Russia is deeply hostile to Eastern Europe and, in fact, the entire Europe. That has always been the case. You're sitting in faraway Venezuela and your country is seen by Russia as something to use to annoy the USA with so your relationship with Russia is naturally not hostile. From an EE perspective, Russia is going to have to be stopped by any means necessary be it militarily or economically. The EU sanctions against Russia are the only way.
And no, Russia is not going to be able to export too much in the way of gas to India. Due to the existing pipe infrastructure, Russia's biggest gas buyer will be Europe for quite some time. It takes time and a lot of capital to build the pipelines to export gas to other customers like China.
I agree with you that relying on Russia for anything important like energy is foolish. Russia does not think in terms of mutual economic benefits. It does not play positive sum games. Russia is the only major European country that hasn't given up for old school imperialism and colonialism.
Europe finds itself in this mess mainly because of German short-sightedness, greed and stupidity. Nuclear power is the best form baseload power there is. France has made the right choice. Renewables have a minor role to play that could grow depending on technological development. Coal is horrible but coal fired power plants could help with the power shortages.
Europe should go nuclear in a big way and stop dealing with Russia. Fossil fuel use is going to ruin the planet anyway. The business as usual scenario would've ended in a really shitty way. So, maybe this war is has the unintended positive consequence of helping Europe get rid of fossil fuels.
Agree with you 100%.
As a European, I would be really ashamed if we'd left Ukraine on its own. Europe has been through so much worse. This is just a passing phase. Europe needs to stay strong now, impose more sanctions, and strengthen its army. Changing the mindset toward pro nuclear power seems to be the only solution for the time being.
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Indeed. Europe has seen two devastating world wars in the 20th century followed by yet another 45 years of totalitarianism for the eastern half of it.
Those countries in Europe that are most heavily dependent on Russian natural gas should be very busy building LNG terminals. Nuclear power plants should be on the drawing board. Now is the time to be forward looking when it comes to energy. Small scale reactors should be looked into. The Japanese and possibly the Koreans have working products. If Germany cannot bring itself to build more nuclear and foolishly insists on not looking into extending the life of its existing plants, then there is a lot of money to be made for Germany's neighbors by selling nuclear generated electricity to Germany.
None of this will solve the potential gas shortage in the near future except partially for floating LNG terminals if they can be obtained.
Not arming and financially supporting Ukraine would be dangerous. If Ukraine fell, apart from the horrific humanitarian cost of that, Russia would control even larger a share of the world's agricultural exports. Ukraine's sizable oil and gas deposits will also be entirely controlled by Russia. Russia's stranglehold on the world and Europe would strengthen. And Russia hasn't made bones about its intentions regarding Eastern Europe. Putin wants to restore Russia's imperial glory and for Russia to dominate Eastern Europe once again.
In the best possible case, the Russian economy would suffer badly enough for Russia to disintegrate. Ukraine and Belarus would be free. The whole of North Caucasus would become a patchwork of independent countries. Bashkiria, Tuva and Buryatia, the cannon fodder producing poor republics of Asian Russia would gain independence as well. They'd remain independent with Chinese support. The Far East would become China's backyard but in name.
It would be ideal if the traditional Pomor country made up of the oblasts where the Republic of Novgorod once was became independent of Moscow. But that does not seem likely to me. The people of St.Petersburg and the oblasts to the east of it have Russian identity.
I'm afraid Russia would have to cease to function as well as it has functioned under Putin for it to not be a threat. I have nothing against Russians living well as such. But it seems that every time Russia becomes successful it reverts to imperialism. The only solution is to keep it down forever. That means it can't be traded with to any significant extent and certainly not depended on for anything vital. Every country that has significant trade with Russia needs to be slapped with import tariffs on its products in all Western countries. Military superiority vs. Russia must be maintained.
The problem with the sanctions is that so far they have not generated absolutely no problems for Russia, on the contrary, it is Europe that is the main affected.
I would not put my hands in the fire for a government as corrupt as the Ukrainian one (actually for any government), in fact most of the weapons given by NATO to that country were resold to countries at war in Africa or in the black market of armaments (see dark web).
Totally false. The Russian economy is projected to contract by about 10% due to the sanctions this year. Russia is dependent on Western tech companies in so many ways that them all pulling away at the same time cannot but have devastating effects in the form of a shortage of spare parts, software updates and other maintenance across the entire economy.
The weaponry given to Ukraine is already having a tangible effect on the Russian war effort. Just in the last couple of weeks, dozens of Russian artillery ammo depots have been blown up in the occupied areas. That would've been impossible without HIMARS and the GMLRS precision guided munitions provided by the US.
I should add how hundreds of Russian tanks and other vehicles were destroyed by Ukrainian infantry using anti-tank missiles like the Javelin or NLAW in March. It is very clear that the weapons provided by the West have done good.
The financial aid given by Western countries is keeping Ukraine financially afloat.
Are you sure you're not being paid by Russia to spread this propaganda? All you have said sounds quite familiar. Twitter is full of people from the Third World busy spreading Russian propaganda.
I believe that the hostility between the West and Russia is mutual, so I see no difference between one and the other, both only think of one thing: the supremacy of one over the other.
Beyond the position on Ukraine, the truth is that the European mistake was not to apply its own strategy to confront Russia, on the contrary, the whole strategic design comes from the USA and as you will see this last country only applies strategies according to its own interests.
So Russia has secured a magnificent market in Asia, India gains a large energy supplier for a population that triples that of Europe, while the latter has not yet defined a real independent energy policy of its own.
For me it is a tremendous hypocrisy to consider the very polluting nuclear energy as "clean" when before this energy crisis it was on the list of the greens as "not suitable for the environment". I wonder, with the proliferation of nuclear plants from where will Europe get its uranium supplies and another thing, where will they continue to hide the tons of radioactive waste generated by these "clean" power plants?
On the other hand, the USA needs markets for its expensive gas, since Russia has already secured China and India, where half the population of the planet lives, so if it requires Europe to become dependent on this energy source, it will certainly do so, therefore only the old continent has the last answer: to continue as a laboratory rat of the USA and Russia or to apply independent policies and strategies in order to carry out its own interests? That is the question.