the to be killed list. And in Yad Vashem there is a blue boat. Because the Danish had the courage to save the Danes who were on the to be killed list. And the story about your king wearing the yellow star. And let us not forget you have not sold Greenland.
And more important Germans and Danes have much more history about living together than having wars nobody neeeded.
I am confused. Germany has a small defensive force but they are not efficient? I understand that people get nervous about Germany projecting force but donât we want them to have a efficient functioning military? They used to be a bulwark in NATO when it was West Germany. I guess things have changed.
From a US point of view (and I am sure we have many different points of view) it seems that only the US has a consistent ability to project force offensively while most of NATO concentrates on small highly trained (I hope) defensive forces. Granted what we do is highly expensive but I would hope that Germany builds a highly efficient small military of great flexibility.
NATO has and has activated itâs emergency response force. This has to have offensive as well as defensive capabilities.
Also Ukraine needs more weapon types to protect itself. Some tanks would be nice as well as fighter jets and attack helicopters. They need to be able to counter attack. I would think more drone support would be helpful as well.
Wait, those we have in NL and BE as well, they were mostly rabid antisemites who got a bit higher up in the foodchain. The heroic stories came later and the saw themselves as victims of the Soviets, Rumanians.
The current Russians are not Soviets but a people with views all over the place and many are against Putin. As for military capability, eg Germany made a 180 after many years of laughing off calls to raise the defense spending and trying to get the US to lift the Nordstream sanctions.
Military analysts here argue that Europe by itself does not have the capability to defend all the borders and would need the USA.
For one the NATO (which obviously is not the EU ) does not want to enforce a no-fly zone as it would almost garantee air to air combat with a Nuclear power. We are in an extremely difficult situation and some politicians donât seem to get that promises of a future Army take years to accomplish.
I hate to say it but as a European I am ashamed that WE massively dropped the ball and ignored our defense treaty obligations.
I know we Europeans ar all very angry at Putin but we need to have sensible solutions. And we need to critically examine how we got in this mess instead of believing the âsurprised â politicians. And now we are united in finding this war rightly horrible but the EU membership offering by the EU President let to the first dissent already as she cannot decide that and whatever you think this might be an ineffective provocation.
I for one donât want nukes flying around Europe and our options are limited and unsatisfactory.
Good comments. I too want good solutions but they all seem to what does it take to either intimidate Putin into stopping or what? If he doesnât stop, we really have nothing.
You probably do need the US to help defend. I donât see that as a bad thing but your capabilities would take years to replace us but we arenât going anywhere. We have one idiot calling for Putin to be assassinated and others calling for a no fly zone. Both can be described as acts of war and we should know better.
Neither side here is made up of saints or are all sinners but there is only one Putin pressing an expansionist agenda. Without him, there would be no war and mostly likely no provincial separatist movements. The losers are all the middle class and lower classes who have no place to go and are seeing their lives destroyed. NATO canât fix it and neither can the EU. This is not WW2 and we canât say win at all costs because the costs are too damm high. We arm Ukraine but they have to fight it out. And that sucks and then a mistake happens and a nuclear power plant goes boom or worse.
Is Ukraine even a viable member for the EU? They have some pretty stringent requirements I thought.
I donât buy that. We (Europe) offered Putin and Russia a future of peace and cooperation, massively supporting their economy by buying all that gas. During the massive funding by the EU to new member states we brought eg. the Baltic countries security. Sweden and Finland now know thatâs the way to do it.
So please donât blame the victims. Blame the aggressor. Putin and Russia will now again be seen as our primary enemies for decades to come. Just as a video on CNN where a small village was completely destroyed. Putin donât want to demilitarize, he want to the get rid of the whole population. They used bombs that could topple several cars on a small village??? Damm, that made me furious.
Do you think that was a sort of development aid? IN
Yes that makes me furious too. And point me to a statement where I am blaming the victims?
Are we buying gas and did we (well politicians)applaud Biden for lifting the Nordstream sanctions out of charity or was it ex-chancellor Schröders influence who commendably was against the Iraq war but refused to condemn Putin. For him it are the Kohle (means coal but also money, not gas).
As for the â surprisedâ EU politicians
Problem 1: The war in the Ukraine has been there since 2014, and the off an on sanctions started then
Problem 2: Putin invaded other places before and sent our many planes on harassment missions.
Problem 3: when The sanctions were lifted in May 2021 Zelensky was horrified an against. The EU was OK with it. We gave the Ukraine uhhâŠand I maybe cynically blame the same politicians who are falling over themselves with solidarity statements.
Problem 4: not to mention the 90s where surely not everyone in the East was happy with the free market big Western companies moving in and keeping the population poor and they generally had arrogant egos against Slavic people. This is a big subject in itself.
And the real problem, the politicians supported by election results here have used defense as an ATM to balance budget(hollowing out our capabilities) That attitude changed momentarily in 2014 and changed last week, at least in words.
The problem is does anyone have a solution which stays clear from a possible nuclear conflict. Like John said at all costs??
Oh and Putin and his cronies are the big villains and the people to blame. Ok? Not the Russian / Ukrainian or any other people.
If anyone has some great solutions, I would like to hear them! The sanctions against the oligarchs etc are best to me. Not sure if stopping people from using Apple Pay in the metro or banning Russian handicapped sports people from the Olympics is effective as it could just feed propaganda against the West, China Abused it for its moral bandwagon to distract from the Uygurs and Taiwan already.
There are a lot of diplomats working in the background already which is a positive note to me. Hope this doesnât escalate into an even bigger nightmare!
That is looking more unlikely as the US is considering sanctions on India due something called CAATSA. It already sanctioned turkey for buying stuff from russia.
There is a slight (very very slight) animosity towards the US because it acts as the police of the world according to Indians. Plus⊠there are questions being asked as to why the US wasnât sanctioned on âdestroyingâ a country (Iraq).
If USA does sanction India to force it to sanction Russia,any hopes of india sending weapons to Ukraine goes out of the window. They are currently providing Ukraine with Humanitarian aid.
India is a weird case for the US. We donât like some of their aggressiveness specially in Kashmir but we very much like their stance against China.
I agree that India probably finds us annoying and this is not new going way back but there is huge economic cooperation between the two countries which overshadow those annoyances. Indiaâs biggest export to us is brains I.e.trained professionals who end up coming here and contributing to our culture as well as economy.
Let India do what India will do. As soon as they worry about China again they will get closer to us. I donât see them changing sides there. However they have long ties with Russia and expecting them to drop all of that is also unrealistic.
with it. We gave the Ukraine 
uhhâŠand I maybe cynically blame the same politicians who are falling over themselves with solidarity statements.
Abused it for its moral bandwagon to distract from the Uygurs and Taiwan already.