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Comment by dimitar | Hacker News Reader

Let me fix that headline: Europe's lack of investment in sustainable energy and nuclear is raising electricity prices, compounded by the dependence on fossil fuels from terrorist states like Russia.

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Hate Russia all you want but this energy crisis was entirely "free world" created and didn't start in February this year. Half of these idiots have resigned or are close to resignation due to an energy and food crisis that they have single-handedly created by the "free world" the last decade. They will just resign and live of their pensions while the rest of Europe is slipping into poverty[1].

Let's for a moment consider that Ukraine still makes transit money off of Russian gas. Has threatened Europe with gas cuts for the last two decades on multiple occasions. And even though Russia has been put through unprecedented sanctions, which actually sent prices soaring still supplies Europe with energy even though the west tried to effectively embargo them from the rest of the world.

They are in fact slowly lifting restrictions especially on food supplies[2]. But due to the uncertainty Von der Moron brought into the markets the prices are not due to go back down anytime soon.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-12/what-if-m...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/eu-soften-sanctions-r...

> And even though Russia has been put through unprecedented sanctions, which actually sent prices soaring still supplies Europe with energy even though the west tried to effectively embargo them from the rest of the world.

Let's not pretend they are doing this out of loving-kindness: they use this money to fund their invasion of Ukraine.

And Germany will be using the gas to heat Ukrainian soldiers in training. So what?

The situation is a mess, and painting Russia and russians as having no interest but war, does not make it less messy.

So this is weird because there seems to be a real groundswell of effort to resort to bothesidesism particularly on topics of China and Russia.

The situation is not "a mess" ethically no. One side (Russia) walked into a country and started blowing up entire cities full of people. Literally Mariupol formerly a city of 431,859 people is a wasteland of rubble with an estimated pop of 100k. Are all those people dead? No, most are displaced but the callous way in which Russia has resorted to the same truly despicable war tactics it used to level Grozny again, here, in a sovereign nation should make us weep.

It feels like the internet is in large part fuelling this truly horrifying miracle of humans trying to "level" the narrative.

> sovereign nation should make us weep

Definitely. But the double standards is maddening. The Western public has ignored much much larger and more recent conflicts.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/12/1078972

Yes we have. Most of that is because we can't identify a good guy, but regardless of that I can see how it changes anything about the justification of _this_ war.

There is a distinct difference between wars based on territorial expansionism and civil wars. When one country invade an other for territorial gain, it is fairly easy to identify an aggressor and a defender. With a civil war you got factions within a country fighting for control.

The start of the conflict tend to be different. In an invasion you got an external force starting the war by sending in troop and initiating the conflict, and you got a clear defined border of conflict that starts out at the border and then fans out. The capital tend to be attacked at a late part of the conflict, unless it is located directly at the border.

In a civil war the war generally breaks out at multiple places from within, usually in the capital where the existing seat of power is located. The conflict border is generally unclear and fighting occur at multiple locations all over.

Invasion also tend to have a history of territorial disputes about where the border between two nations should be drawn. Civil war on the other hands tend to have a history of demographic nature, where different groups within a country are fighting for control of the country.

In terms of public support, especially since world war 2, invasions that has aim of taking territory is generally feared. If they invade Ukraine today in order for Lebensraum, then what is to say that Poland will not be next for the exact same purpose? Which country can ever feel save when a larger nearby country starts to invade others for the purpose of taking territory?

Civil wars on the other hand is a human tragedy, but the factions fighting inside Yemen doesn't have a reason to make Poland the next target. It not so much of a double standard but rather human priority of things that feel threatening to themselves.

There's no painting happening, the russian government just has no interest but war.

Yeah, this energy crisis started during the cold war when we thought that trading with the Soviet Union would prevent war (maybe it has?). It was exacerbated by a delayed transition to renewable power. Putin is currently doing more for the climate than our politicians have done in the last thirty years.

Putin is currently doing more for the climate than our politicians have done in the last thirty years.

There's a rule I'm sure Putin never saw himself fulfilling!

Honestly, not trading with Russia would have been short sighted. EU is founded on integrating the belligerents of WW2 close enough that it would be unthinkable to happen again. The same method, which at least has worked once, was tried with Russia and now 30 years later, or more likely in 2014 with the invasion of Crimea we can conclude that Russia is different in some core way of thinking. Not too different though, looking at how the Baltic states have developed when they got the choice.

The alternative scenario, with a Russia still riding on the tail ends of soviet military might in steep decline not even given a chance in the early 2000s seems like a recipe for an even worse outcome than we have today.

The energy crisis is created by Russia obviously.

Cutting off countries is something they didn't do during previous wars.

They are doing it now.

>Half of these idiots have resigned or are close to resignation due to an energy and food crisis that they have single-handedly created by the "free world" the last decade. They will just resign and live of their pensions while the rest of Europe is slipping into poverty.

Such as German foreign minister Heiko Maas, who when Trump at the UN warned four years ago that his country is endangering itself by increasing dependence on Russia, laughed with other German envoys <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfJv9QYrlwgepe>. He is now enjoying a quiet retirement in Saarland.

