Putin orders Russian peacekeepers to eastern Ukraine's two breakaway regions | Hacker News Reader

Putin orders Russian peacekeepers to eastern Ukraine's two breakaway regions

reuters.com

221 pointskarencarits315 comments

What's disappointing is the response of european leaders so far. They have prepared a sanctions package against Russia which won't include anything in the energy sector! If not energy then what, Matryoshka dolls? and we are supposed to take them seriously :-(

Obviously not, as very successful anti-nuclear campaigning means all of EU is dependant on russian fossil fuels

Yep, one after another decision reeks of short termism. There's a dictator who believes the world as some zero sum system right at our borders and we are burying our heads in sand.

It seems odd that you use the term "short termism" in connection with a remark about the anti-nuclear movement, one of the major concerns of which has been the the multi-thousand year half life of fission waste.

short termism there is the fear of losing elections due to a misinformed populace. we should have educated people instead and embraced nuclear as the stop gap for the next 100 years while we develop all kinds of other energy tech.

I'm 58. Back at the "height" of the anti-nuclear movement in the UK (which I'd peg at about 1978-1982, that movement was full of educated people who chose to reject nuclear (fission) power.

The fact that you don't agree with them doesn't require you to suggest that they were uninformed or uneducated. I don't agree with you (mostly), but that just means that I've come to different conclusions about what is in reality a complex question.

They are directly guilty for the climate crisis, though. We wouldn’t have so much CO2 in the air if we followed the logical path to almost free electricity from nuclear.

> almost free electricity from nuclear.

It seems that you may have watched a few too many of the early promotional videos of the nascent nuclear industry.

Also, "directly guilty for the climate crisis" seems a little over the top. Sure, the anti-nuclear movement did lead us to generally not go down a path that would have helped avert or at least reduce the climate crisis. But the climate crisis was directly caused by the discovery and subsequent use of fossil fuels, not the anti-nuclear movement. That movement had what it considered a clear and present danger that implied that nuclear was not the right answer to replace fossil fuels. It is not a "logical" path to follow - the decision involves many tradeoffs and value judgements, and while I understand that you apparently would have resolved those differently, the anti-nuclear movement operated in good faith to try to avert what was at the time considered a much greater risk than climate change.

We might, or might not, ever discover if they were right.

> the anti-nuclear movement operated in good faith

They didn't - they never proposed anything to replace nuclear. The renewables success was unexpected and is owed entirely to the tech progress. They were pure luddites simply wishing to revert humankind to a pre-industrial state.

A comment which shows that you apparently don't know much about the luddites, who didn't want to "revert humankind to a pre-industrial state" but were concerned about the implications of technology and in particular the question of control.

The anti-nuclear movement at its peak was already after the soft/alternative technology wave that had started at the end of the 1960s and generally wimpered out by the mid to late 1980s. Maybe you and/or the mainstream were not aware of the suggestions, but solar (hydronic and PV) was already known, small scale wind and hydro were being developed, and groups like the New Alchemists and others were busy working on concepts that would eventually translate into stuff like Passivhaus construction. The renewables success was entirely expected by people who knew about this sort of thing. The movement (such as it was) at that time (and to some extent in its modern forms too, such as Extinction Rebellion, not so well known in the USA) was much more focused on energy use reduction rather than replacement of fossil fuels outright. There were plenty of tinkerers, engineers and starry-eyed folk who shared that vision, and quite a few have been involved in "the renewables success".

According to Wikipedia[0], Canada is able to generate 16.6% of their electricity from 19 commercial reactors and hasn't really had any noteworthy accidents (at least nothing that compares to something like say, Deep Horizon. Canada seems like a good case study for safe and effective nuclear power.

> Sure, the anti-nuclear movement did lead us to generally not go down a path that would have helped avert or at least reduce the climate crisis. But the climate crisis was directly caused by the discovery and subsequent use of fossil fuels, not the anti-nuclear movement.

It sounds to me like you're describing a trolly problem scenario where the nuclear industry pulled the lever to only kill one person and not five but then the anti-nuclear activitists pulled the lever back to ensure that five people would die and not one.

I get the impression from your comments on nuclear power that you are one of these anti-nuclear activists but you're experiencing some cognitive dissonance because you're realizing that the course of action that you support may actually have been the wrong one but can't quite admit it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Canada

Nuclear power plants have been shutting down because the companies that run them can make power more cheaply with wind and solar, not because of "anti-nuclear campaigning."

Wind is the cheapest way to make power, with solar being a close second.

> Nuclear power plants have been shutting down because the companies

Except that is demonstrably false:

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-ge...

But what happens if say, the wind doesn’t blow as much as expected [0]? Renewables are great but since you can’t easily bank massive amounts of power for later, you need some sort of reliable, consistent energy source that continues working when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Like gas or nuclear. But with nuclear plants falling out of fashion, guess what that leaves you with. Renewables are great but you can’t just ignore their downsides.

0: https://fortune.com/2021/09/16/the-u-k-went-all-in-on-wind-p...

There has definitely been extensive anti nuclear campaigning.

Wind and solar are great but they’re not dependable.

They are also way less reliable which is a huge disadvantage from the point of view of the state. And we're still far from having good energy storage (that is cheap, clean, efficient).

There needs to be an escalation path. Sanctions should always be able to get worse, or else Russia would no longer have anything to lose, and Europe won't have anything left to threaten with. Once in that situation it would be a recipe for a hot war between NATO and Russia.

Isn't saying that energy sector won't be touched a few days before Putin's latest declaration showing our hand too much though.

Don't those natural gas pipelines go through the Ukraine? Regardless of how they get destroyed, when they do, Russia will have everything it needs to justify a full invasion.

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/photo/europe-map/

Wasn't that the whole point of NS2, to have a pipeline that doesn't go through Ukraine?

Right. And that is why many in germany oppose it. With the recent developments, it might be dead completely.

It’s already complete, Germany is also opposing any economic sanctions that target Russia’s energy sector.

> that is why many in germany oppose it

Hm... why? Because the Germans, out of goodness of their hearts, want the Russians to keep dumping the annual $1.5bil+ transit fees into Ukraine? It's the same exact dependency on the same exact gas, just delivered through a bunch of countries each grabbing a cut, instead of directly.

Maybe because some of them (like here and everywhere) put sometimes ideology before the wallet. We're to see though how many and how consequently.

Easy to say for those who can absorb the higher energy cost. Millions of Germans can't.

I expect that Germany (the state) will shoulder some of those costs. But I'm not a German so I'll have to see what happens, because right now the project was officially put on ice.

NS2 has always been a carrot that Russia was never going to get.

This map is not current. It lacks NS1 leading from Wyborg, Russia, most eastern Baltic Sea to Lubmin, Germany, since 2011, right next to Rostock in the western Baltic Sea(in the scale of that map). And NS2 mostly parallel to it, with the exception of starting in Ust-Luga, Russia.

Maybe try https://www.gie.eu/publications/maps/ for a more complete view.

The last decade or so hasn't been enough an escalation path?

Russia knows exactly how to play this game though, especially with the cooperation of China. They know Germans, in particular, would rather give up all of Eastern Europe than risk harming their own economy.

The idea of an EU without a mutual defense treaty is so absurd

The idea of an EU defense treaty is also redundant after NATO.

The idea of a NATO is redundant after the end of USSR.

A defense treaty is never redundant. Case to the point.

Considering one of the "official" casus belli is that Ukraine might join NATO, is it?

That is quite clearly not true

Not true when two of the three muscular nato powers aren't in the EU

EU have the resources and manpower to be muscular.

Indeed, they could. But they don't have the structures in place to act it.

there already is one

but Putin would probably be pretty safe to assume that the germans wouldn't risk a war for a small part of Estonia/Lithuania (and then another small part, and so-on)

(and that's why no-one outside of france and germany wants the EU army to replace NATO)

> but Putin would probably be pretty safe to assume that the germans wouldn't risk a war for a small part of Estonia/Lithuania (and then another small part, and so-on)

Right. He's been carefully boiling that particular frog for a very long time.

The idea of an EU is absurd.

For the European continent to keep up with countries like the USA and China it makes absolute sense and I don't see how anyone could see it any other way other than Russia or a similar country that would love to see a weak European continent that would be easy pickings.

The axiom "we are stronger together" is only true if participants all want the same. That is not the case at all. They all have different priorities; different geopolitical views. Are you telling me that Israel should merge with the 20 states around it, or that Singapore should do the same, just because "it is small" ?

The idea that even two countries would ever "want the same" is absurd. They just need to have close enough interests. Most EU countries do, believe it or not.

