Russia cuts off Poland and Bulgaria from its gas in war escalation | Hacker News Reader

Russia cuts off Poland and Bulgaria from its gas in war escalation

apnews.com

7 pointsgeox23 comments

Wait, sanctions are a political tool to attempt to make another country do or stop doing something, and this is... blackmail?

Aren't both of those "blackmail"? (sanctions are simply a very specific type of blackmail, which is a more general term)

I guess they pick their vocabulary from the "Emotional Words" dictionary.

One difference is that they have contracts in place that they aren’t honoring. The descriptive verbiage changes when discussing an invading country. Similar actions can be described a number of ways depending upon their context.

I am sure there are plenty of contracts between companies in sanctioning countries and Russian companies or institutions that are not being honoured due to sanctions (pretty confident none of them had the clause "Contract is void if Russia invades Ukraine").

One of the prominent contracts not being followed is all those US banks freezing Russian USD holdings/reserves measuring in hundreds of billions of USD IIRC.

So I don't see that difference you are talking about. I mean, that's the purpose of sanctions, to stop doing business with a country (iow, stop honouring existing contracts in addition to not signing new ones) to make them change course. IOW, to blackmail them to change course.

It seems like you are disputing that sanctions are a type of blackmail? Perhaps both are better described as "extortion" instead, but "blackmail" applies equally well.

Again, this is an attempt to use more emotionally charged language for effectively the same actions. I am not sure why it needs extra explanation though.

Gee, you’d think the Warsaw Pact countries would have thought twice about relying on Russia for energy…

If Russia is able to offer a product at the best price after the wider EU public stops caring about Ukraine (which is inevitable), I am sure most countries will simply go back to buying from Russia.

Globalisation simply demands for that to happen, as otherwise, gas will go to non-sanctioning countries who'd suddenly be able to produce products cheaper than sanctioning countries.

The only question is how long will this take. Ukrainians will need decades, but rest of the World?

a) Only if what's being offered cannot easily be replaced. b) The Cold War lasted a long time. This was a generational change.

The Cold War was not a war. Thus "cold".

Throughout history, we only had a few very long wars.

> The Cold War was not a war. Thus "cold".

The Cold War was a war. Thus “war”.

That's assuming there will be some Russia that can sell it. The future for Russia is to either become a larger North Korea, or splitting up again, like it already happened with USSR twenty years ago. Ukraine, on the other hand, will get an absurd economical boost thanks to money confiscated from Russia. Or Russia might be forced to provide gas for free as reparations. It's pretty much impossible to predict what is going to happen in the following months at this point.

The most likely outcome is that Putin is out of power in 5-10 years and everything turns to being just what it was prior to this invasion (in terms of working with the Western countries).

No money was confiscated from Russia yet (it was only frozen), and it will take long legal battles for that to happen (10+ years). Ukraine will get EU/USA help (it's already getting a ton in weaponry), but nothing can cover for the loss of human life and years lost to emigration and rebuilding.

Russian aggressiveness was only tolerated because of its army. Now we know all this military might was just a bluff. There is no point, from the western point of view, to get back to previous state of affairs - especially so given the only important thing Russia provides, the fossil fuels, is being gradually phased out.

Also, it’s highly improbable that Russia, as a state, can survive this defeat.

Uhm, what Russian aggressiveness was tolerated? In Ukraine? Even with their fluffs, it is still being tolerated, so I am not sure of your point. The West is reasonably careful to appear as not participating in the conflict, yet it obviously is.

I also can't believe that someone would make a claim that "Russia, as a state, can (not) survive this defeat". Like USA cannot survive a defeat in, say... Vietnam? Afghanistan?

In Ukraine, but also Syria, Georgia and a bunch of others. It’s no longer tolerated, as evidenced by sanctions and the vast military aid for Ukraine.

As for the defeat: “siloviki” are the core of Russian state. Russia isn’t a country like US or Germany, it’s an artificial entity held together only by force - and that force turned out to be crap. Things will fall apart as soon as Russian society realizes this. Look at what happened to USSR after the failure in Afghanistan, and how destroying Chechnya established Putin as a ruler.

That's funny: Germany was not a single country until late 19th century, when the rise of nation states began. Russia was a nation state long before that (with that meaning that the majority of the population is what would be called a single nation).

USA was never a nation state (to its benefit!).

All states are held together by "force": witness different parts of Spain or Turkey wanting to secede... While there is an implicit reason for nation states to exist (single language), outside of that, there's nothing natural about them — they are political contraptions kept up by force (economic, political or army force).

All the war efforts of Russia in Ukraine are still being tolerated. Getting into war would be not tolerating it (that's how WWs started, by other countries not tolerating German/Austrain attacks on third countries).

Anyway, this is becoming very rethorical, and you've so far not supported your claim in any way.

Is Germany really held together by force? Was East Germany invaded by West German army?

Because that's where the difference comes from: Russia is held together purely by military - not by economy, or culture, or language. Without military force, Russia will fall apart - same way as it did 20 years ago, and for the same reason.

TANSTAAFL.

No cash, no gas. My energy supplier works the same way as the Russians: they do cut off my supply very fast when I don't pay the bill.

Except that Europe does pay. It’s just that Russia wants them to break the law and pay with fake money instead.

EU does pay. But then EU 'freezes' the Euro account that the payment went to, effectively erasing the transaction, right? From the Russian perspective the rouble is much less fake money.

"Fake money" is money that isn't freely usable as cash.

For the Russians, the Euro is fake money because the Europeans won't let the Russians use it. However, there is no impediment to anybody using Rubles, so the Ruble can be considered non-fake money.

In the greater scheme of things, if a contract transaction can't be made in one currency, the world requires that we use another. A contract is an exchange of one thing for another. There is no such thing as a legal contract in which one party gains and the other party does not.

(Try buying a car from a dealer then not handing over the cash to that dealer. You could say "I've paid you the money, I'm just holding it for you at my bank." See how far you get with buying that car.)

One can pay with rare Pokémons; it doesn’t make them cash. Rubles aren’t real money, because they’re not exchangeable.

Try buying a car from a dealer that insists on paying for it in cocaine.

Rubles aren’t real money, because they’re not exchangeable.

Not exchangeable... by whom? Maybe you might not be able to, but there is a whole world out there that is separate from you and which has no trouble at all.

The 'Western World' is merely one-eighth of the 'Real World', but its population is too parochial to understand that.

It’s not just the western world - global volume of ruble trading is a tiny fraction of what it was before the invasion.

bees against honey

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