Essay by Eric Worrall
Germany has been accused of importing Russian Gas via third parties. Did Moscow just lay down some ground rules?
This article is speculative, but hear me out.
Germany relies on a new source of money for Kiev
Status: 08/17/2024 8:11 pm
In view of tight funds, the Federal Government no longer wants to provide Ukraine with new aid for the time being. However, according to the Ministry of Finance, exceptions are possible. Support for Kiev is to come from another source in the future.
By Christina Nagel, ARD capital studio
The Federal Government had planned around eight billion euros this year to support Ukraine. Already at the beginning of July, however, it became clear that the funds for military aid were running out. They were “largely spent and bound,” said Defense Minister Boris Pistorius in the run-up to the NATO summit.
…
So if Ukraine would request more ammunition, spare parts or military equipment this year, for example, then the federal government would have to say “no.” And hope that another country will jump into the breach.
…
Read more (Original German): https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/ukraine-hilfe-deutschland-102.html
Germany officially stopped Russian gas imports in 2022. But there is evidence a significant amount of Russian gas is still being imported by the EU in disguised form – the gas is being liquified, then allegedly sold via gas exporting third parties like Qatar.
War in Ukraine: Why is the EU still buying Russian gas?
Arthur Sullivan 04/29/2024April 29, 2024
Although the EU has dramatically reduced the amount of Russian gas it imports, significant quantities are still flowing into the bloc.
…
How LNG imports from Russia replaced pipeline gas
According to EU data, the share of Russian pipeline gas member states imported fell from 40% of the total in 2021 to about 8% in 2023. However, when Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is included — natural gas cooled down to liquid form so it can be transported by ship — the total share of Russian gas in the EU’s total last year was 15%.
A key way the EU reduced its reliance on Russian gas was by increasing LNG imports from countries such as the United States and Qatar. However, this has inadvertently led to a surge of heavily discounted Russian LNG entering the bloc.
According to the data provider Kpler, Russia is now the EU’s second-biggest LNG supplier. LNG imports from Russia accounted for 16% of the EU’s total LNG supply in 2023, a 40% increase compared with the amount Russia sold to the EU in 2021.
Read more: https://www.dw.com/en/war-in-ukraine-why-is-the-eu-still-buying-russian-gas/a-68925869
…
Why is continued Russian involvement in German energy supplies important?
Germany is in a heap of trouble with its budget, the hundreds of billions of Euros Germany spent and continues to spend on its failed Energiewende green energy project have thrown government finances into chaos, and led to unpopular public deficits. Germany’s incompetent green politicians are terrified that any rise in economic hardship or further public outrage at the nation’s precarious finances will spur the rise of the populist right wing Alternative for Germany movement.
It wouldn’t take much of a disruption to German energy supplies to topple this fragile budget situation. Even a few delayed shipments of that thinly disguised Russian gas could trigger another politically damaging German energy price spike, and push German public finances even deeper into the red.
There is a missing link in this chain, I don’t have evidence that Moscow recently stepped up pressure on Germany to stop supporting Ukraine. But the timing of this decision to stop supporting Ukraine, right in the middle of a German budget crisis, within days of Ukraine’s surprise salient into Russian territory, seems intriguing.
Germany’s withdrawal of open ended support for Ukraine creates a huge risk for the United States. If the rest of Europe follows Germany’s lead, and also starts pulling support for Ukraine, the Biden / Harris administration will be left with the embarrassment of supporting a war on another continent which even Ukraine’s neighbours don’t care about. The “hope that another country will jump into the breach” – I wonder which other country German officials have in mind? With the tattered veil of European military support ripped aside, the Ukraine war would openly become a direct military confrontation between the USA’s Ukrainian proxy and the nuclear armed Russian Federation.
If I am right, Europe is truly paying the price for their failed experiment in green energy. European governments are still so beholden to Russian energy supplies, they have to dance like performing bears whenever Moscow cracks its whip, even as Russia eats one of their neighbours. Yet with their very political survival being threatened, most European politicians still haven’t found the political courage to change course and admit their green energy push was a mistake.
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That lead-in photo of a smiling, relaxed Putin must have been taken before Ukraine invaded Russia. Got any update?
Oh wow! Ukraine invades Russia, loses thousand of men and equipment. I wonder who is smiling now?
I can only hope that one of Ukraine’s drones now flying into Moscow airspace rattled one of Putin’s luxurious dachas.
That’s the little smile he got when Germany realized that Ukraine is the side that attacked NATO assets.
Invaded Russia. LOL. It’s an incursion of a few thousand square Km going nowhere.
Meanwhile Russia occupies 20% of Ukraine.
One doesn’t even have to be partisan for either side to recognise basic facts.
You totally missed the point . . . it’s not at all about square kilometers . . . it’s about the simple fact that Russia is NOW having to engage in a defensive war.
Defending a few thousand Km?
The point you miss is, several thousand Ukraine troops will be sacrificed for a meaningless PR stunt.
Over the last few days Ukraine made the fatal mistake of massing troops on the border to go in and support the insurgents. Russia found out and they are all dead now.
We were given all this claptrap about Ukraine’s unbreakable defence during the Bakhmut and Avdiivka battles and the Russians just rolled over both of them and have now advances several miles beyond them.
This is a war provoked by the west which was about to be settled in April 2022, two months after it began, until Biden sent Boris Johnson to Kiev to order Zelensky to tear up the draft peace treaty agreed between Ukraine and Russia.
This is Biden’s personal election war and now it’s going badly he’s been kicked out of the US government.
And the military institution of the war school YOU attended was . . .?
Clearly better than the one you attended.