Even the most pro-europe people here in europe would disagree and consistently complained about never finding consensus (needed by the 27 member states as per EU treaties). Eastern countries want 0 migrants. France, Germany, want plenty. Poor countries want common debt. Northern countries do not. France tends to be less Nato-aligned than Poland or others, who will sign-off anything Washington says. Germany and Netherlands want austerity. The "PIGS" do not. Germany wants commercial partnership to develop the European GPS. France does not: that explain why there is still no European GPS. Germany wants a strong euro that suits its economy as a massive exporter. This has destroyed the competitiveness of Spain, Italy, France. France, Italy, Spain, want an EU policy which favors their agriculture. Northern countries could not care less. France is a nuclear power, with a massive nuclear electric parc, which it wants to favor. Germany wants windturbines everywhere. I could go on like that for pages. In fact, studies have found than the eurozone is one of the least homogeneous economical zone.

Are you sure? Someone German would have to do the cheap labor in that case.

This time even China isn't on Russia's side, though: https://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-chinas-warning-against-a...

I think China (with the exception of Taiwan) likes to win economically and apply that sort of pressure. They don't want an invasion happy country sitting just north of them.

Of course they're on Russia's side. China knows they're next in line.

Russia is stuck playing the mid 20th century game

If you believe that something has changed in the methods of global politics since the mid of 20th century, then you haven't been curious enough to look at the state of the world beyond convenient western news coverage. It's still the rule of powerful and able, and it's not the power to produce and create, unfortunately.

The states who play these games have terrible economies to show for it.

doesn't seem to hurt Saudis much as long as their ruling classes can arrange meetings in the cabinets of the US and the UK governments.

You seem to be missing something key to this discussion.

The game changed in the mid 20th century with the rise of mutually assured destruction.

The extraordinary extent to which huge chunks of London and the political alt-right across Europe and the USA relies on Putin's (and other oligarchs') laundered wealth is really a brake on any ambitions that sanctions will work.

You can't stop Putin's illicit private wealth (he's probably the richest man in the world) spreading through the West because it already did.

There will be no co-ordinated all-party pushback against Russia in the USA or the UK, because big chunks of the political system of both are aware of the side on which their bread has been buttered for some time.

And a lot of alt-right figures who have spent years saying that it's a lie that they have Russian support, but at the same time that Putin is a strong leader the West can learn from, are either going to go silent, obstruct or outright attack any sanctions measures.

I don't just mean the obvious people. It's going to be very, very illuminating.

And that is before you look at the soft power issue of, well, exported power in Europe.

Aren't sanctions rather used to punish the people, until they rise up against the leader we want to get rid of?

In the specific case of Russia, and other examples in the last several decades, there have been specific attempts to direct most of the pain at the rich and powerful classes in the target countries. You could argue (somewhat cynically but perhaps correctly) that these represent the only demographic capable of pushing change.

Put more succinctly than I managed!

Yes and no -- current sanctions against Russia are aimed at illicit wealth, and they likely still will be.

Western governments will probably try not to use sanctions that primarily hurt the Russian people, because there is little hope that will work; Putin has spent a decade building an explicitly backward-looking, history-whitewashing kind of nationalism, and people might tire of that, sure, but he's also been very good at very publicly helping his opponents more fully experience the view from high windows.

Remember Don Jr's meeting with the Russians that was supposedly about adoption? It was actually the Magnitsky Act the Russians really wanted to talk about (they want it gone). He said as much himself, and it's clear that even the people advising the Trump campaign were decidedly chilly on the idea of getting rid of it.

Global Magnitsky legislation is why Russia is upping the ante. While I'm no scholar of it, I would expect the West to start with strengthened Magnitsky-type sanctions that prevent oligarchs from getting their money out before things go bad.

Because it is the oligarchs who can uproot Putin most quickly.

Putin is personally weak and isolated at this point -- clearly either clinically vulnerable or otherwise terrified of catching Covid, and distrustful of everyone around him. He's clearly acting more emotionally and less rationally.

Sanctions that target -- or isolate -- the wealth of his closest circle of oligarchs are more likely to get somewhere, because they will gnaw away at his sense of invulnerability.

Yes, and that has never actually worked, so recently there's been a change of tactic and new sanctions mostly target rich and powerful people and organisations.

This is often wildly overblown. Of 700 offshore companies found to own UK property, only 5% of them are controlled by Russians. Also of 94,000 properties registered as owned by foreign companies, only 4 were Russian.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60348046

Bilateral trade is more significant, uk companies own over £23bn in assets in Russia, and total Russian investment in UK companies comes to £11bn, but let’s put that in context. Russia isn’t close to being in the to 10 contries that trade and invest in the UK.

I said "London", not the UK as a whole.

An enormous number of high-value residential properties in London lie empty because they exist only as a store of wealth for Russian oligarchs.

Something like a fifth or more of the £4.5bn of likely illicit -- literally unexplained -- wealth stored in residential property in London is from Russian oligarchs. It's a huge deal because it is targeted influence; big landlords back the tories. Any really serious attempt to hit that wealth will see pushback in private.

https://bylinetimes.com/2022/02/18/startling-facts-about-lon...

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/oligarchs-and-unexplai...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35757265

This is a surprisingly pernicious influence on our politics. The current government have sat on a completed report into Russian influence in British politics for some time.

> An enormous number of high-value residential properties in London lie empty because they exist only as a store of wealth for Russian oligarchs.

Which is a shame because it would be better if they were put yo use, but it’s not a threat to the UK economy. No jobs depend on those properties. If there is a war and sanctions, we’ll, that’s why those oligarchs own those properties, to protect their wealth from Putin. They’re hardly going to sell up and move that wealth back to Russia, and if they did, so what?

These sorts of Russian backup plan investments are always trotted out as this spooky big dependency we have in Russia. It’s utterly bogus, fear mongering founded on a fundamental misconception of how economics and finance actually work. Hardly surprising as it mostly comes from Marxists. We do have economic ties with Russia through UK companies doing business there, that’s where the risk is because that’s where the jobs and investments in jeopardy are.

Money laundering is money laundering, so matter what jobs it might create. And the Russian oligarchy mob is a reality as well. So I'm not sure what kind of point is followed here... that one should accept their illegal stuff in their countries because, uh, whatever waves hand?

Rather than inventing an agenda for me from whole cloth, you could try just reading the comments I’m replying to and refuting instead to understand hat I’m saying in context.

Maybe I’m wrong, perhaps there’s stuff I’m missing. That’s fine, but please don’t just flat out slag me off like that please.

So already today there are criticisms of how weak Boris's sanctions are:

https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1496140100316639247

He's also blunderingly claimed Roman Abramovich is subject to sanctions, to make a load of noise -- and Abramovich has clearly threatened to sue, so he has desperately retracted.

His sanctions are as I expected, but thinner -- some notable banks, three oligarchs who may or may not have much money in the UK.

They will clearly let some people move money out of the country, and the Tories are already on the back foot, including from The Spectator(!)

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-s-sanctions-are-...

https://twitter.com/PeterStefanovi2/status/14963889675157954...

A reminder of who Boris's friendship circle includes, and his willingness to avoid scrutiny on the subject:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/26/boris-johns...

Here is the obvious truth: the London Laundromat is at least a serious enough problem that it casts a shadow over our ruling government and our politics as a whole; enough to question whether it has weakened us in the way the US believes it has.

> we’ll, that’s why those oligarchs own those properties, to protect their wealth from Putin.

By no means all London-investing oligarchs are on the run from Putin; several are close, like Roman Abramovich.

Other oligarchs could well be investing Putin's huge fortune on his behalf. Either way there is considerable concern over the long term corrupting effect of this capital (and its influence over those who cast a blind eye over its arrival, in the Tory party and elsewhere)

> Hardly surprising as it mostly comes from Marxists.

Not sure I bothered replying if this is your angle, mind you.

But here's a non-Marxist view of the threat to sanctions, enforcement, and corrupt influence presented by the London Laundromat:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_Britis...

The chair of that committee has announced he would seek election as prime minister if there's a Tory leadership campaign.

Here he is again:

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/uk-stop-russians-launderin...

To quote from that article, it's about Putin-adjacent cash: When the intelligence and security committee released its 2020 Russia report, it concluded - as many campaigners warned - that Russians who owed their fortunes to connections with President Putin and the Kremlin had embedded themselves in London assets using suspect money from the state.

Money is speech, remember. All that cash is influence, it's not just hiding.

Here's the US angle on our situation in the UK:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/russia-ukrai...

Here's the Economist:

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/02/04/...

Here's a discussion of pressure from a Lib Dem peer (hardly Marxist):

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/30/calls-for-uk-t...

> The extraordinary extent to which huge chunks of London and the political alt-right across Europe and the USA relies on Putin's (and other oligarchs') laundered wealth

in what way exactly is it more extraordinary than all these alliances with middle-eastern "governments" (or rather ruling classes) that are known to commit atrocities of all sorts, including local invasions and coups?

Well there's a lot of that money in London too.

But a fifth of the total of unexplained wealth coming from Russia -- a country that is not an absolute monarchy, should not have a "ruling family", and is down in the mid-seventies in the rankings of GDP per capita -- is kind of extraordinary.

