Russia's Gas Production Collapses to Late-Stage USSR Levels | Hacker News Reader

Russia's Gas Production Collapses to Late-Stage USSR Levels

newsweek.com

31 pointsmooreds31 comments

Water is always present in gas from a well, in pipelines going through permafrost, that water can condense out and block the flow, and eventually lead to rupture of the line.

It requires Western experts to repair and restart things. The last time it took 30 years to get things done, with Western experts, something the current regime lost access to permanently.

Total collapse of Siberian gas production seems inevitable.

I'm curious, why does this situation require Western experts in particular?

Because the education system collapsed with the Soviet Union, followed by a brain drain to the west.

Well, they wanted back to USSR.

I didn't see any explanation as to why domestic production decreased. Did I miss it? It's political impact in Russia ought to be great.

They cant sell as much bc main gas pipelines to europe have been turned off for a year and a half or more

They should keep up the production and just release it. Make the planet warmer thus increase potential productivity of agriculture in Siberia.

Somebody needs a lesson in geography

This was an actual plan in the 70s in fact. No shit.

https://gizmodo.com/how-the-ussr-tried-to-melt-the-arctic-56...

The article is celebrating this as some huge win but have all these sanctions stopped the war in Ukraine?

I feel like this is the same story any time we try sanctions, i.e. Iran. The sanctions have a negative effect on the target economy, but are completely ineffective at achieving any kind of policy goals.

10-15 years from now you are going to have China (An economic and manufacturing superpower) aligning with Russia (An energy and military superpower). It astounds me that people don't see the idiocy and danger in what we are encouraging; also the chilling effect of letting the world know that we wield economic power as a weapon, driving the BRICS nations further away economically.

> have all these sanctions stopped the war in Ukraine?

They’ve noticeably impacted Russia’s ability to import ammunition. Separately, there is a moral element to the calculus: would you have us trading with Nazi Germany while our allies died fighting them?

(I agree with you on e.g. Iran, Sudan, Cuba and Venezuela. If a country isn’t actively bearing arms against us or our allies, we shouldn’t have sanctions on them.)

> China (An economic and manufacturing superpower) aligning with Russia (An energy and military superpower)

Russia is not a military superpower. It is barely a regional power. Technologically, we’re seeing its cutting-edge kit destroyed by old NATO tech, which is destroying its export market.

Geostrategically, Moscow has proved irrational. Beijing, less so. Russia as a Chinese vassal seems more stable than permitting it to act as an independent power.

> If a country isn’t actively bearing arms against us or our allies, we shouldn’t have sanctions on them.

I'd add another category here, sanctions were crucial to end the South African apartheid.

> sanctions were crucial to end the South African apartheid

I think there’s a genuine exception for globally-coördinated sanctions. That said, South Africa was a special case. The USSR had just collapsed. The West had global hegemony. Outside that context, I wouldn’t expect the experiment to replicate.

Rhodesia, Nicaragua and Thailand all ended up with regime change in part due to sanctions making life more difficult.

Yeah Cuba and Venezuela in particular. They don't really do anything wrong except they have the 'unfavourable' state system.

Pretty easy to say: "hey look communism doesn't work" when you are causing it to fail. I'm not a fan of hard communism either but something more in the middle between the US capitalism and communism would really be great both for poor people and the environment.

I don't really want to get into these kinds of arguments. But let's deconstruct the statement "Technologically, we’re seeing its cutting-edge kit destroyed by old NATO tech".

Why isn't all the new, cutting-edge equipment winning the war? Why isn't Ukraine capturing territory.

The US spent trillions in Afghanistan, with the best technology. It's 2023, and the Taliban currently control the country. To be a military superpower you have to actually win wars, not spend money and talk about them.

There is an argument that the US has a big stick not to win wars but to convince everyone else not to bother.

Also an argument the US prefers to spend money than soldiers lives. And you can argue that all things considered the Taliban are a bunch of dummies because they could have good faith negotiated a power sharing agreement that kept the money flowing.

> It astounds me that people don't see the idiocy and danger in what we are encouraging

You make it sound like this is our fault. What would you have us do? Cower to Russia and let them have their way in Ukraine? Nothing empowers Russia more than bending to their every whim out of fear.

And China may not even be able to hold it together for 10-15 more years without communism failing them.

There's nothing communist about China except the state control. The whole equality and sharing is caring thing is missing. It's as capitalist as it gets now, since it was reformed by Deng Xiaoping.

They have outcapitalisted the US, this is how they beat them economically.

Continuity bias seems to prevent people from understanding that in 10-15 years Russia will be less relevant than Mexico. And the longer the war drags on the faster that will come to be.

You might think that's inane but currently Mexico's population is 127M, GDP $1.27T vs Russia at 143M and $1.8T.

So you're saying that Russia under sanctions is not weaker than it would be otherwise?

Crippling the Russian economy, their ability to project power and the living conditions for middle class Russians (at the end of the day they are to blame for the war) seem like good things.

> don't see the idiocy

Please do suggest any less 'idiotic' options?

> effect of letting the world know that we wield economic power as a weapon

I guess it's still preferable to nukes and carpet bombing (which were necessary the last time fascist imperialism was left unchecked...)

Middle class Russians are not to blame for the war. They're mostly city dwellers and generally know how the world works, usually hate the regime because they are losing their tech jobs and western goods but they can't do anything about it because they prefer life outside of prison.

The big masses of poorer rural people are generally more indoctrinated by propaganda and really believe in it. They're the ones voting for Putin (though I doubt elections are fair anyway). They're more what keeps the regime in power but I don't think you can blame them either. They simply have too little access to uncensored information.

> they can't do anything about it because they prefer life outside of prison

So they can do something after all? Violence is always an option (if you have no other options).

It’s not clear that it is. Countries in crisis often try to impose capital controls to stem the outflow of cash and prevent collapse but it’s super unpopular and causes extreme internal instability. The sanctions created the most effective Capitol controls the world has ever seen resulting in all money getting trapped in Russia and may have actually prevented a major collapse that would have happened normally if Russia had to impose those same controls from within. Without sanctions any money from Russian natural resources would have simply escaped and been used to buy dollars and foreign real estate. With sanctions Russian oligarchs had nowhere to exfoliate their loot and had to reinvest internally which may have prevented the collapse we wanted to create. Economist are going to be writing books for decades analyzing if the sanctions were effective or counter productive.

Yes, Russia is "weaker" than it would be otherwise. For now, until they economically align with China and circumvent the sanctions completely, and form a series of Axis powers, which is literally what happened the "last time fascist imperialism went unchecked" and turned into the deadliest conflict in human history.

The least idiotic option is diplomacy.

As for nukes and carpet bombing, that was never on the table. Russia has nukes the same as the United States.

That isn't 10-15 years away. That's right now. As the rest of the world quotes: "Never interrupt your adversary while they are making a big mistake".

The US seems intent on going to war with one country that can destroy the US in half an hour with nukes, and with another that has much more manufacturing capacity and four times the military-age population and can destroy the US conventionally.

That's a dumb decision that's on a par with the dumb decision to kick off Operation Barbarossa in 1941 when the Germans expected that it would be a breeze to attack the Soviet Union which had a greater population and had a far greater manufacturing capacity than Germany had.

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