A farce of historical proportions.
1 - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/26/world/europe/nordstream-p...
Even the environmental effect was minor; the methane emission from the leaks had 1/5th of the GHG effect of my small country's, Denmark, annual GHG emission.
What is does do is reinforce the European dependency on Washington, as evidenced by this post.
1 - https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/russia-s-oil-...
Russia invaded in 2014...
70 is not less than 20.
I'm making you aware that Russia invaded Ukraine.
Sevestapol is from Ukraine, not Russia. As such, Putin (Russia) is the aggressor, not Zelensky.
And oil skyrocket because of Russian actions ( eg. Cutting off oil)
So yes, EU did pay the most money they've ever paid for gas to Russia, but that was a one-off situation, which is not going to repeat. Russia overplayed it's hand.
However, it just occured to me that LNG terminals have one big advantage over a Russia-Europe pipeline: There is exactly one country that can send gas through a pipline that starts in Russia.
There are many countries that can send ships to our LNG terminals.
If, how, and when we make use of that flexibility is another question completely, of course.
At some point we have to face reality that it was the west and most likely the UK and US in a joint operation as the no one else has such capabilities.
Once we accept that we need to ask ourselves (as Europeans) who is really on our side and who has OUR best interests in mind.
I don't blame the US for taking advantage of a crisis but we need to stop being so gulable to believe they won't as they have time and time again.
I didn't read about robots but divers that had to jackhammer under water.
Or not. Blowing up NS1 to pressure Germany to allow NS2 to open wouldn't be inconceivable, while also pushing up the price of gas through other pipelines. It's risky and stupid, but that also describes most of what Russia's been doing the last 9 months.
Implicit in the threat of “do what we say, or we turn the gas off” is “and we’ll let you keep the gas if you do”. Russia’s threats become completely empty and meaningless if the blackmailees know that the blackmailer can’t turn the gas back on.
The game theory becomes totally boring when both outcomes are “Europe doesn’t have gas”. The obvious strategy becomes “just support Ukraine because there is no penalty for doing so”. Which is the opposite of what Russia wants.
It also forces Europe to find other gas sources… after which, any future attempt to use gas for blackmail is less effective. Again, opposite of Russia’s interests.
Putin may be stupid, but he’s not that stupid.
Empty threats are Russia's MO and have been for literal decades now. They've threatened Europe with nukes so many times that it doesn't even make the news anymore when it happens. Also, NS1 was not the only operational pipeline and it would have been a massive win for Russia if Germany had flipped their decision on NS2 to ensure their own gas supply. And clearly if they're working on NS1 now, it wasn't damaged beyond repair.
> Putin may be stupid, but he’s not that stupid.
I don't know, it sure looks like it. Most of his recent actions seem to be best explained as short-term fixes to a massive strategic blunder. It's only human to try to read into things and assume there must be some greater plan to his moves.
And would those threats be more or less credible if Russia unilaterally destroyed all their own nukes (and proved that they had done so)?
> Most of his recent actions seem to be best explained as short-term fixes to a massive strategic blunder.
Uh huh. And how does this help him, exactly? Putin must be the dumbest person to ever play eleventy-seven degree chess with such skill.
> It also forces Europe to find other gas sources…
That was forced a while ago, the threat here is against those other sources.