This is not a wealthy small monarchy or a tiny little dictatorship, it's a large, poor country with an extraordinary, demonstrated level of kleptocratic exfiltration of wealth. A lot of it comes to London, and a lot of it comes to (mostly but not exclusively alt-right) populist, disruptive politicians and media figures across the West, through a variety of influence channels.

We're going to find out who those people are; some of them will surprise us, and some of them will not.

Finally, the topic is Ukraine, and unless I'm mistaken, kleptocratic middle-eastern monarchies aren't that interested in it.

Sanctions obviously isn’t a viable deterrent against Russia, so sanctions at this point is just giving the optics of action.

The underlying problem is no doubt the dependency on Russia for energy. Europe will have to fix this problem as soon as possible.

Sanctions targeting oligarch wealth (making it impossible to move more money out of Russia, or targeting Russian businesses in which they hold stakes etc.) might well work. As would international restrictions on the movements of oligarchs, politicians and their families.

It seems to me that this move from Putin is rather more unhinged than normal, and a lot of people around him will be looking for the exits. Denying them the exits so they have to stay home and do something about it might be a better strategy.

I think we will see some quite inventive sanctions rolling out from tomorrow.

They'd be doing him a favour if they target these oligarchs, and that's why they haven't done it yet. https://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/20/putin-urges-billionaires-to-...

The sanctions won't let them bring that money back at all -- they will likely prevent large transactions full stop, so oligarch money can't return.

It will stop them exfiltrating further wealth, and that ought to scare them enough when the walls start closing in, as they will.

There will come a time when Putin threatens an escalating global conflict and that is when they will finish him. Perhaps literally.

I think we could start now by freezing ALL known russian oligarch assets in USA, Europe and friendly countries and anywhere else we can persuade countries to do this. They are the only ones who can apply pressure to Putin.

Hurting and wiping out oligarchs would be a great favor to common Russian folk!

So then it's funny how it's clearly not a huge concern for him right now? I wonder why.

I mean, it's not like he makes today's announcement, and then says, oh snap, I didn't think of all my oligarch friends, they are the only ones that can apply pressure to me, I shall change my mind immediately.

They are the only ones in the country who have any influence on him and his attempts at expansion.

You're talking about possibly a trillion dollars there, much of it very well-embedded and passing through funds from banks like Deutsche.

It would be difficult to do this retrospectively with anything like enough speed to have an effect.

The fresh money they want to funnel out of the country before the roof caves in, yeah. And you can probably carefully target a few oligarch-controlled Russian businesses to make it difficult for them to find further legitimacy in the West. They will start doing that tomorrow, by the looks of it.

And there are probably a few visas that are due to be extended that might come under some scrutiny -- particularly in the UK, Spain and Malta.

Who cares how much it is? Just freeze it. I didn't say sieze it (yet) . This is their fault for coddling a guy who has progressively gotten unbalanced as he's gotten over. I bet Putin won't let any high level person (oligarch) scurry out of the country right now.

I don't mean it's too much money to freeze.

I mean it is too much money to quickly find to put a dent on things, and in most cases it is well-embedded in funds, buildings and and businesses who will be compelled to fight the government for proof.

Even proving that properties in London are owned by oligarchs is difficult.

Sure, there are unexplained wealth order cases in the UK that can be targeted, and a few existing prosecutions maybe, but in most cases this money has gone through some hoops, legitimate and illegitimate, to end up in its final form.

It would take ages; not something you can do quickly enough to stop an invasion because you'd need to show some proof it would have a rapid effect. The speedy thing to do is to block the new flows of cash, the running business and the people.

The renewable build out is what I would imagine is one of the causes of this, besides the geopolitical and keys to dictatorship angle.

Within 5 years, 10 years at most, Europe will have transitioned far enough to renewables that energy is a lost cause as geopolitical tool. Then Russia truly is screwed.

Some of the former countries in the Soviet bloc which more readily faced this issue of Russia trying to extend it's sphere of influence to them they already solved it through more costly means.

Lithuania and Poland did not build LNG terminals because they provide cheap gas, they built them as a costly hedge against Russian use of gas supplies for political purpose like seen with Ukraine in 2005, 2007 and 2009. Which people seem to have forgotten.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005%E2%80%932006_Russia%E2%80...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_ga...

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

> Then Russia truly is screwed.

Too early to say that so definitively. Russia is banking on a close relationship with China in that time frame. Looking into the future from here in 2022, that doesn't seem like such a bad bet.

Definitely, the problem is: What does Russia provide for China?

For energy, China is also all in on renewables. See this chart for what they are committed to building.

https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/average-annua...

What is the status of Russian exports outside of energy?

China is expanding in every type of energy they can get, including renewables. However, tanks and jets run on naphtha.

China is all in on renewables but they are still building new coal plants today. They need all the energy they can get to power their economy. Russia can build energy pipelines to China at will, and there is plenty of time over the next 10 years to wean themselves off Germany and Europe's dependence and ramp up China exports.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/12/china-co...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_Siberia

Timely joint announcement: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/exclusive-russia-...

From your timely joint announcement: "...to settle in euros."

Uh Oh!

Imagine China having an army / contractors which can actually perform operations and isn't scared of losses.

You keep saying "political tool", "geopolitical tool", but the articles you link to don't really support your own point:

> Naftogaz admitted it used some gas intended for other European countries for domestic needs

Translation: Ukraine was stealing gas that was transported to Europe, and they admitted it. Is that "political"? or just plain theft maybe?

Second article: > There is no consensus amongst analysts on who bore the most responsibility for the crisis

On top of that, the gas pipeline worked without fail for all this time, even through the peak of the conflict in 2014-2015. Why hasn't been this powerful geopolitical weapon invoked then?

Read the epilogue. During the Crimean annexation there was a lot of issues. [1]

Leading to the ultimate cutoff from Russian gas in November 2015. Ukraine now buys all gas as reverse flow from European Union states, while still of course having Russia pay transit fees for gas destined to Europe going through the country. [2]

Therefore everyone except Russia is happy, they lost the political tool of the gas supply in Ukraine. That is why Kyiv is not shut off today.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93Ukraine_gas_dis...

> Ukraine now buys all <Russian> gas as reverse flow from European Union states

Ok let me get this straight. Russia has been supplying up to 39% of all of Europe's natgas nonstop since 1973, throughout the Cold War, collapse of the USSR, 2014, and including the current everyday Ukrainian gas, which is also being supplied by Russia without fail (then reversed from Europe, to avoid outright theft), but somehow it's a very dangerous weapon. Ok.

Russia needs that European money too. It's 35% of their GDP and selling to Europe is more lucrative than selling to allies.

They currently have record gas prices, so it doesn't look like they mind selling gas. They sell gas to theirb close allies at ( almost) cost to reduce unrest.

Peak of the conflict was obviously not in 2015...

There are multiple reasons why he didn't do it sooner.

Here's one: https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/foreign-exchange-reserve....

Oh, but they do! The gas reserves have never been lower on the European side of the pipelines. That makes no financial sense at this time of high prices.

Yes. It’s a deterrent and a financial tool. “I supply you now, but what if I cut it off?” Also, gas means legitimate money moving in Europe to buy people with, look at the history of French or German politicians working for Russian gas interests. “Don’t do anything stupid and there’s a cozy consultancy position open for you at Gazprom”.

That argument applies to almost all trade in the world. China exports $452B worth of goods into the US, we should eliminate all this trade since it's a deterrent, otherwise we live every day under the threat of them cutting off the (clearly non-trivial and essential) exports at the most inopportune moment.

Oh but there were and are talks about exactly this Chinese point (also remember this guy Trump?). So we can keep our Russian worries as well.

Not to mention chip factories.

I think Putin knows that he has them and can cause them a lot of pain. France has been wise enough to stick with nuclear which gives them an edge over other Euro countries.

5 to 10 years? I doubt it.

Or they replace enough coal and nuclear plants with wind and solar they are completely reliant on Russian nat gas and peaker plants to make sure they don't have intermittent power outages.

> Within 5 years, 10 years at most, Europe will have transitioned far enough to renewables that energy is a lost cause as geopolitical tool. Then Russia truly is screwed.

Genuine question, how can Europe transition to renewables until we solve storage at city scale? Because to me until future tech the trajectory looks more like gas will be the ~50% baseline for decades to come (or nuclear).

With current tech you can get fairly easily (not necessarily cheap) to 80% renewables penetration in Europe. The rest of the 20% could then be covered by coal, gas, biomass and nuclear.

Mind you if the goal is to get Russia out of the European gas market, by greatly increasing the amount of renewables we use the rest could be supplied by LNG + Norwegian/Dutch/English fields.

It's not about transitioning to 100% renewable in this context, but about having a good enough supply of renewable energy to be more independent.

Are you talking about any specific part of Europe? In Sweden I think natural gas is supposedly something like 3% of totalt energy expenditure, although it is important for heating in some areas and dearth would affect that a lot i assume.

Europeans need to proudly wear jackets indoor for a winter to really show some consequences

We should have used the opportunity for something like Minsk II. The current strategy of threats is clearly not working.

