Three Nord Stream gas pipelines damaged in one day(reuters.com) |
Three Nord Stream gas pipelines damaged in one day(reuters.com) |
We knew that this would be the result of sanctions on western tech and knowledge. I've met and talked a lot with a Russian/Khazak "oil engineer" (asylum seeker, hosted by my mom) and to be honest, his knowledge in thermodynamics was abyssimal and wouldn't qualify for "system dynamics 201" (loose translation, sorry) in my country. I know there was difficulty with the language but even mathematic objects (tensor specifically, he knew what a matrix was) escaped his knowledge. He was probably a very good plumber and technician, able to repair a lot of mechanical issues (he found work in a garage), but the fundamental seemed very shaky in my western view.
I think that if trully skilled workers left, and western monitoring and support are hit by sanctions, any issue like this is very likely to happen on its own and stand to happen more and more as the months pass.
How is the russian explanation simple? I mean, we all knew that Putin will pressure Europe with energy in exchange for a blind eye in Ukraine. But now, how can Putin even play that gambit?
-- Ian Fleming
One note can show good sound.
Two notes can show good intonation.
3 notes can show a sense of rhythm.
During the days and weeks leading up to Russia's move into Ukraine, the US rhetorized over and over again about Nord Stream. All the time the main issue was that the EU must not buy LNG from Russia, it must agree to USAs "energy dominance" politics and buy LNG from them and only them.
This is a way to make sure that when winter comes, the EU has nowhere to go for LNG but to the US.
It's getting more and more clear that the one major obstacle to true US hegemony is not Russia or China, it's the EU with its strict principles, laws and regulations, and that the US is working hard to wear down this resistance and force the EU into dependence and coerciveness.
That phrase doesn't mean what you think it means.
Clearly US psyops are stronger than anything Russia puts out because EU governments have been persuaded to participate in a crusade in Ukraine against their own economic self interests.
Making the EU kowtow to America may be in American interests but it certainly is not in EU interests.
I am not sure when this myth of Russia psyop dominance came from. Only seemed to become a thing after Hillary lost the election and Brexit. More likely source of blame for that falls on endogenous populism in reaction to economic and social changes in the last decade or two. Russia was not responsible for bailing out western banks while real wages stagnated and also was not responsible for widespread immigration and others consequences of globalisation and conflict in the middle east and Africa.
Reality does not correspond to the social media mythology that Russia has some how infiltrated western politics at a significant scale.
However, the blown pipes limit the movement of the German government. It is more stable towards protests if a cold winter occurs as there is no option left to appease Russia as the restrictions in the gas sector aren't a product of a revertible decision anymore. Being cold can't be ignored, which a war in Ukraine can be. In addition, any half-baked compromise Russia could offer accompanied by influencing Germany's opinion with gas isn't an option anymore.
In the end, this could even benefit Germany which lacks clear and brave decisions of its leaders. Not deciding if you want to evade the wall you are driving onto right or left eventually leads to crashing into it
It benefits however US interests: Germany becomes a more stable partner, no matter how this thing turns out. Currently Russia is blamed, so the German reaction is more severe. In addition, LNG prices are higher, but I don't think that was the main reason for that operation in the first place. Blaming the US, even if their responsibility is certain, in a time of crisis won't happen as a united front against Russia is still needed.
The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that Poland's interests didn't lead to such a operation. They have even more problems with high gas prices than Germany because they don't have long term contracts with Norway.
Do we really need to smooth "Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24"?
Wording chosen by the Reuters editor leaves unnecessary room for interpretation imo.
You do get how that's worse, right?
https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/27/23374819/meta-russian-inf...
Funniest thing is the cause for this Sunday outage - power company spokesman said it was caused by (NOT hot air) balloon crashing into powerlines!
So never underestimate coincidence (Bulgarian lottery) and/or incompetence, though it was most likely Americans, if we are serious.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32994573 pointing to:
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/quake-info/7054...
edit: never mind, seen it mentioned elsewhere this thread now. (but still...)
