WW3 -All Russia / Ukraine stuff here please-

[Swango1980]

All may be true, but if I am escaping war I am not sure that minimising geographical separation from my home country for ease of return is going to be the main consideration to where I might want to seek refuge. For some it may be, for others - especially those with friends and family in the UK - that will not be the main consideration. Indeed for ease of return what is the difference between UK and such as France and Germany, France after all is all of 22miles from the UK, and Germany is only a four hour drive from Calais.

And I am afraid that the 'flaws' that you refer to may well be by design...besides, there has been plenty of time to change or minimise the process for Ukrainian refugees given the risk of invasion has been present for many weeks, if not a few months.

Separately I am hearing that UK is looking at providing Ukraine with Starstreak (hypervelocity) surface-to-air air defence missiles. I have trepidation around how a Russian MiG being downed by a British missile, a missile supplied by the UK with the specific purpose of downing Russian aircraft, will be received in Moscow...

Of course, to be clear, I hope I didn't give the impression I said that would be the case for all Ukrainians. Undoubtedly, some will want to come to the UK, hence the problems we are hearing about. However, when looking at the issue in its entirety, then I would not be at all surprised if the significant majority of refugees wished to stay in a country closer to Ukraine, therefore those countries will experience the major pressure. It would be interesting to be given a % split as to the ideal destination in terms of which country refugees are ultimately aiming for, but I'd expect it to be pretty low for the UK relatively speaking. Furthermore, even if refugees were equally spreading across every European country, they have to first get into, and travel through eastern European countries before getting to the UK, so Eastern European countries would still need to cope with the major brunt of the crisis.

 

[Swango1980]

Excellent action by Andy Murray. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/60673527

Wouldn't it be nice to see other sports people, such as highly paid footballers, donate their prize money or salaries to Ukraine for a year. I believe Paul Pogba earned £15.08 million last year, I am sure he is pretty comfortable in life? Therefore, would be a nice gesture. Mind you, I'd imagine they'd worry they'd become a target of Putin's poison loving spies.

 

[road2ruin]

Separately I am hearing that UK is looking at providing Ukraine with Starstreak (hypervelocity) surface-to-air air defence missiles. I have trepidation around how a Russian MiG being downed by a British missile, a missile supplied by the UK with the specific purpose of downing Russian aircraft, will be received in Moscow...

Is that much difference from the Russian tanks that have been blown up by javelin missiles though? He's already got reason to go to war with the rest of Europe if he really wants to.

 

[RichA]

Wouldn't it be nice to see other sports people, such as highly paid footballers, donate their prize money or salaries to Ukraine for a year. I believe Paul Pogba earned £15.08 million last year, I am sure he is pretty comfortable in life? Therefore, would be a nice gesture. Mind you, I'd imagine they'd worry they'd become a target of Putin's poison loving spies.

Maybe some of them do it but believe that generosity is more sincere if you don't publicise it.

 

[Swango1980]

Maybe some of them do it but believe that generosity is more sincere if you don't publicise it.

Perhaps. Certainly, if the only reason to publicise it was "hey everyone, look how great I am" then that wouldn't exactly be overly admirable. However, the positive side of publicising it is that it brings it to people's attention and may well encourage others to do more themselves. No point in asking high profile people to act like good role models, when they hide all their good deeds from the world after all.

P.S. However, on a hunch, I doubt Paul Pogba is donating all his salary to Ukraine. Just guessing though.

 

[Smiffy]

I have trepidation around how a Russian MiG being downed by a British missile will be received in Moscow...

In lots of little bits I would imagine.
Like an Airfix kit ???

 

[Dando]

we've got friends who live in Fairford and apparently its been pretty busy there the last 10 or so days

 

[phillarrow]

Surely it has nothing to do with letting Ukrainian refugees into the country, as we are. It is that it seems to be very inefficient.

Pre Ukraine War, security measures were presumably in place for a reason? Now that the war has begun, presumably those reasons to have security at the border have not disappeared? In fact, they could be more important than ever, as anyone up to illegal activities of any kind are likely to see this volatile period as the perfect time to be opportunistic. So, simply scrapping security measures seems counter productive? That is the logical argument, and has nothing to do with not wanting to help Ukrainian refugees whose lives have been destroyed. Of course we want to help them as much as we can. Ideally, rather than scrapping security measures, we'd want to scale up resources in this area to not only improve security at this volatile time, but make it much more efficient and easier for these refugees. What that would take, I am unsure, but presumably one of the things would be many more staff in Calais to help in the process, rather than sending refugees off to Paris or Brussels to get processed.