The US relies heavily on Russian oil [1]. Why the sole focus on European imports from Russia?

[1] https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-is-the-u-s-still-i...

At the same time, the US is energy independent https://news.yahoo.com/u-now-energy-independent-174226538.ht...

Even more shocking then that they are buying massive amounts of oil from Russia, thereby filling Putin’s pockets, no?

The US is technically energy independent thanks to shale oil but, unless my knowledge is out of date, the shale business is only dabbled in by the big oil companies that own the vast majority of the big refineries in the US. Shale oil is dominated by smaller more numerous companies, it can scale up and down lightning fast by oil extraction standards, and it needs much less refining than most other sources of oil so the big oil companies import oil from all over to employ the refineries and due to their international entanglements. So there is the strange import export dynamic because there are two camps with broadly different incentives and a really complicated market.

That’s interesting but it doesn’t answer the question why it’s okay for the US to do business with Putin but not for the EU.

If the US sanctions Russian oil, gas prices in America go up slightly, and the difference will be made up by sourcing from other countries or scaling up more shale drilling. Politically speaking, it is something American politicians will be able to risk more than German politicians can risk shutting down something like NS2, since without it and NS (which passes through Ukraine), gas cannot reach Germany, which is why Germany has vehemently opposed sanctions on NS2. Germany hasn't even bothered constructing any LNG terminals[0], something which Poland and Lithuania specifically did in fear of Russian aggression. Yes, there aren't American sanctions on Russian gas/oil yet, but that's something that's entirely able to change.

[0]: 'Plans for construction of first German LNG terminal plagued by delays and uncertainty' https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/plans-construction-firs...

You write that without NS and NS2 gas cannot reach Germany. This is incorrect. Only about third of German gas imports are from Russia. 31% are from Norway, 22% from the Netherlands, and the rest from other sources. Gas from Norway and the Netherlands does not enter through either NS or NS2.

Perhaps, but the real question is how easily can Germany make up that difference. From the way German politicians have reacted over the past years on matters pertaining to Russian gas, the implication seems to be that there's a genuine fear that there will either be gas shortages or severe price hikes.

We just use the ones in Belgium and the Netherlands. (Zeebrugge/Rotterdam)

HONK, HONK, PDF-warning! https://www.gie.eu/publications/maps/gie-lng-map/

What do I see? Pipeline to me! Whee!

Singing voice: "So connected, totally unexpected..."

kthxbaiii

> why it’s okay for the US to do business with Putin but not for the EU.

I was attempting to answer why the US imports Russian oil at all given we have production capacity to meet our needs. The wisdom and morality of doing business with Putin is another matter.

Presumably when it comes to a global commodity like oil, all independence means is "potentially capable of supplying enough to meet your own demand".

Europe depends on Russian energy to keep the heat on in winter.

US refineries have replaced sanctioned Venezuelan oil with a Russian type bumping them up to a very respectable 10% of oil imports.

The US is also responsible for its own security, not the other way around.

> US refineries have replaced sanctioned Venezuelan oil with a Russian type bumping them up to a very respectable 10% of oil imports.

Nothing but political will prevent US to allow Venezuelan oil back. Also, Iranian oil. Both have similar composition to Russian Urals brand.

If you sanction all around, there will be rebound. Sitting there alone, all the sanctioned sing loudly, AHARRRHARRHARR! Rot on your throne, proudly.

The US is really not reliant on Russian oil or anyones for that matter.

It still imports from Russia but those imports are private deals which are conducted simply due to market conditions.

There is no strategic import of Oil or any other petroleum products from Russia.

> response of the european leaders so far

Sorry I’m un-knowledgeable, but what do you say to the following, well-known argument?

“What would USA say if Russia installed missiles in Cuba? / What did Russia say when OTAN envisioned including Ukraine and thus installing missiles there? / Therefore, isn’t the solution to simply abide by the 1991’s USA promise of not taking foothold in the states bordering Russia?” ? I’m unable to judge this idea with my knowledge.

What if people living there _do_ want USA's (or West in general) foothold? Is their opinion less important than some politics done over their shoulders?

There was never such a promise. Russia is not entitled to a "buffer zone" of subdued neighbors.

US and Britain promised a lot and delivered practically nothing.

This one is on them. No one even asked them to fight, but they did promise to defend Ukraine in exchange for nukes. So there was zero reason not to hit russia with crippling sanctions a month ago.

But hey, promises are made only to be broken.

So much for the Budapest Memorandum.

There is a major opposition to crippling sanctions from some of the European powers primarily Germany and France.

The US cannot risk implementing sanctions that will not be followed by its partners as at that point it would have to sanction European entities too or back down either way it loses.

Europe opposes sanctions that broadly target the Russian economy especially its energy and financial sectors.

Germany and the rest of Europe is still going to be buying a fuck ton of Russian gas and limiting Russian banks and financial institutions isn’t going to pass Germany as its banks have been issuing a lot of loans to Russian institutions and they still want to get paid.

With Russia’s Escalate to Deescalate doctrine specifically around nuclear weapons any armed conflict is impossible. And since Europe pretty much has its hand in Putin’s trousers sanctions would also be minimal in scope.

In fact I would bet on that no new sanctions would be put forward unless Russia goes outside of the “contested regions”.

The West has pretty much accepted that the “breakaway” regions are now “Western Russian” and Ukraine is going to be completely screwed over by its so call partners just like Georgia.

What are you saying? We flooded Ukraine with weapons. We did the maximum extent possible without actually causing world war 3.

We didn’t, the US has declined transfer of many weapon systems including Patriot and other air defense systems to Ukraine.

The US has supplied them primarily with small arms and man portable anti tank weapons.

The Ukrainian armed forces aren’t rolling in M1 under the cover of Apache gunships and F-35’s…

Even if they had the money for it no one would sell them any weapon systems you can’t pretty much buy on Gunbroker.

European leaders are bought and paid for. The ex-chancellor of Germany is on the board of Rosneft:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-rosneft-board/russ...

The same Chancellor who initiated the German nuclear phaseout, thus embedding European reliance on Russian gas.

His ties are questionable but they would actually be useful instead of the hotshot idiots now putting their weight into the dialogue. At that time the relations to Russia were far better and it would be desirable if they return to that. Especially for safety concerns. But after 9-11 Russia had to be tamed in the context of the war on terror. The connections of Schröder predate that.

Easy answer (benefit of the doubt), they are playing for time till winter passes and less gas is needed to heat the homes.

>What's disappointing is the response of european leaders so far. They have prepared a sanctions package against Russia which won't include anything in the energy sector! If not energy then what, Matryoshka dolls? and we are supposed to take them seriously :-(

Oh yes, they will talk tough but will ultimately not do anything at all. Sanctions will target nothing intentionally.

I'm certainly not saying I believe it but the conspiracy theory goes... Putin, Xi Jinping, Boris Johnson, Angela Merkel/Scholz, Jacinda Ardern, Eman Macron, Justin Trudeau, and Scott Morrison are allied against the USA. With some other smaller allies.

Biden's warnings about imminent war in Ukraine, I thought was warmongering. What US president hasn't war mongered since I've been alive?

A week ago I did not consider this to be anything but a conspiracy theory. The current state of affairs in the last week? I am open to listen to more evidence.

Regardless of the conspiracy theory, sure does seem everyone is about to dunk on the USA.

We are also due for a massive bloody conflict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...

To edit my first post, Democrats have been calling bloody murder against the Russians for how long? Russians are who took Snowden, Russians are the ones who hacked the DNC to reveal Clinton. Democrats assert Trump is controlled by Russia. It seemed all so farfetched.

The moment Putin crossed border into the Ukraine... Putin is the aggressor here. ok well I'm listening to the democrats suddenly.

As a Canadian, boy am I ever uncomfortable finding myself seemingly at odds against the USA.

I sure hope the republicans can open discussion with the democrats over this.

That the Russian government is characterizing these personnel as “peacekeepers” would be a fair statement, but to regurgitate that characterization in reporting on the matter seems rather less credible.

separatists are “fair” peacekeepers?

Parroting obvious government horseshit with a straight face is part of the job of news organizations. They don’t call the US/UN puppet government in Somalia or Libya puppets either. They call them UN approved transitional governments.

If a transitional government is UN-approved, meaning it even survived UNSC rounds without any of the five veto powers objecting, then it’s ridiculous to call it a ‘puppet’ government.

The US does not control the UN.

Of course they do. Where was the UN when Iraq was attacked?

The same place it’ll be now: Unable to substantively act because by design the five veto powers effectively neutered the ability of the UN to act against them.

The US is just one of the five, the UK, France, Russia, and China are the others.

Why do you think no UN action was taken against Russia for annexing Crimea and invading parts of Ukraine in 2014? Or against China for its treatment of the Uyghurs?

None of this means the US ‘controls’ the UN though, any more than the other four veto powers do.

It’s all just show. Forget the rules. America runs the world, does whatever it wants and ignores the UN as it pleases. When other countries do it, they get sanctioned or bombed. And Russia and China are out to change that unipolar world, cause America is out of control. And has been for a long time already.