>"The Russians talk about these ships in this program doing bathymetric research and deep-ocean research, meaning they do stuff on the sea floor," Bryan Clark, a former US Navy officer and a submarine warfare expert, told Business Insider. "If they are doing research on the sea floor with a military submarine, they are probably also able to interdict or disrupt undersea cabling or other undersea infrastructure, like pipelines."
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-submarine-losharik-un... (2019)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_submarine_Losharik
UPD Thread from a submarine expert:
Germany has struggled to store enough gas storage for winter. They have told the public they have enough, however those estimates assumed a continued flow along the Nordstream 1 pipeline.
I suspect we will see additional oil/gas supply "mystery disruptions" to reduce Europe's willingness to support Ukraine and pressure Ukraine to accept a ceasefire along the existing front (which will defacto annex a big chunk of Ukraine to Russia).
It's going to be a cold and politically difficult winter in Europe.
This isn't true based on what I've read in German and Swedish news. Storage was filling ahead of usual schedule, already having enough to sustain through the winter. What we haven't got, in my understanding, is any buffer room whatsoever. What's your source that knows better than public service news here?
Edit: Here's a Bloomberg article about how you're wrong: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is...
It does make it hard for Germany and Russia to have energy trade, however.
Which makes it easier for the USA to sell its dirty gas in Europe.
"Fun" fact, mostly unrelated: the Baltic sea floor is full of unexploded munitions from WW2, and some (still?) contained chemical weapons.
It makes complete sense to put Europe in deeper hole.
One of the most impressive feats of pipeline engineering in the world and his inability to cooperate with other nations has catalyzed its destruction.
In some poetic fashion, it makes sense. A pipeline like this is symbolic of interstate cooperation. Not surprising it would not survive the breakdown of such cooperation that he instigated. When a state engages in medieval-style aggression, it can't have nice things.
[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/gas-leak-detected-near-nord-...
Maybe just a time sensitive maintenance task that was neglected due to current state of affairs?
Not impossible without further information, but in general the whole point of having multiple pipelines would be to isolate them from this kind of shared failure.
How can you suggest this with a straight face?
I assume the current mode of operation is far from the normal one, which probably brings a much higher likely chance of "edge case" malfunctions, but yeah just speculating here.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/02/27/r... ("Reagan Approved Plan to Sabotage Soviets" (2004))
- "At the time, the United States was attempting to block Western Europe from importing Soviet natural gas. There were also signs that the Soviets were trying to steal a wide variety of Western technology. Then, a KGB insider revealed the specific shopping list and the CIA slipped the flawed software to the Soviets in a way they would not detect it."
- "In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds," Reed writes."
Possibly the first software supply-chain attack in history? Before the term even existed.
"The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space," he recalls, adding that U.S. satellites picked up the explosion."
Also:
"When the pipeline exploded, Reed writes, the first reports caused concern in the U.S. military and at the White House. "NORAD feared a missile liftoff from a place where no rockets were known to be based," he said, referring to North American Air Defense Command. "Or perhaps it was the detonation of a small nuclear device." However, satellites did not pick up any telltale signs of a nuclear explosion.
"Before these conflicting indicators could turn into an international crisis," he added, "Gus Weiss came down the hall to tell his fellow NSC staffers not to worry."
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/who-will-rid-me-of-thi...
Why blow it up when the German governing parties and the largest opposition party don’t want to move ahead with Nord Stream 2 anyway?
US sees this conflict dragging out throughout the winter. They cannot afford to have EU nation states go back to Russian Gas.
I don't understand why wouldn't they want to perform this sabotage against their open enemies? Even openly?
I'm wondering why this didn't happen sooner.
They could sabotage their own if they really wanted to, or just switch it off.
The obvious answer here is going to be the correct one: it was Russia. Specifically Putin: Russia can be rebuilt on gas to Europe if it ceases the invasion, but Putin specifically won't survive such an event.
Ensuring his potential successor can't "make a deal with the West" is exactly his sort of thinking. With a side benefit of people asking questions like this right now (I mean, this is catastrophic for him long run, but so is the entire war so it's also on brand with his incompetence).
