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Comment by GaylordTuring | Hacker News Reader

> Before Russia invaded Ukraine, it provided close to 40% of Europe’s gas.

I’ve never understood why people say things like this when referring to the operations started in 2022. Wasn’t what they did in Crimea in 2014 an invasion?

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The Russian annexation of Crimea had at least some ambiguity. Yes, it was illegal, but Crimea used to belong to Russia, it had majority Russian-speakers, and there was no violence on any significant scale during takeover. The question was, if they are taking over your territory, why don't you fight back? The answer is obviously complicated (and for the record I fully support Ukraine, and I think Crimea and all other occupied territories must be returned to Ukraine). Russia has succeeded, to some extent, making it a "one-of" issue. Now, of course, they've completely destroyed their previous position, it turns out Crimea is not special, they basically try to annex any territory they have any sort of control over.

Yeah, the Crimea annexation was dodgy as hell but as you say more ambiguous. The population had enough imported Russians (and "exported" Tartars) that they could run bullshit referenda and claim the people wanted annexation.

The reason the 2022 invasion (compared to Crimea) got the backlash it did from most of the world is that it was so unambiguously clear cut and telegraphed in advance despite Russia's denials they would invade. Russia left no room for its usual grey area bullshit to work for them. It seemed about as unambiguous as Poland in 1939 vs eg the murkier annexation of Austria in 1938.

> it was so unambiguously clear cut and telegraphed in advance despite Russia's denials they would invade

This is selective memory, I think. Most of Europe and Ukraine itself was pooh-poohing the idea of an invasion despite UK and US intelligence loudly insisting it was going to happen.

Not sure what you thought I meant or was selectively remembering, your statement doesn't contradict mine and is just how I remember it too (US and UK playing up vs Europe and Ukraine playing down). Unless you were claiming the Russian denials didn't happen?

You are perfectly right.

And yet the swiftness of that move made that a fait accompli pretty quickly so people forget that.

A better line would be "before the 2022 invasion ..."

It's probably what the Russian government expected this time around as well -- if they had taken Ukraine in less than a week (as they apparently expected to), the negative European reaction probably wouldn't have happened, same as in 2014.

Yes, but Europe chose to ignore the 2014 invasion to keep the cheap fossil fuels running and to prevent any major escalation with a nuclear power over a mere peninsula. The hope also was 'Handel durch Wandel' - 'Change through trade'.

I can only speak for Germany, but the political discussions about Crimea and Eastern Ukraine did exist for years. However, the government and opposition parties were somewhat in Russias pockets - at the very least their election was dependend on many jobs in industries across different federal states which required cheap Russian gas. Also, the German East is still fairly connected to Russia on a cultural level and this is where you would find most German opponents against NATO these days. Communities directly affected include Lubmin in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern where Nord Stream 2 is landing as well as Schwedt/Oder with the decades old PCK oil refinery that is specialized to process Russian oil (not all oil is the same) and supplied most of the German North East with fuel.

Russia has certainly funded a lot of online trolling, political actors (AfD) and disinformation to achieve their goals. For example, they tried to actively prevent Germans from switching to American LNG / fracking gas. German Angst [1] is a pretty fertile ground for disinformation. It's also what drives opposition against nuclear power, more so than the more reasonable arguments regarding economics and prices.

Regarding gas, it's mostly about heat generation for industry and NOT electricity where it is a minor player [2]. Natural gas is mostly used for manufacturing and to a lesser scale for quick up/down scaling of electricity generation as support to the baseline.

[1] https://www.dw.com/en/germans-and-why-they-worry-about-germa...

[2] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/DE

When did WWII start? It depends on where you lived.

In 2014 they had a fig leaf of not using uniformed Russian military. It was a transparent fig leaf, but we all need our fictions to get through the day.

Yeah Crimea invasion was basically Sudetenland.

Nobody really thought Putin would become completely unhinged.

Nobody thought Kiev would last past the first 48 hours, least of all Putin.

I didn't believe it at first. I didn't even believe it about 1 week later.

Yet I definitely expected the follow up to be crap for Russia when Zelensky said he's not leaving Kiev and he needs ammo, not a ride.

Could you elaborate your analogy?

Crimea - Sudetenland (Munich Agreement 1938)

Ukraine 2022 - Poland 1939

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