On September 16, 2004 Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, speaking on the invasion, said, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN Charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."

And still, it's Russia invading its neighbors, not America.

Oh really? And how many countries has the US invaded already? Not to mention the ones it subverted to force their worldview on them.

Why apply double standards here? There's no good vs. evil. The world is more complex than that.

Because it's in the aggressor's interest to point out the failures of others and scream: they did it too.

But I lived under both and, while there are no angels, I know which one is evil and which one is (flawed) good. Only one had to keep their people from fleeing their empire of misery with walls and guns.

True that!

Edit: Removed everything else because I can't delete. I should know better than to comment on a political thread on HN.

It might be less biased than some, but it does have bias.

If only that were true. But if you read Reuters enough you see they have a bent. Journalists always have a choice on at least which quotes and aspects to include

Though I admit they are rather good at pretending to be professional, except their ads.

Yeah they should've called them democracy promoters

At least now Russia is dispensing with the fiction that there aren't Russian troops in these regions that Russia has been annexing for the past seven years.

That's because the Novorossia republics are now recognized as sovereign states by Russia.

> now recognized as sovereign states.

By one country: the one invading Ukraine and annexing them.

It does say "recognized as sovereign states by Russia"

I guess you have to start somewhere. No UN members recognize Liberland, and one is greater than zero.

Zero to One

Probably Syria soon enough, too.

I am not punching you, I am just killing an invisible deadly spider sitting on your face... multiple times, so be grateful.

For me, I've watched Russian Foreign office officials on UK news programs adamantly deny any possibility of Russian troops entering Ukraine and even accuse western governments of orchestrating the notion to discredit the Russian Government...

I can certainly see who has no credibility now..

The Russian disinformation is an interesting thing to behold. A lot of blatantly claiming black is white. And if you point this out the attitude is more - how can you be so naive as to worry about that - than embarrassment.

They have a different sort of credibility in that they do send in the troops and kill/poison/imprison people maybe more than the west.

It seems more like dealing with a mafia protection racket - they may say they are nice people who just want to protect your business but their credibility comes from violence rather than being honest in what they say.

LOL at "peacekeepers." He is essentially saying that this is Russia now, so that he's only deploying internal security personnel.

Most sad thing to me is that millions of people around the world were protesting for example when the BLM was started. In countries which are far far away from US, don't even have black community, people were lying on the ground next to the embassies, screaming "can't breathe", but now I don't see the same people supporting Ukraine, by pushing own governments to make more pressure on Russia.

One big difference is that something is being done. It's just economic sanctions, so far, and that's not much, but at least it's something.

The BLM movement was protesting something that had been ongoing for decades, and had finally become absolutely undeniable with grisly film footage, but there was still nothing being done. That made it ripe for people around the world to demand change.

I sure wish the entire would would be doing something similar now, to isolate Russia. There's an unfortunate symmetry that people expect the US government to improve, while they treat more dictatorial governments as "eh, they won't change, so why bother"? The US has absolutely made itself look awful by failing to respond to a long and increasingly well-documented history of police abuses -- as well as invasions -- but people protest because they expect it to do better.

Other countries are responding to the Russian invasion, and it seems like people are using that in place of letting their personal views be known.

With Russia things are also going for decades. Whole nonsense with Ukraine started 2014 if I'm not mistaken. Since Soviet union failed, they are being bullies all the time. And now apparently something is done? Before 1939, England and France probably also though that they are doing something. What will happen in the coming years between China and Taiwan.

To me, nobody does anything. Maybe response is stronger than few years back, but I bet it will end same like with Crimea, and live will go on. Germany will approve Nord Stream 2, and the live will go on, till Russia decides again to bully someone ...

So, what do the citizens say about it? People who actually live there, are there any reliable polls regarding their preferences as to which country they prefer?

Edit: No idea about Lugansk, but for Donetsk Wikipedia quotes some polls from a couple of years ago, and they seem to noticeably favor Ukraine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donetsk_People%27s_Republic#Re...).

Being pro-Ukrainian is super dangerous in separatist-controlled regions. Some people has died or has been tortured because of this. I think that most of the people from this region that openly supported Ukraine are now either in Ukraine or jailed/dead.

Only polls with the smoking barrels. Lol, it's so ridiculous how actually far western people are from the wild reality of Russia. So naive.

You can see live streams from the cities... They have a lot of fireworks going on right now.

I bet the polls will show overwhelming support - after 8 years of wall to wall Russian propaganda and extermination of opposition most think Putin is their savior from Fascist Ukrainians. (Source: I have relatives who still live there)

   import Russia
   from Ukraine import * 

   regions = [ Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk ]
   while Russia.gas_flows():
       region = regions.pop()
       russia.annex(region)

Might be a premature optimization at this time, but you might as well add all former soviet + former yugoslavia to that list.

Germany should never have shut down many of its nuclear plants to become reliant on Russian gas. Buildout of new nuclear and SMR as soon as possible, and declaring nuclear as green energy should be prioritised. Wind and solar is not enough to stabilise the grid without storage technology.

Love the use of "peacekeepers" here. It seems so aggressively bullshit here but on the other hand myself and most people wouldn't blink if the US did the same thing.

Nations love pretending these kinds of things. It's like how, when the US sent 500 Special Forces troops to South Vietnam in 1961, we were only sending "military advisors!" Somehow, the number of "advisors" was 11,000 a year later. That's a lot of advice.

We called one of our ICBMs a peacekeeper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-118_Peacekeeper

Quite interesting chess, Russia playing the USA/UK game. Curious to how it works, just recently USA wanted to split Syria but it didn't quite work out

Still I don't like countries getting split, seems quite unacceptable unless most of the whole population agrees

NATO should just agree to back-off, leave Ukraine neutral as a peace buffer. What interest for security there is for NATO to still keep expanding? That is what started the tensions in the first place

Whose "interest of security" are you referring to? If it's the security of Eastern European countries like Georgia and Ukraine, it's self-evident that counties would want to join NATO. If it's existing NATO members, there may be a general interest in expanding to countries who are under threat by the country that caused NATO to be formed in the first place.

Blaming this situation on NATO is like shooting someone with a gun and then blaming them because they bought a bullet proof vest because they were concerned that you would shoot them with a gun.

The Georgia invasion happened for the same reason. NATO invited Ukraine and Georgia in 2008, they were never under threat before. NATO should just leave countries on Russian border as neutral

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Bucharest_summit

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

But I am sure after invading the entire Middle East NATO members are running out of countries to feel threatened in

I had hoped it was chess because if so then we aren't dealing with an unhinged maniac with his hands on a thousand nukes. But this action seems so dislocated from what's in Russia's interests that my hopes are looking dashed. Putin can invade Ukraine and turn Russia into North Korea. Or he can settle for the two regions and further push Ukraine into the hands of NATO. Either way, Russia has lost. These are looking like the actions of an ideologue, which is a really not good sign.

I hope there is more than mentioned ban on investments in those territories, because no one has been investing there anyway for decades.

Believe it or not, there were McDonalds branches in Crimea.

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/mcdonalds-c...

McDonals are franchises. They could be local capital paying a fee to the Americans. So kinda of a reverse capital investment.

Not all of them, at least not everywhere. There are so called 'Company Stores' directly operated from the 'Golden M', or its international subsidiaries, which are not franchised.

The return of the "little green men"?

In all seriousness, it worked last time. What's stopping him from trying again?

It didn't work last time. Last time everyone knew the were Russian soldiers or mercenaries. Ukraine didn't oppose them because a) they held a key road (a bottleneck, really) into Crimea and b) significant parts of the Ukrainian military on the peninsula defected to the Russian side. This time, there's no bottleneck and there will probably be no or only few defectors. This time, it's going to be a shooting war, sadly.

It worked in the sense that Russia secured Crimea without serious consequences.

When an authoritarian lies with impunity, that is a triumph for the regime, not a defeat.

That sounds a lot like it worked last time.... Not saying it'll work this time, just pointing out the pikachu factor is high here

> pikachu factor

Oh, please explain

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/surprised-pikachu

Common internet meme about being surprised when the totally predictable happens.

Nah, it did work out quite well.

The comparison isn't far off. The distinction however is that Russia is acknowledging that the forces they are sending are indeed Russian troops, rather than hiding behind the fiction that they are local separatist paramilitary.

Instead they are hiding behind the propagandistic "peacekeeper" framing.

I've listened to the discussion in Russia's Federation Safety Council where Putin, heads of government, parliament, security services, army has been discussing recognition of Donetsk & Luhansk

There's one important point that has been explicitly mentioned (if I'm not mistaken, by Medvedev)

"We got sanctions after operation in Georgia in 2008, but some time has passed and they started talking to us and working with us again"

Their expectation: an offence against a neighbouring country generates not more than some sanctions that would be removed soon.

It has worked like this in 2008. Why wouldn't it work now?

link?