In that current favorable climate for anyone whose political goal it is that Germany does not rely on Russian gas I see no strategic value at all in sabotaging Nord Stream 1 or 2.
You don’t need to blow up Nord Stream 2 if the position of the German government and the largest opposition party is to not move forward with Nord Stream 2 anyway. That would only seem to unnecessarily complicate things (and sabotage can only ever really delay things, better to actually also have the political will align with your own).
Germany and several other countries have made plans to shut down parts of heavy industry to save gas for heating. This is more than likely to put increasing pressure on governments to give in to Russia's demands. Now they can't, even if they want to, so that pressure is gone.
No. These aren’t disabling attacks.
It could be a warning from the Kremlin; a false flag operation; internecine warfare; interference by the U.S., Gulf or private actors in Norway; or a pipeline built by the same corruption that shipped cardboard armour [1] doing what Russian-involved infrastructure does.
[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/nazk_gov/status/15019605885950156...
This "accident" allows Russia to turn up the pressure on Germany without formally exiting it's contract. It creates plausible deniability for when they pressure Germany to pressure Ukraine to accept a ceasefire.
There are no political alignments that would reverse that given that other options, such as allowing fracking again in Germany, are not even contemplated.
Did you not read the news in the time leading up to the war in Ukraine? US government and media was complaining more about Nord Stream than they were talking about Ukraine.
Indirectly anyone who is interested in causing mistrust among western countries.
My gut tells me this is the most likely answer. It would be a very Russian thing to do.
In that order.
However the current German government is highly atlanticist and was nowhere near reopening Nordstream 2.
So it would make little sense for such an extreme move.
It probably wasn't them.
*Important Note*: I absolutely don't believe this, just an amusing thought.
I encourage you to drop the definite article "the" when referring to Ukraine.
https://theconversation.com/its-ukraine-not-the-ukraine-here...
I've been hoping from the start that someone would sabotage the pipelines to remove the temptation. Guess I got my wish.
I think your best bet would be to deliberately snag an anchor around it, and then say 'whoops'.
This is absolutely sabotage.
Currently (and during the last decades) politics in Germany have been very stable and predictable.
Does it always have to be https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=55.61249... ?
It doesn't even show up there, because below 2.5 on the Richter scale.
No idea, certainly the HN spam filter isn't perfect. You can mail the mods and ask about/ask for it to be unbanned, in my experience they appreciate people reporting false positives to them.
Nobody said it wasn't a war. The whole world knows its a war. The only ones clamouring to make it more of a war, are the ones who stand to profit from yet more, endless war. Is that your intent? If so, consider this: we've had 30 years of this kind of rhetoric, from both sides.
We, who do not profit from this war in any way, would benefit from better language being used - by everyone.
I'm reminded of the worm that was injected into NASA servers back in the '80s that eventually made its way into DOE servers (creating a possible nuclear crisis because the DOE deals with two things: energy policy and the posture of the American nuclear response system). Direct initial investigation pointed to the worm originating from servers in France, but further investigation revealed that those servers had been compromised, and the likely origin of the worm was hackers in the Australia / New Zealand area. The likeliest catalyst for the attack: France's blatant destruction of the Rainbow Warrior in a New Zealand harbor. The attack ended up serving two purposes: bloody the nose of the Americans, who were (in the eyes of the attackers) playing fast-and-loose with nuclear payloads on NASA missions; and if their antics were discovered, embarrass the French with how easily their servers had been compromised. Essentially, a double-"don't fuck with us" via cyberspace from the Aussies or New Zealand.
I'm saying that the thing about being an armchair politico on a forum and not a member of an Alphabet Soup organization is that unless someone claims responsibility we won't know who actually did it until maybe a half-decade to a decade out when all investigations are concluded and the various international intelligence agencies and private journalists get the story straight.
They were very certain France hacked NASA until they weren't.
(Something like Biden's loose lips is only further cover for another cloak-and-dagger actor, state or private. Until and unless some country or group comes right out and claims responsibility, all manner of idea-tossing on this forum doesn't give us more than a well-shaped question mark on who actually did it).
EU gets cold, and the only way to heat up is to sit down with putin and make some sort of an agreement.
