ttbn,
As you know so much about Japan, do you not think that an atomic bomb on the sacred mountain, Fujiyama, would not have impresses the Japanese?

There was absolutely no need to invade Japan, as I said earlier, Japan could have been starved into submission by blockade, but there’s no military glory in blockades so that was out.
Iwo Jima is a good example, it could have been bypassed and blockaded but no glory, so more Americans lost their lives for nothing more than the staged raising of the Stars and Stripes in the famous picture (taken a day or so after victory and after the original raising of said flag).

Hi Issy, you know more about war than I do, having fought in one yourself. What surprises me is in the 77 years since Hiroshima no one has targeted another Hiroshima somewhere in the world.

If as Russia claims, all they want is for Ukraine to declare itself neutral, no EU and no NATO, then that seems to be a legitimate bargaining point. Then can Putin and the West be trusted to keep their word, that's the $64 question.

Paul,
Inflation has wiped out the $64 question.

Wonder what it is today?

Any guesses?

"The Ukrainian crisis is a wake-up call for the woke. For decades, the West’s cosseted elite lived like Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up. They didn’t want to make policy as if ‘solemn things’ like economics, energy, or defence were real. They spent their lives flitting between UN conferences in Neverland pretending anything was possible if only enough people believed in climate change."

Australia must strengthen its capacity to ensure sea lanes stay open. It cannot wait decades to build nuclear-powered submarines, it needs to buy them now and develop the capacity to maintain them. It also needs to rapidly increase its onshore fuel storage and refining capacity and it cannot allow coal-fired power stations to shut down early.

Ukrzaliznytsia joint-stock company provided the Armed Forces of Ukraine with 20 refrigerated rail cars for the removal of the bodies of the killed Russian invaders.
The company announced this in a statement, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"Ukrzaliznytsia was tasked with sending 20 wagons to take out the killed of the Russian army from the Fastiv, Odesa-Zastava, Podilsk, Merefa, Zaporizhia stations. The carrying capacity of one refrigerated wagon is 50 tons, that is, we can take out 10,000 killed of Russian soldiers of occupying army," the statement says.

According to the statement, at present the wagons are already at the stations waiting for full loading.

Ukrzaliznytsia is also developing regulations for the movement of such trains at a sanitary distance from other trains and settlements.

"These wagons will be used exclusively for the transportation of the killed invaders of the Russian army. The killed Ukrainian soldiers are evacuated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, without the use of the rolling stock of Ukrzaliznytsia," the statement says.

As Ukrainian News Agency reported, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claims that during the week of the war, the Ukrainian military killed almost 9,000 Russian soldiers.