I've listened to this live stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7jQLFhfJr8 01:24:50

I will be editing this on an on-going basis.

To my understanding:

1. Russia declared two regions of a whole country--Ukraine--sovereign.

2. Russia is moving its troops into those regions on the premise that the citizens of these Ukraine regions seek sovereignty.

3. Sovereignty is valid only if other countries recognize it.

4. Russia recognizes these regions as sovereign.

5. All countries who are not Russia--or at least members of NATO--recognize Ukraine. Borrowing from regex, let's refer to the latter group as `NATO+`.

“Peacekeepers”

An invading force, because the failure to respond appropriately to their earlier invasion embolden them to invade again. This is exactly what happened in WW2.

> "Peacekeepers"

Orwellian language already won: "war is peace"

The invasion has begun. And all countries sitting and watching are accomplice.

et tu nickpp

A little bit of context of Putin's rule:

1999 - Chechen war started.

2008 - Abkhazia and Ossetia in Georgia.

2014 - Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

2022 - Eastern Ukraine finalization.

Also add supporting corrupt and destructive politicians in US and EU.

Also add murders of his opponents around the world.

And I'm not even talking about the destruction of civilized human laws and relationships in his home country.

> Also add supporting corrupt and destructive politicians in US and EU.

Have the western leaders begun properly investigating the Bidens and their ties to Ukraine's Burisma? What about their extended family members dealing with the CCP?

- father, where does Russia end?

- there, where they start hitting you, my son

What an absolute failure of a headline.

The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:

We must suffer them all again.

A NATO alliance that is an American puppet and following American interests is dangerous for the stability in Europe. Europe should take more responsibility for it's own safety.

> A NATO alliance that is an American puppet and following American interests

please explain

Well, maybe if they stick to occupying the new areas that won't be so bad. It could even be more peaceful if the 'rebel forces' stop attacking things.

What is the endgame here for Putin? It seems like for the most part that no one is going to do anything to stop him.

He said it himself in his speech: He does not consider Ukraine (the whole country) a separate nation, but rather a lost piece of Russia which he intends to "reunite" into his nation.

The endgame is first buffer zones against the West around Russia, and if possible, restoration of the pre-USSR Russian Empire. That's what Putin says, and it's consistent with his actions.

First South Ossetia, then Crimea, then Belarus, now Donetsk.

I would say Kazakhstan next, but China is heavily entrenched there so dunno about it.

I don't get why Russia wants a buffer zone. Russia is huge and has proven time and time again that you can invade but you are just going to be destroyed.

Access to the Caspian sea, sure. Oilfields, sure. But the one thing Russia doesn't need is more land.

Historically, food. Ukraine has a good climate for agriculture and large flat areas with water, like the American midwest. Most of Russia is marginal for agriculture.

Russia wants to permanently block Ukraine's entry into NATO. By holding on to disputed territories indefinitely, they can make that happen. See also: Russia support of Georgia's breakaway territories after Georgia was inching closer to NATO membership. This is the exact same thing with the exact same playbook.

I don't get how capturing these two territories can prevent Ukraine from getting NATO membership. Won't this make them want it even more?

It would certainly increase pressure on the rest of the country (and other areas in Europe) to join NATO, but the immediate effect is an abandonment of NATO aspirations due to the territory conflict. Georgia was essentially on the cusp of receiving an invitation to join NATO when Russia invaded and now holds what amounts to a 'veto' card to hold off their membership.

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/nato20-2020/e...

There are still voices calling for Georgia to maneuver into NATO, but in 2022 it seems much more unrealistic compared to before the 2008 invasion.

no one is insane enough to accept a half occupied country into a defense pact. that would automatically mean nato has to either declare war on russia or break the pact.

Sure. Unfortunately NATO won't accept them as long as they have territorial disputes with another country.

Short term the US should have given Ukraine their own nukes and Russia would have backed of.

Make a friendly Ukraining nation, or if that fails (maybe that already failed), then annex Ukraine to Russia.

His endgame is to keep NATO out of his borders and ensure the loyalty of his subjects (Belarus, Ukraine, Stan countries etc...)

In this recent turmoil, he used Belarus to move troops. If Belarus was not a loyal subject, they'd not have allowed that. It would have put him in a weaker position in the case of a full-on war.

These regions have unilaterally declared their independence since the 2014 revolution/coup.

In that sense the only thing that is new is the official Russian recognition.

It's a messy situation. According to the census on wiki only 1/3 are of Russian ethnic background. Does that mean only 1/3 supported the breakaway from Ukraine?

You can't help but to make comparisons to the Sudeten Germans and the like. "Peacekeeping missions".

Those regions didn't declare anything in 2014. Just like Crimea. They were taken.

Literally the whole world knows that.

Source?

history tends to repeat itself. When Moldavian nationalists tried in 1990-1992 to clean the west bank of Dnestr (future Transnistria ) from Russians and Ukrainians, the Russian and Ukrainian volunteers were fighting there together. The Ukrainian forces were mostly from Ukrainian nationalist organizations OUN-UPA. These organizations were core to the Ukrainian volunteer battalions which tried to pacify the Donbass in 2014, and naturally a lot of Russian volunteers opposed them (some people who fought each other in 2014 were even fighting together back in 1992).

Unless I'm missing something, this seems to match the definition of invasion given by Biden the other week and should trigger the hyped up draconian sanctions.

A bit off putting how nonchalantly people are asking for economic sanctions on a population of 144 million people that are already quite poor.

Not defending Russia here - but let's be more mindful of the fact that there are other human beings at the other end of the stick.

Interesting point. How would you resolve this chalantly? 144 million people who probably will struggle to purchase their next iPhone vs 44 million people many of whom might die, loose all property and homes. What is a good way to resolve this in your opinion?

Sanctions are mostly targeted at Putin's companies and camarilla.

I think all of this started when Ukraine started to use Baykar Bayraktar TB2.

Disappointed in Europe at the moment. Putin knew sanctions would be endlessly pushed off as "still trying to achieve diplomacy". He called the bluff.

Putin made it 100% clear he does not want Diplomacy. He wants a victory by conquest. He wants war. He doesn't care how far he has to take things to get it. Anyone who listened to his bizarre rant on Ukrainian "history" can see this.

What the hell is NATO waiting for? "Okay, but if you kill another thousand civilians, we're REALLY going to start thinking about those sanctions!" seems like the defacto mode of thinking right now.

2022 shaping up to be a disaster.

NATO has settled military bases in all of Eastern Europe, despite promises from the early 90s that no country from the USSR-block would join NATO. By gradually pushing its pawns all around Russia, NATO (meaning the US) is as much responsible in that crap as Putin is. How many Russian bases in the Carribean, in Canada, and in the Pacific ?

NATO is a defensive treaty pact. Putin alone could end this. Russia is not being actively threatened. How much did Russia pay you to spread this garbage take?

Yes, setting army bases all around a country is defensive when it's the US, but it's an aggression if it is any other country. o)

When the country is a proven aggressor that held the region under occupation for 50 years, such a defense makes sense. Too bad they faltered.

Please outline a framework under which a country could be recognised as an aggressor. It could happen that by the same standard the US would be an aggressor who keeps the Hawaiian Kingdom under occupation since after its annexation in 1893: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Hawaiian_King...

I don’t need a framework, I lived under the Soviet occupation of the Eastern Europe.

I visited Hawaii recently too - they didn’t seem occupied at all.

You don't need a framework because you know you'll be inconsistent. Very conveniently so.

> "they didn’t seem occupied at all"

all you're saying is that you like the outcome. The fact remains the same though - that territory was occupied, and then annexed, and the government was overthrown by the U.S. military forces.

> you like the outcome

Not me. The people living under that "occupation".

I lived under what's now called the "Soviet occupation", and it didn't feel occupied at all too.

NATO and US lecturing the planet about not being an "aggressor" is kind of funny.

Putin is pretty much emboldened in playing with the rule of law because the US showed him how to trample international laws for the past 20years (Kosovo, Irak, Libya, Syria). Yeah yeah I know, invading and bombing countries when it's Washington is ok...

NATO is not a defensive pact. It contains many provisions for offensive interventions, which were invoked more than Article 5. Beyond that, even Article 5 was never used in defense, only in offense - safe harbor is not an act of war, and the Afghan government did not provide material support to the attack on 9/11.

It's a military pact that contains both a self defense treaty that goes beyond self defense, as well as purely offensive considerations.

And still it’s Russia invading Ukraine, not NATO.

Of course. Two wrongs don't make a right. NATO invades innocent countries, so did Russia, doesn't make NATO any less threatening.

Funny enough, only Russia feels threatened by NATO, while all the other countries feel threatened by Russia.

That's 100% bullshit. The Libyan refugees - or worse, those that couldn't leave - whose country was bombed to barbarism and who lost everything feel even more threatened by NATO, which dealt devastation far beyond the worst fantasies from Putin's twisted mind.

Far more people died in the NATO invasion of Afghanistan than there even are soldiers and militia members in the whole of Ukraine.