Now, someone destroyed the pipeline, and there's no incentive for EU and putin to make any negotiations, since the pipeline won't be fixed before the winter is over.
But the USA will get to sell overpriced gas to EU
Policy hasn't worked, in years. In spite of the US' worst efforts, Nord Stream was built and completed and could actually be used to peacefully engage in energy economy between Russia and Europe.
This alliance is intolerable to the USA, so: the last act was destruction.
Lets see, anyway. Evidence is going to be important on this case.
Because Russia every once in a while invades a part of Europe to carve off territory for itself, then holds the rest of the continent hostage by withholding gas during the freezing winter.
Why would you want peace with a country that is just biding its time before it starts it's next war?
When was the last time Russia invaded the EU?
2014, Ukraine
2008, Georgia
1992, Moldova and Romania
And of course the Soviet Union invading, occupying and brutally oppressing half of Europe after WW2 (including several countries now in the EU and NATO). Or have you forgotten? They haven't.
After all, we’d just continuously give him money and depend on his services for our wellbeing, choosing to ignore that he kills „some less important people way east”. Nothing to see here.
They wanted to cut the line to pressure the EU into pressuring Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire along existing battle lines.
Cutting production through an "accident" allows them plausible deniability to cut Europe's gas supplies without formally violating the contract and for restoration negotiations if the Ukraine question is settled.
Even if that wasn't enough, why would they choose to damage the lines this severely (flooding them with sea water)?
And I don't think cutting these pipelines changes really anything, they were hardly delivering anything at all, so just destroying pipelines won't really help them plus even if EU caved they can't supply gas because the pipeline is damaged, if they were really relying on nord stream.
> assumption
K.
So allowing the reserves to fill to 90% does not lose Putin the game, it gives him increased time to keep the citizens in suspense, thus creating doubt and confusion.
And it gives him money. War is expensive.
Pick your favorite search engine with those words for a source of your choice, it's in the press.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_...
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/491788609276608574/...
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51936534258_91f5217324_b...
Egg cartons in place of tank reactive armour may be on a schematic. That makes it no less useless. To say the Russian military is operating with top kit denies the battlefield reality.
My favorite story of Russians and armor plates was the dead Russian soldier who was found with his armor vest plate replaced by a stolen MacBook.
- what do you know about russian tank armor ?
> To say the Russian military is operating with top kit denies the battlefield reality.
Yes, but where did I say the opposite ? There are dozens of reports showing it's running on fumes, there is no need to ridicule ourselves by propagating factually wrong infos
Saying "X fact" about russia is wrong doesn't mean someone supports their action. We all know their army is shit and any semblance of proper troops they had died in the first few weeks of the invasion
[Citation needed]
The garbage Australian report that only looked at two hashtags (who even uses hashtags anymore?) doesn't count.
Really ? How naive can you be ? It's a communication war as much as a regular war
It's never all black or all white, if you can't understand that I feel sorry for you. The reality is bad enough, we don't need to swallow every bit of info coming out of Ukraine.
If you believe Russian tanks are filled with egg cartons because you saw a blurry pic on twitter I don't even know what to tell you. Once again, russia's army is rotten enough that you don't have to make up lies to make it look bad, there are dozens of reports that are _true_ and equally bad
Not the person you replied to, but let's test the theory this way: Can you list out some of the US/Ukraine propaganda? If not, do you think it's because the US/Ukraine isn't using propaganda or because they're better at it and you don't realize it's propaganda?
Both sides of this discussion seem unnecessary and loaded. It’s obviously a war. That shouldn’t need to be said. But once said, it shouldn’t be so vigorously fought.
> Like it or not, and intentionally or not, the language a person uses reflects their political positions, including their position on Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.
As a citizen of the United States, this whole issue seems ridiculous. It's remarkable though how a media and PR campaign, combined with social pressure, can change our lexicon practically overnight.
> There are exceptions, but these are the general principles that bind speakers of Russian and English.
