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Comment by mustacheemperor | Hacker News Reader

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They're ultimately victims of their own political leaders who increased dependency on Russian gas in order to irrationally kill nuclear fission energy.

Anti-nuclear energy activists will likely go down in history as villains.

Like Angela Merkel?

Also, didn't Trump get laughed at by many of his European counterparts when he advised them at the UN that it was against their best interests to go all in on Russian energy.

A broken clock is right twice a day. Ric Romero has more on this late-breaking story at 9 and 9.

And yeah, Merkel did her country no favors, in more than one respect.

I would get to the same answer via a slightly different path. Their corrupt leaders sold their country to Russia and they pulled it off by exploiting their constituents with anti-nuclear fear mongering.

Anti-nuclear energy activists will likely go down in history as villains.

My personal pet conspiracy theory is that those 'activists' were largely sponsored by Russian interests to begin wtih. Cui bono?

More generally, supported by fossil fuel industry.

They were and still are the useful idiots serving the interests of carbon emission industry, who exploited their amygdala because it's easier to be scared of acute nuclear risks than by diffuse GHG risks.

You should take a look at the "Stop Oil" lot we have in the UK at the moment, if they aren't a big oil psyops ill eat my hat.

Constantly doing the least logical and public endearing actions possible without fail.

It was the Schröder Government that signed the initial Nuclear phase-out law.

The same Schröder who would later join the board of GazProm and just paid the Russian Embassy a visit for WWII victory celebrations the other day.

> I was too young to remember these events firsthand, but learning about Grozny in the history books, I am mystified that the world was so eager to cooperate with Russia such a short time later. Putin completely destroyed a cosmopolitan city killing thousands of civilians. The Russian military offered the defenders safe passage out of the city and mined the road overnight before they left.

I think it was vain hope that the cooperation and "playing nice" will cause shift in russia into more civilized country and shift the iron curtain thinking of EU being "the enemy" instead of "partner in making more wealth for the citizens".

It's only in hindsight that you can say the hope was "vain"; many Eastern European countries are doing fairly well, as are most Balkan (former Yugoslavia) countries. Further back you can also look at post-Franco Spain as a success, or Germany after the second world war.

At some point you got to say "okay, we'll try again with you guys". Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. There's a fine line to walk here, but in the end it's the only option there is other than perpetual hostilities.

There's also perpetual colonialization and extermination of people you don't like.

Neither options are good, just bringing them up since they have been done in the past.

> it was vain hope that the cooperation and "playing nice"

yes especially given that the US torpedoed any chance of really nicely getting along with Russia when we go far enough back to a point where Russia could have gone in a different direction

but there where many many clear indications that any such chance had passed since many years ago to a point where it was clear that going forward with the "playing nice" path would not work

Through I guess part of the reason they tried anyway is because while the US is for the EU the most close aligned super power, there are still many differences. At the same time a major US <-> China conflict is on the horizon since decades and the EU is not and likely never will be in a position to go to war with China. Also in some few point the EU is closer to China then the US in their views. To cut it short AFIK an escalation of an US China conflict has a non small risk of the EU being torn up between the fronts (more economically then military), but a EU with strong ties to Russia would be string enough to not fully enter the conflict and in turn might come out more powerful then both the US or China

9/11 was the point where a lot of things were forgiven, or at least ignored, because "we're all fighting terrorism". Putin played that angle masterfully, too - he was the first foreign leader to call Bush, for example. Here's an example of what was in the press at that time:

https://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/09/10/ar911.russia...

Somebody has to supply your energy. Is Bashar Assad a better option, or perhaps Saudis are better? Islamic republic or Iran perhaps? Hugo Chavez?

If you don't like how Russia handled Ichkeria, you are not alone because Russians have exactly that feeling about Yugoslavia as well as Iraq.

If you are to take the realpolitik posture, and take the best of your worst picks - of course bad actors outside of your own continent are a better option than bad actors next door.

Nobody has any sympathy as to how Russians feel about anything while they are invading Ukraine.

Or instead of relying on any of them, generate energy in nuclear reactors domestically instead.

@dang, how come this is allowed to thrive while my input was flagged?

I'm a bit late to this, but as far as I can tell that comment was flagged just the same as yours was.

I should say, though, that if you're asking about https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35894833 - that comment was clearly against the site guidelines. It was far worse a violation of the guidelines than the parent comment you're asking about. Please don't post like that, regardless of which comments users happen to flag.

Also- if you want to ask us a question, please send it to hn@ycombinator.com, as the site guidelines ask (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). "@dang" is a no-op, and I only saw your comment randomly.

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