Make no mistake, NATO is even more threatening and has dealt more devastation than Russia ever could. NATO has just as few qualms about intervention and far more power and experience in ruining countries than even Russia, and that's saying a lot.

Afghan people hated NATO so much that they were literally hanging off planes when the troops left.

Instead, Russia had to build walls and shoot people to keep them leaving their empire.

You may keep spewing your propaganda - people already know who the bad guys are here.

> Afghan people hated NATO so much that they were literally hanging off planes when the troops left.

Imagine taking the fact that some people wanted to leave as an excuse for hundreds of thousands of deaths. You're literally trotting the same line as Putin when he talks about people leaving Eastern Ukraine to go to Russia.

> You may keep spewing your propaganda - people already know who the bad guys are here.

No. Unlike you, I'm being consistent. All you can do is adapt your thought pattern so that your in-group can do no harm, open air slave markets and massacres be damned. You can't get around understanding your in group isn't a saintly force for good even when it burns villages and destroys entire countries, and then you accuse others of spewing propaganda. Truly remarkable.

Russia is not entitled to a ring of vassal-slave states.

That's because you lack historical culture. You should re-read about that lengthy negociations that took place in the 90s re. the dismantling of the USSR. It came with a lot of conditions, negociated for years, with Kohl and Mitterrand playing the middle-men. Conditions that the newly recreated eastern countries would stay neutral and not become NATO, were very clear, and signed off by Baker on the US side. I've given you enough key words for you to go and catch up a bit.

That is simply not true. No organization had the right to decide the defense strategy of the newly freed Eastern countries. And Russia itself had zero leverage, they were starving.

Well no, that's factually false. Every NATO member can deny the entry of any country in NATO. So, the US, Germany and France absolutely have the right to decide their defense strategy doesn't involve being part of NATO.

Please reread my post, I never said that.

Yes, you did. You said, in context, that no organisation had the right to decide the defense policy of the post Soviet states with regard to NATO. That's not true.

I said the Eastern countries had the right to align their defense strategy to NATO's policy and values, even if for joining they had to meet certain requirements.

But the decision to apply or not was theirs and other NATO members welcomed them exactly because that was conforming to NATOs values and principles.

Most tellingly, these were countries that were in a similar treaty before with Russia - the Warsaw Pact. The one that crushed the Prague Spring. They knew exactly what the difference between the two treaties were.

Of course they do, that's even why Japan has been pretty much not allowed having an army for the past 80 years.

It is common practice, after big wars, to negotiate what newly created states can or cannot do, this was done in Europe for centuries (Belgium, Poland were often under such constraints and used as buffer zone between empires).

Absolutely, what was negotiated was the budapest memorandum and the paris charter.

What treaty are you referring to?

do you happen to have any links to such documents, preferably originals? Because it sounds suspicious that US agreed on some conditions for whole NATO. Especially by the time when USSR basically lost any leverage and couldn't dictate any conditions to anyone.

It's a propaganda point, and false. So - I doubt you'll get any proof from them.

Documents don't really matter in such situations. When a state believes it's in a survival fight, it doesn't care about international laws or anything, because nothing can be worse than it's death.

The US has been working on surrounding Russia with NATO states, putting bases and nuclear next to Russia, Russia tried to do the same in Cuba during the cold war but the US did not accept it and was ready to sink the Russian ships, Cuba was "free" to do that but that doesn't matter because the US beleived it's a threat. Now that Russia beleives it's strong enough to face the US on some small issues (the US is still much stronger but not as before) it no longer accepts to have NATO on it's border, especially in Ukraine because historically that's where Russians come from plus it would hurt their access to sea.

Anyways, that's how it looks like for me as a bystander.

Sure: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...

With those countries’ and populations’ permission… I wonder why that is?

> NATO has settled military bases in all of Eastern Europe

... with permission.

I think the point is to avoid shooting war, not to be fair (whatever "fair" could mean in the context of countries).

> What the hell is NATO waiting for?

NATO is defensive pact, not peacekeepers, that's UN (United Nations, blue helmets) job.

Its very easy to make a sweeping statements about what you would do if you could, but how are you going to convince, say Spanish nation to suffer consequence of escalation of conflict for sake of Ukraine a country that was never on mind of Spanish people. That sounds like a political suicide for any Spanish politician.

With the advent of nuclear weapons, sanctions are all anyone can do anymore. Nuclear weapons mean the bad guys automatically win.

Everyone is absolutely terrified that any modern conflict would start with "let's keep this clean boys, no nukes" and end in "we can't lose the war so let's use our WoMD". Think right now, if Russia nuked Ukraine, what could the rest of the world do? Nothing. :/

peacekeepers? troops!

I despise this timeline.

As an EU citizen I want an immediate ban on fossil fuel imports from Russia.

Great idea! Too bad we have this country called Germany that depends on it.

As an EU citizen - I am very glad that you hold no power of making those kind of decisions.

As an EU citizen, I can reduce my natural gaz and electric consumption, install solar panels and live through minor inconveniences to make the world a safer place without Putin.

Do it, do more, talk less.

The problem is that other EU citizens want their lights to come on when they press the switch, so Russia has them by the balls.

The other option of course is for the EU to pull a switcheroo and invade Russia.

That would be an economic disaster and hurt living standards in the EU enormously.

As one example, Germany imports 1/3 of its oil from Russia and 1/3 of its natural gas.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-dependen....

Cutting that supply off would cripple their economy, send prices soaring on everything, drive up the price of oil in the global market as Germany + other EU nations tried to purchase elsewhere which would hurt many poorer nations etc.

Not saying it shouldn't be done, but lets not understate the impacts this would have and how incredibly destabilising a price rise of that magnitude on top of the Covid problems could be to the EU as a whole.

Can’t win the game of you’re not willing to lose a few pieces.

And of course you're willing to compensate every other EU citizen for the increase in energy prices out of your personal wallet?

I like having my apartment heated though. Also, I enjoy hot showers. And electricity. I live in Berlin so all of that is basically at least partially dependent on Russian gas. It's winter here; so I'd prefer that not to happen. The EU is not prepared for a gas shutdown. Reserves are already low and a gas shutdown would be problematic. And it is still winter. Maybe in a few years it would be possible for the EU to do this without taking a huge hit on its power infrastructure and economy. But right now, it simply can't. Russia knows this and is clearly not taking this very serious. Mutually assured economic destruction is ultimately not going to be a serious option that politicians will entertain for very long.

Imported LNG, coal, nuclear. No time to think about climate when Hitler is raising. Starve Putin, then switch to renewables.

Or, you know, all of that could've been done before this crisis began to ensure energy independence.

This is a ridiculous sentiment and a bold faced lie. Yes - It might raise prices in the short term, but energy independence is a national asset anyways. Just by cutting access off to russia will not completely cripple a nation as there is plenty of reserves nation wide. Additionally, mass sanctions on russian energy would bring down the accepted collusion in OPEC.

Dependance and the ability to rapidly make trade deals are two seperate things. Just because i buy 1/3 of my widget from x, doesn't mean i can't switch to buying 1/3 of my widget from y should i need to. Not everyone in OPEC loves russia.

Raise prices? It'll do more than that. It depends how complex the German energy market is (I don't know at all) but it's important to understand that most non-renewable energy has to be purchased considerably in advance, with the proceeds of prior sales to customers. And compensatory production has to be scheduled considerably in advance too.

It is possible for gas prices to rise so quickly that the system bankrupts. It's happening (in a stupidly overcomplex energy market) in the UK, for reasons that have nothing to do with regional instability.

I am no energy market scholar but it seems to me that one result of a conflict in the Ukraine could be the temporary collapse of regional energy markets as countries that produce oil or natural gas energy begin to use protectionism (renationalisation, export bans, domestic-only quotas, whatever works) to try to survive what happens.

Another is the return of dangerous energy extraction methods like fracking.

what you are discussing is in normal times when all the politician are at eachothers throats. Everyones got a hidden agenda. The powers and solidarity you get in the face of an enemy ensures quick action, especially where no one can point to the nord stream 2 as an option.

Also, after some digging i can't seem to find a reliable figure to quote the % of imported energy from russia? the nord was supposed to provide 30% more natural gas than currently utilized, but thats a surplus not a dependency since it was never even turned on.

Energy markets have been moving be alot more decentralized in the recent years, not due to any overt action to do so but because energy usage and distribution is much more akin to high frequency trading among grids.

Well Germany also got rid of it's perfectly well working Nuclear power stations just so they could rely on Russia even more.

While many Ukrainians ($4k gdp per capita) will be reduced to smithereens and hell on earth, Germans ($45k gdp per capita) will complain about wearing jackets inside. The decadence of Western country lifestyles are such a glaring weakness. Americans gas was rationed in WW2, because of Germany. Seems they're still unwilling to pay back that debt.

Sincerely, someone who won't heat their home if it means fossil fuel CO2 emissions.

We should invade Belarus in retribution for Russian acts...

Ding ding, round 1.