Russia is not a terrorist state. It's a country waging a war. It's not the same. You can find it OK or not OK (I personally don't) but it's not terrorism. Many countries have done that before, France is such a country.

It’s perfectly reasonable to call them a terrorist state if they’re actively encouraging war crimes against civilians.

Which even the UN has had to admit Ukraine shares the blame on[1]. Not only that, the Human Rights chief of Ukraine stepped down and subsequently admitted that she invented a lot of human rights violations[2]. It's actually amusing that the UN complained about the Ukrainian shelling of a maternity ward in June with most reports saying that it was Russians doing, with very few correcting this to stating it was in fact the Ukrainians[3].

Here's the Washington Post saying that Ukraine placed their fighters in civilian buildings therefore enabling attacks on civilian infrastructure[4] as early as March 28th

[1] https://news.yahoo.com/un-says-ukraine-bears-share-041554667...

[2] https://www.ibtimes.sg/lyudmila-denisova-disgraced-ombudswom...

[3] https://blog.tagesschau.de/2022/06/16/fehler-in-der-tagessch...

[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/28/ukraine-kyiv...

The UN consensus has been very clear. Russia is singularly responsible for the war, and has committed numerous war crimes. Including many, many attacks on positions that are civilian only. And forcing Ukrainians to join the Russian army as canon fodder. And encouraging mass rape. And stealing whatever isn’t nailed down. And storing munitions in an active nuclear power plant. And attacking evacuation corridors they promised to allow.

Ukraine is not perfect, but it’s not even close to comparable.

Your post history has a clear Russian lean to it. So, whatever. I presume it’s pointless to talk.

Your #3 link seems to be talking about a market, not a maternity ward. Did you give a wrong link by mistake?

In that case you might as well classify the US as a terrorist state as well. Continues dronning of innocent people doesn't make it OK when you call it the "war" on terror.

Whataboutism at its finest.

The US drone policy is very aggressive. But it’s multiple orders of magnitude less than the scale of what Russia is trying to do now, which is flagrant genocide.

But we’re not discussing the US so let’s get back to the terrorist state of Russia.

It's not just drones - US leveled cities too, like Raqqa, or started wars based on fabricated evidence that killed more people than current war in Ukraine.

p.s. exposing hypocrisy isn't whataboutism.

That’s really great. But we’re talking about the terrorist state of Russia here.

So you don't really disagree with the parent comment then. Unless you are denying French war crimes in Algeria and Africa

They said Russia is not a terrorist state. I disagree with them. I don’t really give a shit about French war crimes 70 years ago. That’s not a gotcha, it’s just a shitty whataboutism, and not even a particularly relevant one.

You mean like this : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_... ? Or maybe this : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima... ?

Those are immense human tragedies but they’re not the same. Both of these examples have significant debate on whether they were justified. Perhaps you believe they were not.

There is no such debate around the missile strikes on shopping malls far removed from the front, or bombing civilian evacuation routes your promised to permit. Or deporting thousands of children to your country.

And again, whataboutism is not helpful here. The discussion is on Russia.

USA _and_ russia always justify civilian bombings claiming they aimed at military targets first. Do you think USA or russia will ever admit they happily roasted babies alive on purpose ?

The difference is that Russia’s MO is to level cities and kill every single person they can. The US is far from perfect, but this is not what they do. Whataboutism is not relevant here

Terrorism is be definition non state activities. If a state is doing it, it can't be terrorism.

In some definitions sure.

I would have gone for criminal or mafia state rather than terrorist, but I guess you could argue that openly poisoning political dissidents is designed to elicit terror

Yeah the US has too, and they acted like terrorists in Iraq. Not trying to demonize Russia but we should call it as we see it.

It's not only the ongoing war. Russia's leadership seems to be enganged in state terrorism for several decades now. Here's an interesting interview with Catherine Belton a journalist and author who did year long research on that matter:

https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2022-07/catherine-belton-vlad...

Even if only half of the claims is true it's IMO quite justified to call Russia a terrorist state.

> Many countries have done that before, France is such a country.

You could also conclude that France was just such a terrorist state.

Ehm, blowing up ammunition depot in Czech Republic was not terrorism?

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2021/04/26/how...

I call it a terrorist state due to its deliberate attacks on civilians in Vinnitsa, Kramatorsk, Kharkiv, Nikopol, Idlib just in the last week. City centers with no military targets, in some cases very far from the front - the intention is to terrorize Ukraine into submission.

It is a country conducting an illegal war of aggression, which means that any action they take is a war crime, but aside from that when you shell civilians trying to flee through _humanitarian corridors you created_ you are committing acts of terror.

So is shooting cruise missiles at shopping centers.

I won't pretend to be neutral in this matter, nor give a shit about anybody who is, but what russia is doing is very much acts of terrorism.

There is a very easy way to find out who is in the wrong here. Using the statement you probably have seen before: If Ukraine stops fighting, they stop to exist. If Russia stops fighting, there is no more war.

Succint

That is not a good headline for what the article is about.

> terrorist states like Russia

The word terrorist has become meaningless. It's dead. You can stop kicking it.

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