This. I have never suggested we shouldn't help, or that we shouldn't take more. I just don't believe that scrapping all security checks is a good idea.

For those that have asked what we should do, in addition to the suggestion above of increasing our capacity to carry out checks, I believe we should have set up a direct resettlement process from Ukraine's neighbours, especially Poland. So the refugees are checked and processed there and then re-settled here. That, in my view, would be better for everyone that asking them to make their way to France and Germany and then asking our border control to take over their application.

 

[Old Skier]

Separately I am hearing that UK is looking at providing Ukraine with Starstreak (hypervelocity) surface-to-air air defence missiles. I have trepidation around how a Russian MiG being downed by a British missile, a missile supplied by the UK with the specific purpose of downing Russian aircraft, will be received in Moscow...

Why all of a sudden are you full of trepidation. It’s been reported weeks ago that British troops where training and supplying the Ukraine army with a whole range and DEFENSIVE weapons for the use agains armour and air assets.

Did you miss this. The solution to Moscow being a bit miffed about that is simple, turn round and go home.

 

[phillarrow]

I would also ask - how many of those who have said you would happily take in a Ukrainian family, or feel we should totally open our borders without checks in order to speed up their evacuation, have said the same about the ongoing situation in Ethiopia?
Have you offered a bed to Uyghar Muslims?
Have you reached out to those from Myanmar?
Should refugees from all this places also be offered immediate, unchecked resettlement here, temporary or otherwise?

What's happening in Ukraine is genocide and the whole world should step up to support them... but terrible things are happening elsewhere too. Have you spoken out so vehemently about those atrocities?

 

[Old Skier]

The beauty of the T80 is that it has a very good system of blowing itself up.

 

[Old Skier]

Starstreak on its way which should increase the amount of air assets that have tumbled from the sky along with another 1600 Anti Tank weapons.

 

[RichA]

I would also ask - how many of those who have said you would happily take in a Ukrainian family, or feel we should totally open our borders without checks in order to speed up their evacuation, have said the same about the ongoing situation in Ethiopia?
Have you offered a bed to Uyghar Muslims?
Have you reached out to those from Myanmar?
Should refugees from all this places also be offered immediate, unchecked resettlement here, temporary or otherwise?

What's happening in Ukraine is genocide and the whole world should step up to support them... but terrible things are happening elsewhere too. Have you spoken out so vehemently about those atrocities?

Unlike the Ukrainians, they aren't literally queuing to cross the channel and we didn't guarantee their security when we signed the Budapest Agreement.

 

[greenone]

Starstreak on its way which should increase the amount of air assets that have tumbled from the sky along with another 1600 Anti Tank weapons.

The problem with manpads is they will push the Russians to medium altitude which means more indescrimainant bombing as the Russians don't really do precision guided bombs.

 

[Foxholer]

The beauty of the T80 is that it has a very good system of blowing itself up.

Maybe that's why the directed so much initial effort on Kharkiv. Spares likely to be available from a manufacturer.

 

[Old Skier]

The problem with manpads is they will push the Russians to medium altitude which means more indescrimainant bombing as the Russians don't really do precision guided bombs.

Personally think precision targeting went out of the window a week ago.

 

[Old Skier]

Maybe that's why the directed so much initial effort on Kharkiv. Spares likely to be available from a manufacturer.

Need more than spares, the turrets like to disengage from the Hull.

 

[Foxholer]

Personally think precision targeting went out of the window a week ago.

While they were aiming at the door!

 

[Foxholer]

Need more than spares, the turrets like to disengage from the Hull.

Sounds like propoganda to me! Given that they don't plan on being up against more modern anti-tank weapons, it's still not something I'd like to meet heading my way!

 

[phillarrow]

Unlike the Ukrainians, they aren't literally queuing to cross the channel and we didn't guarantee their security when we signed the Budapest Agreement.

So it's the geography and paperwork that matters, not the humanitarian crisis?! ?‍