So, once of a sudden, Europe is fine with shale gas as long as it's from another country. Europe seems fine with gas from Qatar as well, which also is waging a cruel war in Yemen with tons of deliberate civilian casulties!
2) in the long term, Europe is trying to get independent from Russian gas so that 1) will not happen again
Europe is trying to get away from being dependent from Russian gas for strategic, not humanistic reasons.
If Europe does not do this, then they will absolutely deserve the impact of the future geopolitical shocks that will inevitably increase as climate change causes migrations, inflation, increasing natural disasters, and ensuing political instability in fossil fuel providing nations, which are not coincidentally among the most ripe for political revolt.
I think the truth of this statement increases with a slight modification.
The US is trying to get Europe away from being dependent from Russian gas for strategic, not humanistic reasons.
Western European countries, and Germany especially have had to be pushed into supporting Ukraine.
Absolutely untrue of "western countries", only of Germany.
The american "push" was welcome as a sign of confidence that we could support Ukraine not merely on our own, but with the backing of the United States. But this is our continent that is under attack. The US wouldn't otherwise care, but taking down Russia is a huge get for them so they care.
If it was, you'd probably get a similar reaction.
Ukraine is culturally, geographically and geopolitically a European nation.
But Russia is a gigantic country with a lot of population that isn't particularly European in any sense.
Ukraine on the other hand is basically 100% European any way you want to slice it beside Putin's revisionist history.
BTW, most Russians are European, living west of the Urals.
Moscow and, especially, St. Petersburg are pretty European historically and culturally. Western Russia accounts for 77% of Russia's population and is predominately influenced by the culture of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kyiv...
Europe isn't just Italy, Spain, & France...
Not every European country is Western European culturally...
Sanctions are long term. We are not long term yet.
- Russia has no elections since it's a near-totalitarian autocracy with usurpers firmly in charge by force.
- Ukraine hasn't been buying Russian gas for about 5 years now. Russian gas is transited via Ukraine, even during the war, since it's a rare situation that's in the best interest of all parties to the conflict, but 0 gas is purchased by Ukraine from Russia.
- Supply issues are due to a war of aggression and attempts to deprive the aggressor of a major revenue source (which no one claimed will stop the war immediately, it's a long-term/punitive move).
- EU has no choice but to diversify from Russia, since the only alternative is neutering of the EU and vassalage in all foreign policy matters that Putin chooses. (A significant percentage of the people expressing concern about supply issues and advocating a reversal are in fact concern-trolling and probably want this to happen. Are you one of those?)
Russia uses energy as a weapon, so it must be deprived of this weapon.
Yeah, they buy hungarian gas that just happens to flow from Russia. This is called "virtual reverse"
>Russia uses energy as a weapon, so it must be deprived of this weapon.
I heard Russia is willing to give up some of that in exchange for some rubles
>I heard Russia is willing to give up some of that in exchange for some rubles
I won't wish Russia good luck in this endeavour past 2023-2024, but I will note that it'll need all the luck it can get.
"Russia’s budget surplus evaporates as energy revenues shrink"
https://www.ft.com/content/d9cdc51f-5fe3-4f4a-b0e8-054ef21a2...
> Russia’s budget surplus for 2022 has almost evaporated after a sharp drop in energy exports during August led to a monthly deficit of as much as Rbs360bn ($5.9bn).
Russia is increasingly cutting itself now too:
> Revenues look set to worsen following Russia’s suspension of Nord Stream 1, one of its main gas pipelines to Europe, in early September.
> Russia’s economy shrunk 4.3 per cent in July 2022 compared with the same month a year earlier, according to the country’s economy ministry. Analysts at Aton, a Russian brokerage, expect the economy to contract by a further 5 per cent in 2023 because of falling energy output.
Russia is trending toward empty when it comes to their military inventory and they won't be able to replenish it as things stand. The only way they can is if China steps in and provides an epic scale infusion (which is not in China's interest).
Meanwhile the US can rev its military industrial complex to an extreme degree as it sees fit; and in tandem with Ukraine, obliterate Russia's military to the extent the Russians are dumb enough to continue occupying Ukrainian territory and sending more of their soldiers and hardware to the slaughter. The US hasn't even begun to seriously rev its production capabilities.
The equation there is Russia is fucked. Their national strength derives from energy + military power / power perception - one of those is heavily destroyed (courtesy of Ukraine's military + NATO weapons + sanctions).
Russia is so incompetent and drained they're having to source drones from Iran and go begging to North Korea.