Putin is in the wrong here but there are no good guys. US rhetoric on this has predicted a full-scale invasion that hasn't come to fruition multiple times and the media just laps it up. It's reminiscent of the WMD justification for invading Iraq. It's straight up Manufacturing Consent [1].

However, Putin has a point: extending NATO membership to Ukraine is an overtly hostile act by the US and NATO member states. Putin no more wants NATO bases in the Ukraine than the US would want Chinese or Russian military bases in Canada or Mexico.

But Russia is not and never was going to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It would destroy Russia. Trying to do this in Afghanistan, a substantially smaller and less developed country, played a significant factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia wants a buffer between it and NATO and access to the Black Sea. That's it.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

> US rhetoric on this has predicted a full-scale invasion that hasn't come to fruition multiple times and the media just laps it up.

The invasion is happening right now. The "peacekeepers" are Russian troops invading Ukraine, after Putin claimed, "Ukraine has never had its own authentic statehood."

I don't think you know what a full scale invasion is.

They've crossed the border into Eastern Ukraine that have been in conflict for years between Ukrainian nationals and Russian separatists. Like I said, not good. But full-scale invasion? Not even close. Not a single shot has been fired that we know about. Or have I missed the missile strikes? Artillery bombardments of Ukrainian forces? Aerial bombardment? Infantry engagements?

Yet US rhetoric on this was basically "Putin is going to glass Kiev and murder everybody". When is that happening exactly?

You understand this thing is literally hours old right?

Do you have any experience with anything military related or some reason why you are trying to speak with any level of confidence on this?

The invasion only just started a few hours ago. It's not like we saw all of the casualties immediately when they last invaded – hell, it was several months later that the a Russian SAM was used to shoot down an airplane of civilians.

> Yet US rhetoric on this was basically "Putin is going to glass Kiev and murder everybody".

No, it wasn't. It was that Putin wants to control Ukraine, and plans to invade. Today he went on TV and said that Ukraine is not a sovereign nation. He annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014, and is annexing the DNR and LNR regions as we speak.

I don’t know where to even start with this. They have already crossed the border.

Almost every point you have raised here is severely detached from reality.

Sometimes it’s ok to just say you don’t know and move on.

If you have nothing of value to add you can just refrain from commenting.

So you're saying the US would be fine with China or Russia forming a military alliance with Canada and Mexico and putting forward operating bases and military forces on the US border?

I’m saying that you appear not to have any real background on this topic and maybe you should speak on it with a little less certainty.

Reading a few Glenn Greenwald tweets doesn’t make you a geopolitical or military analyst and what you have said sounds extremely silly to anyone who didn’t pick up this topic in the last week.

Indeed, it's beyond embarrassing.

The odds of that happening: Cero

You know why ? Long deep cultural and economic ties & support

You know why ? So they don’t form alliances with rogue enemy states

If I understand it correctly this is as well the position of Professor John Mearsheimer [1] - he thinks that what Russia is going to do is "wreck" Ukraine and make it a buffer nation. I am sad, that we came to this situation and that our politicians were not able to find a diplomatic way to deal with each other and instead now only sanctions, arms and isolation seems to be considered. Trust is broken, both sides West and Russia consider themselves to be in the right and being handled unfairly by the others. Nationalism is rising and people start to consider each other as enemies. I am afraid that history is repeating itself and I am afraid of whatever leader Russia might get after Putin.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbj1AR_aAcE

Okay, so what happens if the world gets into pre 1990's state? Will the internet function as normal? Can US be a refuge for banned Russian content and Russia be a refuge for banned Western content? For Android it's a bit straightforward but Apparently Apple commands ~30% of the Russian smartphone market[0], what happens to Russian iPhone users if American companies are prohibited from doing business in Russia?

[0] : https://www.statista.com/statistics/262174/market-share-held...

Will Russia even be able to get chips needed for pretty much everything?

Yeah, why not? Do you expect China, Korea and Taiwan to join NATO anytime soon?

Also, during the Soviet times they used to have flourishing copycat IC industry.

Nobody gets any chips currently anyway. It already spawned a recycling industry where cheap .10$ chips get removed from boards to be reused. That wasn't economically viable before...

What happens to Microsoft if American companies are prohibited from doing business in Russia? Maybe Russia will end up with their own mobile and desktop OS?

This would present an interesting problem to Open Source. Major projects would probably get forked, but the patches would probably keep flowing (being merged) between them somehow?

I think open source would be prudent to completely ignore this conflict or any sanctions some countries want to enforce or not.

Completely ignoring the sanctions might be against the law. This could mean risking the entire project to become delegalized in the US.

I don't think there is any trade happening and some contributors might be Russian. I don't see how any state could claim ownership. So on what basis would these supposed sanction operate?

Another topic is support contracts which could be prohibited but luckily open source is not too vulnerable against day to day politics. Lawfare could do damage, but also to the country hosting open source solutions. And that is pretty great.

You don't need to participate in commercial activities to fall victim to sanctions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer#1992_Spassky_rem...

By that definition, any open source project would be illegal if a sanctioned country used the open source software in a way that benefits them economically. I don't see how this would work and in fact, GitHub has already dealt with this issue with countries like Iran:

https://github.blog/2021-01-05-advancing-developer-freedom-g...

Regardless, as long as that country has Internet, there is little that can be done about developers using a VPN and saying they are from another country.

Up until some recent year, at least some of their government systems ran a modified version of XP.

Seems to me they'll figure it out.

Computer screen during Putin's speech today looked like Windows XP.

This was posted recently on HN, but I'll repost it here. My main take away is that these two regions are really more Russian and want to be a part of Russia. They were given to Ukraine as part of an old agreement internal to the USSR

https://www.gregpalast.com/7-facts-about-ukraine/

No idea about Lugansk, but in Donetsk they certainly don't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donetsk_People%27s_Republic#Re....

I don't really trust Wikipedia much. It has been manipulated for a long time and often chooses only sources for the narrative of the page author. Polls at this point have demonstrated themselves as unreliable and inaccurate.

The link was to offer a different perspective than the one prevailing this topic. I don't think it's so simple as Russia bad. There are a lot of information wars going on, not mention the posturing for constituents with shallow talking points.

It's never as simple as "<whoever> bad". But in the end it's (or perhaps should be) down to numbers: Wikipedia cites several sources which show that whatever citizen's preference between Ukraine or Russia might be, there was definitely no majority support for separation - not before and not after. Do you know sources that show opposite results?

Well, first of all, these two regions (Donetsk, Luhansk) were part of Ukraine since at least 1922, when the borders of republics of Soviet Union were drawn. They were 'part of Russia', only when whole Ukraine was part of Russia. And no, Crimean Tatars are not indigenous people of East of Ukraine, Crimea and Donbass are very different regions with different history.

You base your opinion from an article by guy who knows some Russian nationalists, who do not believe in Ukraine sovereignty. Somehow you extrapolate their opinion on the whole region.

There are plenty of people, more than 1 million, who left separatist controlled regions for 'mainland' Ukraine (that also meant that they lost their property, most of people in Ukraine own their apartment/house, so that is a big deal).

There are plenty of people from Donbass region who volunteered into Ukrainian army to fight separatists.

Ukraine is a big country, with long, varied history, and multi-ethnic regions. That doesn't mean that invading this country is justified. There is Hungarian community in the west of Ukraine, would it be ok for Hungary to invade?

That article that you've posted is comically strange.

"Like most conflicts over the past 2,000 years, this is, at heart, a religious war. Most of the people who live in the tiny eastern province of Donbas and surrounds, including the Crimea, are followers of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate. And about 15% of the Donbas is Muslim."

tiny eastern province of Donbas - if you take the size of Donbass as the size of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, 26517 km sq + 26 684 km sq, so 53 thousand sq kilometers. To put it into context, Belgium is 30 thousand sq km, Netherlands is 40 thousand sq km. So Donbass region is bigger than Netherlands in size. In terms of population it is more than 6 million people.

And about 15% of the Donbas is Muslim -- that is simply not true, by a very big margin.

"When Yunokovych, an Easterner who allied himself with Russia, was reelected in 2014, the Kyiv nationalists seized the capital. The insurrectionists were led by Yulia Tymoshenko who had lost the 2010 Presidential race.

Yanukovich was not re-elected in 2014, presidential term in Ukraine is five years. In November of 2013, protests in Kyiv and in other Ukrainian cities started after Yanukovich declined the association treaty with EU. The way that Yanukovich suppresed those protests sparked a much more powerful reaction, with the main demand for him to step down. Most people in Kyiv and in Central and Western Ukraine supported those protests, not only radical Ukrainian nationalists. Protests continued until late February 2014, when around a hundred protesters were shot by snipers on the main square in Kyiv. That sparked a powerful reaction, with Yanukovich fleeing to Russia. In May of 2014 there were re-elections, where Petro Poroshenko won. In 2019 Volodymyr Zelenskiy won in the scheduled elections.

Yulia Tymoshenko was not leading protests, she was literally in jail.

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