Interesting that India abstained from supporting the US proposed UN Security Council resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I understand why China would abstain, as for the UAE don't care, but India.

Any expert opinions on that one?

David f,

Now that Russian forces are indiscriminately shelling areas how do you feel about the "good" Russians?

The only reason Putin is holding negotiations is because of the terrible damage done to the invasion force and the Russian economy.

The quick victory that Putin wanted has decayed into one of attrition where the Ukrainians now have access to an almost unlimited supply of high tech weapons and Russia is losing tanks, vehicles, planes and helicopters that it cannot replace in the short term.

India is supplying humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

I heard one comment on BBC that the reason India abstained in the vote
was because they get most of their armaments from Russia and do not
want to compromise that supply.

Dear shadowminister,

What army a person happens to be in is generally a matter of where they are born. You really don't get it. Most soldiers serve because they don't have much choice in the matter.

Hitler's army did terrible things. However, the Germans who served in that army had little choice. There were few heroes like Franz Jägerstätter. He refused to serve and was beheaded by the Nazis.

I was a soldier in the US army in WW2 and think the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were crimes. Am I guilty of those crimes because I was a soldier in that army? I wasn't consulted. Neither are the Russian soldiers in Ukraine whose army is doing indiscriminate shelling

David,

Dropping nukes on Japan was not legally a war crime and attributed as being one of the major factors that forced Japan to surrender that probably saved a further 3-4 million casualties.

On the other hand, Russia is using thermobaric and cluster munitions against civilian targets that are clearly war crimes today. The Russian army is, therefore, a legitimate target and any soldier involved may not directly commit the war crimes but is certainly enabling them.

On the tactical front, it is pleasing to see that the javelin and stinger missiles have had a critical impact by limiting Russian air superiority to a narrow corridor with jets and attack helicopters flying at a low level out of this area being shot down, and vehicles straying any distance from the road being destroyed.

This is making logistics and resupply of a massive army extremely difficult and the 60km traffic jam of Russian vehicles has largely come to a halt.

The taking of the Kyiv will involve all their men and vehicles exposed to rocket and machine-gun fire with massive casualties.