These exceptions include collections of states (eg. the UAE, the US) and country names derived from regions (the Netherlands, the Congo, the Ukraine).
well, wait for the winter ... Germans aren't used to hardship and many more are critical for compromising comfort for Ukraine than Tagesschau and heute journal would like to make you believe.
It is not far away. There's Germany, then Poland and then war. We have refugees here and feel the impact on our day to day life.
Edit: And stuff has been shipped, too.
To sustain industry.
you must be an american, since they're the only ones who profit from all this.
So basically Europe will still continue to receive a huge fraction of Russian gas, but it would all run essentially through a war zone.
Western ukraine is not "hardly affected", it is affected. There are many refugees, probably everyone knows someone fighting in the east. You might look to fight in the east as well if you're in the right age bracket! Economy is shit and people are training to rotate to the front. Putin is waging a brutal war, killing and torturing ukrainians. There are air raid warning in kyiv, kyiv pride happened underground! Yes the government is corrupt, but we have to help them fight this monster.
It's also not an odd war, industrial societies maintain industrial capabilities to wage industrial war. WW1 was fought on the west in mostly static battles. Neither Berlin or Paris were affected by bombs, less than easter ukraine for sure! And they fought for years. Even in WW2 society largely functioned until the end in germany (if it was not bombed to shit!). It's interesting to see the logistics of everyday life near the end of WW2 in germany, you expect everything to end up in total chaos but everyone with a job just continued doing their job. Why not? dairy farmers still produced milk and shipped it off, and quite a lot of the railways worked.
We see ukrainian flags here in a small town in germany, recently they celebrated something in public (maybe their independence?) and we got into a converstantion, we have refugees starting to study here etc. Heating prices are through the roof and I can't really afford to heat my room, al because of this stupid fu*ing war. War affects you even if you don't have bombs falling onto your head! In whole WW2 only like two or three bombs were thrown onto the small city (~80k) I am currently living in. War doesn't mean everything is blowing up all the time.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ukraine-propaganda-war
https://www.nzz.ch/international/ukraine-die-kunst-der-propa...
https://theconversation.com/how-ukraine-is-adapting-the-anci...
I'm not even saying it's bad, it just is, I have a hard time understanding how people can't see it. Is it because "propaganda" as a bad connotation and nothing bad can be linked to Ukraine ?
Let's take these one by one:
>the Netherlands This is plural: the Low Countries. You are referring to a group, same as the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
>the Congo Which one? ... Exactly.
>the Ukraine Already discussed, referring to it as a region denies its sovereignty.
> Which one? ... Exactly
What can I say, English is weird. The Gambia does the same, in both cases referring to the region around a particular river.
I am not sure what you mean about 1992. If Moldova can be independent why not Transinistra?
Ukraine was subject to a coup and civil war. Right or wrong reacting to a coup is not the same as an unprovoked invasion.
Until this line it wasn’t clear whether you were deluded or actively pushing propaganda. Thanks for clearing that up.
Yes, but this way Putin can plausibly deny that it was a policy decision. Same with novichok poisonings: everyone knows Putin's pulling the strings, nobody can prove he did.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/putin-blames-germany...
Putin wants the pipelines open, because europe knows that the minute they sit down and reach a deal with russia, the valves get open, europe gets the gas.
Now europe is fucked, and even if local people protest due to cold, sitting down with putin won't bring back enough gas, so there is less incentive to actually make a deal.
But I'm sure USA will profit by selling overpriced gas to europe.
Nothing. Don’t need to. Whether designers put useless armour on the tank or a factory worker messed with a well-designed tank is irrelevant. The tanks were kitted with worthless armour.
That's how you sound right now
Ceramic armour resists bullets. Cardboard doesn’t block or deflect threats to tanks in any form. (It’s not even suitable for collision mitigation.)
Why do my plates shatter when I drop them then ?! if they can't withstand my floor how could they possibly deflect bullets ?!
> Cardboard doesn’t block or deflect threats to tanks in any form
Well then good thing there is no cardboard in their tanks. You really take a random pic from twitter as the absolute truth even though you were presented alternatives ?
Maybe another twitter post might help you then: https://twitter.com/russian_defence/status/91989519933319168...
