Hacker News Reader

Comment by the-dude | Hacker News Reader

Meanwhile for Europe : U.S. imposes further sanctions over Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2021/11/23/Biden-sanctions-N...

Nord Stream 2 is done since a few weeks. Paper work needs to be done but it is naive to believe that it won't be used. That said, neither party is in a rush to start the pipeline, it will become more relevant in the future.

The US wants to sell its liquid gas. While I would prefer the US as a partner compared to Russia, this is just stupid banter and I think fracking should be minimized as a method for gas extraction (Russia and Germany do the same, although in a smaller dimension).

Can you please elaborate more regarding "I would prefer the US as a partner compared to Russia"? Shipping liquified gas with tankers from a place several thousand kilometers away seems like less eco-friendly alternative, to say at least.

When that partner is waging a hybrid warfare campaign against the EU, it makes sense to buy from somewhere else.

> waging a hybrid warfare campaign against the EU

tell me more, please

Don't you think this is a bit of a one sided view on the relationship?

It's realistic. Russia needs to sell natural gas to finance state activities, Europe needs natural gas to not freeze in the winter.

Russia can only play with natural gas diplomacy to Europe to a limited extent, because Europe is their main market and they don't move much into China (the PRC gets gas for cheaper out of the Stans, so not a great market for Russia). That's why Russia uses it pretty selectively against countries that are weaker (Poland, Ukraine, the Baltics). EU could counteract this by forcing a union-wide buying cartel, rather than letting countries negotiate working with Russia individually.

EU countries have been trying to get alternate routes up and running, but Russia has been pre-empting this with some maneuvering (any plausible route would go through Turkey, Syria, or Iraq)

I don't know about Poland and the Baltics, but wasn't it the Ukraine who wasn't paying bills / siphoning off gas?

What do you expect a supplier to do?

Russia is clearly willing to fuck with energy supplies for strategic reasons, like preventing a vigorous response to the invasion of Crimea, or future sanctions against Belarus, or whatever else. Building dependence on Russia is obviously a bad idea given their current leadership.

https://www.wired.com/story/russian-hackers-attack-ukraine/a...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_d...

Of course EU should be seeking energy independence, as US is also an unreliable partner (see Trump).

You just posted a link where there is a clear statement about Ukes not paying money for gas.

"Russia claimed Ukraine was not paying for gas, but diverting that which was intended to be exported to the EU from the pipelines. Ukrainian officials at first denied the accusation, but later Naftogaz admitted that because of harsh winter (lower than minus 30C) some natural gas intended for other European countries was retained and used for domestic needs."

If you want to pay for it - go ahead

From that Wikipedia article I take that Ukraine was not paying the bills and such. What do you expect a supplier to do?

Are you expecting landlord to kick out tenant when they are late in payment? Are you also expecting landlord to interfere with the domestic affair of the tenant and threaten to kick the tenant out when things don’t go their way?

> On 8 June 2010, a Stockholm court of arbitration ruled Naftohaz of Ukraine must return 12.1 billion cubic metres (430 billion cubic feet) of gas to RosUkrEnergo

So they stole billions of cubic metres, and let the conflict escalate to a lawsuit. That is not paying late, that is theft.

And landlords do kick you out when you are sufficient late in paying the rent. What would you suggest otherwise? Enter a relationship therapy with them?

This is a very selective take from all those Russia-Ukraine relationships.

It's clear now that Russia just wants to destroy Ukrainian independence and its culture. And it's using any possible leverage to achieve this.

Ah, thanks for your perspective which sounds totally objective.

Oh, it is less eco-friendly. Just in the current political situation the US is a lot closer to Germany than Russia.

I think the current conflict between Russia and the US is pretty stupid and a remnant of the cold war that has been rekindled for some reason. 15 years ago Germany had a vastly better relation to Russia and the situation was far more stable and peaceful. Return of aggression were almost unthinkable. All this has been destroyed by diplomacy of the last decade. I don't really care if it was Putin that needed to deflect from domestic issues or NATO that dabbled to deeply in Ukraine that ultimately lead us in this situation. Fact is that the situation vastly deteriorated.

But all that should be disregarded for energy policy. To get off coal, gas is the vastly superior energy source. Still a fossil fuel, but far less dangerous. Nuclear power cannot be brought up fast enough and there are political problems too.

Just a couple more comments/questions:

"US is a lot closer to Germany than Russia" - do you think that's natural, or more due to US lobby organisations such as Atlantik-Brücke ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantik-Br%C3%BCcke ) and other agents of influence?

"NATO that dabbled" - it feels like it would be more appropriate to say "US that dabbed". It was Victoria Nuland who was handing out cookies to "protesters" (and a lot of other shenanigans involving Hunter Biden, Westinghouse, selling junk vessels which point to that).

I think a trivial fact is that there are fewer language barriers. Doesn't guarantee a good relationship of course, but it leads to far more cultural exchange. Doesn't mean that you cannot have a good relation to Russia too. On the contrary, I think that could help right now.

I do think the Atlantik-Brücke is a vehicle to keep people talking to each other, but I believe the general reputation of the US in the population is relevant too. You hear much criticism of the US, but that is in my opinion because of the US position of hegemony.

Maybe the "US that dabbled" is more precise but there is a longer history in that region especially relating to nuclear disarmament. Even more precise would be the Bush administration I guess.

The EU was in to it : Guy Verhofstadt speaking to protesters in Maidan Square, Kiev

https://www.euractiv.com/section/eu-elections-2014/video/guy...

Van Baalen ( NL ) was there too, both were EU parliament members at the time IIRC.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com