As far as I remember, it was still possible (in terms of banking systems/santions) to pay the gas in Euros as usual; Russia decided, unilaterally, that they would require the payment to be in Rubles (to try and limit its plummeting value). For ther rest, you're correct.
It's so unreliable! All they have to avoid is invading their neighbors, but they couldn't manage that. Russia is the unreliable party.
For Russia (and many Russia apologists) Ukraine is not an innocent neighbor or not even a neighbor in the first place (not a "real country", part of mother Russia, part of the empire or part of the legitimate sphere of influence, legitimate by destiny...), and Russia is liberating Ukrainians from their current leaders or at least liberate the Russian speaking subset of the population.
Clearly if you're not sharing this worldview/framing it seems clear that Russia is just paying the obvious consequences for their actions, and that they are morally on breach of contract.
Unfortunately in practice the contract doesn't matter. There are no courts, there are no normal arguments to be had here.
Russia made a choice and are bearing the consequence. Other countries made their choices and are bearing the consequence.
Some gambles have been made, some have failed, others have not yet played out fully.
But I can't ignore the fact that it works on some people.
Also, once a person holds a POV aligned with that propaganda, having a discussion with another person that has another POV is extremely difficult unless the two parties are at least aware of each other's fundamentally different points of view.
But you can’t deny no diplomatic attempts were made to prevent the conflict by either party. I’m not putting all the blame on one side, that’s a gross oversimplification.
Being a stalwart defender of 'free-dam & deee-mocracy' the US shrugs and says ' Oh well. It was the will of the people. Nothing we can do about it'
</Jackanory>
So, you’re either against all the wars, or you’re a hypocrite. There was no reason for Azerbaijan to restart the Karabakh conflict. But MasterCard and Visa still work in Baku.
Not saying that what’s happening in Ukraine is good, but let’s not pretend. According the to the West, there’re “good” and “bad” wars.
>As far as I remember, it was still possible (in terms of banking systems/santions) to pay the gas in Euros as usual; Russia decided, unilaterally, that they would require the payment to be in Rubles (to try and limit its plummeting value)...
Maybe you're right and EU/UK could still have paid in Euros but, with Russia being frozen out of the world's banking system, they [Russia] wouldn't have actually been able to access the money. So it pretty much amounts to the same thing. They'd be giving the gas away.
If you were working on a job for someone and suddenly had your bank accounts frozen, it wouldn't be unreasonable for you to tell the person employing you that, while you were happy to keep on working, since you couldn't access your bank account, you'd need to be paid in cash for the rest of your time.
And you'd rightly feel aggrieved if that person refused, but then put it about that you were an unreliable worker who'd walked off the job.
But in any case, as disingenuous as it might be, it’s more factually correct than the post I was responding to.
And payment in rubles has nothing to do with supporting its exchange rate. It does not matter who does the conversion. It could be Gazprom or a European company, the result for the exchange rate is the same. It's all about removing dependency on the western financial system and bolstering a bit the domestic one.
I disagree with your russian narrative (payments for gas would have been processed despite the swift ban). But the objective part of this story is that EU has no gas anymore. And debates about Russia won't fuel power plants
Russia has been reducing the flow of gas from their end through Nord Stream 1. Russia has cut off gas all together to countries who stopped paying. But those were not big importers to begin with. Germany was still paying. The Russians didn't hold up their and and blamed damaged technology for it.
So, no, there is no twisting of interpretations in the GP's post.
If you want more details of the actual sequence of events I can give it to you, because I have been taking notes. Just for cases like your post.
Why is it a stretch to assume that France was also pressured to abandon Russian energy imports in the same way as Germany was? Why would France care if they paid for oil and gas with USD or RUB? Neither is their currency... All these horrible deals which EU accepted have the US' fingerprints all over them.
Why would Russia cut off sales of its own petrol to Europe in a time when it needs money to fund its war in Ukraine? That narrative makes no sense at all. It's obvious what happened.
Then factor in Joe Biden's past ties to Ukraine... It's shady AF.
What Russia and Russians are doing in Ukraine is pure evil.
They are well and truly the bad guys in this war - afterall, they started it.
I'm a little depressed by how easy it seems for people to spin all this on its head.
Right leaning people I know naturally sympathize for Putin because they like his ability to decide what he wants; the allure of the strong man.
Left leaning people in Italy sympathize for Putin because they are so used at hating American imperialism that by definition whatever is challenging it (better if its natural old enemy) must be good!
It's often easy to conveniently select the facts that support whatever your bias is, and when you can't just throw some whataboutism and you're back safely in your worldview. On top of that you add your social media bubble that reinforces your position, feeding you with arguments that you can cherry pick.
I don't know but I find it very hard ti effectively counter that when discussing with people who hold such positions. (Insulting their intelligence doesn't accomplish much)
FTFY.