It might be outdated, it might be shitty compared to western version, it's not cardboard and it is supposed to be like that.
But ok let's all dial down our IQ to 56 and pretend Oligarchs sold egg cartons to their army to pay their yacht, that's a nicer story to tell on TV news. "aha look at them funny corrupt russians and their egg cartons, russia dumb"
I’ve seen claims that this is for structural reinforcement of sandbags, which makes no sense on multiple levels. (Even if the tank armour can’t resist bullets, a premise which raises its own host of questions, there is better light armour. And even if one insists on sand, a requirement which raises its own host of questions, civil engineering has better solved the problem of immobilising sand.) Those claims also have zero history before photos of the egg cartons emerged, which isn’t unexpected for military kit, but suspect given Moscow’s tendency for ham-fisted retconning.
The broader point is, whether designed that way or not, it’s evidence of incompetence. If the people doing that built a pipe part, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it fail. (Though based on German comments, there is reason to suspect foul play.)
Yet you went for the "aha funny egg cartons how can they be so dumb" narrative instead of the "look they have a shitty army"
> Those claims also have zero history before photos of the egg cartons emerged,
Besides the literal tank specs and the tweets/websites I linked to from 2017 which was like 5 years before the picture emerged.
It's free to admit you were wrong and propagating false information, I'm not attacking you personally you don't have to be so triggered: they have a decrepit army: yes, they have egg carton tanks: no, as simple as that
The USA has long wanted to interfere in Germanys' relations with Russia and has done so, over and over, to ensure they are never true allies.
So, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume the US is behind these attacks.
> Biden: “If Russia invades -- that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine, again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,”
> Journalist: “But how will you do that exactly, since the project and control of the project is within Germany’s control?”
> Biden: “We will, I promise you, we’ll be able to do it,” Biden replied.
I don't want to play conspiracy guy, but the statement stuck in my mind since he said it.
China are another answer. If they can't get the gas, there is less incentive for peace so more chance of the conflict rolling on and distracting from their activities. Plus, more gas for them to buy more cheaply etc.
Chunks of the middle east as well, they want to replace Russian gas in European markets despite their higher prices.
The list really is quite long.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_submarine_incidents#Af...
Though I doubt there is any foul play here at all...
With this, even if they negotiate, there won't be any gas soon.
So, it's bad for russia, bad for eu, and the only one being better of is USA... who was threathened to do exactly this more than once.
This could range from a small group staging a false flag to push Putin further (he is a surprise moderate of the extremely hawkish Russsian elements) to a different small group staging some form of protest by sabotage .. to any other ridiculous scenario imaginable.
How naive...
https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/as-imports-of-u...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JW_Formoza
Not that I believe that would be orchestrated by the Polish gov.
No transit fees necessary for Nord Stream.
Under these circumstances, I'd much rather avoid being dependant on Ukrainian gas and would prefer Russian one every day of the week.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis... (definitely worth the read, gives some background information about why we see what we see in this russoukrainian war today)
Realistically.. even if they found an american submarine with "pipecutters" still connected to the pipeline, they'd say they'll do everything in their power(!!!)... and then send an angry letter to USA and replace an ambassador or two somewhere.
Wow Just wow. Ready to place responsibility at everyone but Russia's feet right? Such a blameless third party victim in all of this /s.
The pipeline itself was in good part Merkel's olive branch to connect Putin economically to the rest of the EU. The hope was that giving Russia more to lose would prevent these conflicts. Sure the US, among others, we're wary of this kind of interdependence.
Well, now we know how things shook out and we're all dealing with it. Germany from the back foot this round.
Now I'm not attributing any great foresight to naysayers (US among them), it was a nobel bid for peace on Germany's part and there's always a chance we'd be talking about the brilliance of deepening those connections with Russia.
But we can't.
Russia drove its tanks into Ukraine, nobody made them. They weren't under any great duress. Even the most unjustifiably charitable take of Russian justification accounts for what, just Luhansk and Donetsk? But they tried to take Kiev. Tried to take every bit of Ukrainian's coastline with the Black Sea through Odessa. Russia good out of it's way to poison their reputation here with conquest.
