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Comment by sonicggg | Hacker News Reader

There's something I don't understand about the Russian actions. They knew sanctions were coming, they clearly prepared years ahead for this war, maybe since Crimea. They gathered enough reserves, and built closer ties with China.

At the same time, they invested so much money on this pipeline, and attacked even before it was operational. Now this "Swiss" puppet company, which is also owned by Russia, is folding like it was caught by surprise.

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Up until last week Germany showed no signs of seriously opposing Russia, they spent nothing on their military, they made their Russian oil essential to their energy policy (to the exclusion of nuclear) and senior former politicians lobbied for Russia.

It was perfectly reasonable for Russia to think Germany couldn’t afford to dump NS2 (Russia had been deliberately running down reserves for 6months). The problem is that Russia’s actions galvanised Europe in a unique way. Suddenly Germany is more sceptical of the Russians than the Brits are, and the brits have very little on the line in comparison.

While there is plenty to criticize about our previous strategic decisions in this area, no gas has ever flown through NS2. There's a lot of bad faith arguments going around here.

NS2 was controversial in Germany from the start, it was a bad idea politically because it weakened the position of the eastern european states. But it was not the bogeyman than many made it out to be.

Germany needs gas for heating, and heating is not optional. Heating is also expensive, and making it more expensive for strategic reasons is a very hard thing to sell.

> Germany needs gas for heating, and heating is not optional.

The 50% that comes from Russia is.

The Inuit dont use gas for heating, its pretty optional if you wear enough clothing indoors.

They probabaly didn't expect this project to completely die down like I did. I think they expected there to be sanctions similar to Crimea, most of which were weak and/or overturned eventually.

And by "they" I mean Putin, because I'm pretty sure anybody with half a brain cell should've known that invading a country after a global pandemic was bound to get some backlash from the rest of the world.

Which Crimean occupation sanctions were overturned?

They are as well prepared as their army: propaganda and not much more.

The rational answer is simple:

They hoped that it wouldn't come to war, and were willing to risk the pipeline if it did. In the grand scheme, Russian national security goals trumped the economic factors.

There is an alternative narrative, which is possible but I don't believe:

Putin is simply evil and/or crazy, and therefor completely irrational.

Occam’s razor argument could also be that he’s arrogant and tends to underestimate his enemies. In which case this is all perfectly “rational”. Russia is only a superpower in military might so he chose to use that tool. He thought the sissies in Ukraine wouldn’t fight and the dorks in EU would at most send a sternly worded letter.

It’s probably very very difficult to internalize that half the globe would love to see you dead so various delusions take that truths place instead.

As can be seen, Russian military is a joke, because of corruption. Russia is deeply corrupt and that made it's military under-bugeted, a lot of the allocated budget went into the pockets of higher-ups. The only way Russia is feared it's because of its nukes.

There were no threats to Russian national security. Who would attack a country with nuclear warheads?

This invasion is only to strenghten his internal position as there was more and more oppositon. "Saving" their Slav brothers wouldv'e given him enough time till death.

Russian national security has always been threatened.

100,000 us troops in Europe and US nukes in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Turkey have always been a threat.

How about arming their neighbors?

>Now this "Swiss" puppet company, which is also owned by Russia, is folding like it was caught by surprise.

Ed Snowden appeared to have been caught by surprise at the invasion, too.

Care to elaborate?

On Twitter he made it very clear that he didn't believe the US that Russia was planning on attacking Ukraine, and did a lot of chastising of the media for trying to whip things up. Up until a speech by Biden around the 18th of February, after which he wasn't as sure.

>Up until a speech by Biden around the 18th of February, after which he wasn't as sure.

Are you contradicting my comment?

Like just about everyone else in Moscow, how is Snowden special?

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