So what.. just a meaningless war in a meaningless country, a for the same reasons nato bombed yugoslavia in 1999 and noone cared.
Americans drove tanks to afghanistan, syria, libya, a bunch of eu countries helped them, nato forces are still in syria, and again... noone cares. Yes, some individuals maybe do... especially people living there... but not the EU as a whole.
But now, suddenly, while still having our soldiers station in eg. syria (i live in a small eu country, so we're not eg. france, that we'd had our soldiers occupying a bunch of african states), the media told us to sacrifice our standard of living, work, so the government can take money and send it to ukraine, to be cold, to not shower as much as we wanted, for what? A country that was just a few years ago was the most corrupt country in europe, full of nazis [0], and all the provocations were instigated by the US [1]? We should forget all this, fuck our livelihoods for some geopolitical shitshow?
Thank you, but no.
[0] https://i.imgur.com/mRAaOo0.jpg
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/ukrain...
It seems quite clear to me that in the short and medium term this ideological stance isn't going to hurt "evil Russian empire" a whole lot, while being extremely disruptive and harmful to everyone in the EU.
I don't know why people keep repeating this lie, do they want to support Russia so badly?
The real risk for Europe is a recession due to gas prices for industrial use - but that would mostly impact extremely rich places, like Germany.
Even with subsides and a social support net, we're still kicking the can down the road. The bill WILL come due and it's going to hit those who are poor and "lower middle class" the hardest, as always.
People are increasingly in need of food donations and financial support with skyrocketing energy prices. Similarly, donations have decreased and every charity in my country is running thin on resources. Elderly and other vulnerable populations are especially at risk here as they might not have the resources to even reach out for help and follow through any bureaucracy.
I don't support Russia, I hope they lose and dissolve into irrelevance, but I take a serious issue with the often-repeated viewpoint that brushes all of this suffering aside like it's not a big deal, only to claim that we are all too happy to lower the thermostat by 3 degrees and take some kind of collective stance that will meaningfully contribute to destruction of Russia.
The suffering is greater than most people are willing to admit, meanwhile its effectiveness is questionable at best. I simply don't believe that energy imports from Russia are what's keeping the war going in any meaningful fashion, something that we could easily change if we just stopped importing their gas.
I'd love to be proven wrong on this, but so far I've only seen handwavy explanations that don't amount to anything more than "every little bit probably helps".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy
It is a conspiracy.
Did you not read the quote?
Besides which, the US unilaterally gives itself the right to do these sorts of things at its own discretion on a regular basis.
I have no strong opinions yet in the argument over whether or not the USA conspired to sabotage the NS pipelines. I'm just here to point out that secrecy is not a required part of a conspiracy. The literal translation of "conspire" from Latin would be something like "to breathe together", insinuating a synchronization of movements, a plotting together.
But, in our world today, all conspiracies (both confirmed and theoretical conspiracies) seem to get bucketed together. And so in common parlance, as soon as a thing is publicly confirmed as actually happening, in most people's minds it moves out of the "Conspiracy" bucket into the "History" bucket. But that's just a loss of language on our part. As always, my go-to resource in recovering the meanings of English words is Webster's 1828.
But I'm pretty sure both US and various EE countries would not want to do that, leading to fracture and instability in EU and NATO in pretty critical time. For example people of Poland, which hosts literally millions of Ukrainian refugees would probably freak out if what they see as "rich west people" start complaining about money and ask for support for Ukraine to stop because gas is now expensive.
To summarise, we can't buy the Russian gas because they would ask us to do unacceptable things for it, and it would probably destroy EU from within. That's my take at least.
Also seems that someone is taking that choice away now, with blowing up Nord Stream.
As for the impact of sanctions and the energy war, I'm not an expert but I find Perun's videos pretty insightful - but I admit "hour long powerpoint presentation by military analyst on youtube" is pretty strange genre. This video touches on sanctions, economy and the energy war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce5TR-qWCk4
You're right I was pretty blasé about the suffering of people, and partially it's because I live pretty close to Ukraine, but still I shouldn't have.