Just today, August 22, the MSM is replete with accounts of Ukraine attacks not only close to its border with Russia but also deep inside Russia.
Here is but one example, from CNN (https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/20/europe/ukraine-drone-attack-moscow-intl-hnk/index.html ):
“Ukraine advances in Russia as Moscow mayor accuses Kyiv of ‘one of largest ever’ drone attacks
“Ukraine’s bold cross-border advance in Russia has seen troops continue to take out key bridges in the western part of the country, while on Wednesday Moscow’s mayor accused Kyiv of attempting to launch “one of the largest ever” drone attacks on the capital.
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the incursion aims to create a ‘buffer zone’ to prevent cross-border attacks by Moscow’s forces, to disrupt Russia’s economy and to ‘destroy as much Russian war potential as possible’.
“Russian authorities also claimed Wednesday that their air defense systems had destroyed 45 Ukrainian drones overnight: including 11 over Moscow, two over the Belgorod border region and two in Kursk.
“This is one of the largest attempts to attack Moscow with drones of all time,” Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a Telegram post Wednesday.”
(my bold emphasis added)
So, just keep on telling yourself it’s a meaningless PR stunt . . . it’s a meaningless PR stunt . . . it’s a meaningless PR stunt . . .
ROTFL.
Oh look, Russia’s useful idiot is here…
I’m not interested in either side. This conflict has nothing to do with me. I’m more concerned with the appalling waste of life and destruction of a nation to fight a western war by proxy.
You, on the other hand, choose to take sides and decided that Nazi’s were preferable to Russians.
Well then let’s see you denounce the invasion of a sovereign nation by an aggressor.
I do. Always have.
Facts are facts though and Ukraine could have stopped this 2 months after it began but chose not to.
“. . . the appalling waste of life and destruction of a nation . . .”
due to unprovoked warfare initiated by one vainglorious Vladimir Putin.
Unprovoked?
The west arming and training Ukraine over 8 years they attacked the ethnically Russian Donbas wasn’t a provocation? Ukraine promised a referendum on independence under the Minsk agreements, and never fulfilled it, they just shot at them instead.
After 8 years those ethnic Russians finally asked Russia for help, in much the same way Ukraine had help from the west for those 8 years.
It was so unprovoked a draft peace treaty was agreed two months after the conflict began until Johnson ordered Zelensky to tear it up.
You have everything exactly backward.
I guess you are sitting in front of a mirror.
You’re exactly right . . . it’s only a guess.
Basic facts like the fact Russia exhausted nearly all its immense and apparently inexhaustible Soviet stocks of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, etc.
Yep . . . to the extent that Russia is now begging China to supply military equipment . . . much like a lap dog looking for a treat from its owner.
Yes, Ukraine is going to surrender in a year or less – if they don’t regime change themselves first.
don’t bet all your $$$ on it
Hah! I think those were almost the exact words used when Russia started its major invasion into Ukraine in February 2022 . . . let’s see . . . yeah, that would be right around two and a half years ago.
Ukraine doesn’t need to surrender – the Russian advance will cease once all 4 oblasts have been liberated and a buffer zone created to prevent the Ukraine from shelling the People’s Republics.
Yep, 30 years before…..
Putin’s age Googled to 71, meaning he was born in 1953 and and 1 year old when USA tested the first Hydrogen bomb in the Marshall Islands and 8 years-old when the Berlin wall went up.
When I was a kid, USA public school history books decried Isolationism. I think now… Ukraine… Worth it? There are so many places in the world where “bad guys” have arguable persecuted “good guys” for “a long time”, is any place the top 10 list worth deploying military into? How do we, USA, call it defense?
I’ve aged out of draft status myself, the puzzle is really for teenagers and government. In order to get USA to back a war, at least one political party would have to re-embrace nationalism, make tough decisions about gender and nominate someone else’s already-born kid for a one-way ticket. They could do that, it would be historically consistent, but it would be something to see.
US dollars and equipment have been fighting in the middle East most of my adult life, an expensive situation that becomes more obvious if there’s no Putin.
Sorry? If there’s no Putin?
What’s he got to do with the middle east.
Since Israel was founded 76 years ago by Colonial Britain carving up the region and simply handing part of it to the Jews as their nation, there hasn’t been a days peace.
The refugee crisis that has caused has spread across Europe, and Germany, France and the UK in particular now have violence on the streets thanks to the unrest caused by the Islamic nation who are utterly unwilling to integrate.
Notably, there has never been a refugee crisis emanating from Israel.
Not so.
“The {1917} Balfour Declaration and the British mandate over Palestine were approved by the League of Nations in 1922 . . .
“The British controlled Palestine until Israel, in the years following the end of World War II, became an independent state in 1947.”
— https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/history-of-israel
(my bold emphasis added)
It’s far from simple, and goes back much longer.
The British had to occupy Palestine first. Then it was approved by The League of Nations.
The League of Nations failed as an organisation when very event it was created to stop when WW2 was declared.
What History.com doesn’t mention is that in 1946 the militant right-wing Zionist underground organisation, Irgun, terrorised the British and Palestinians with insurgency attacks on infrastructure and the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
They largely invented modern terrorism.
Yes, it does go back much further. My late father in law served in Palestine and was awarded the George Medal for retrieving one of two suitcase bombs, the same type as those that blew up the King David Hotel, from another hotel. His friend, a Palestinian police Sergeant, went in for the second one and never came back.
Strange what popular western history fails to tell us.
Arabs and Jews are fighting each other just as they have been doing for several millennia. Since 1947, from the day 1 of Jewish state, Muslims’ idee fixe has been its total destruction with restoration of rule of Islam.
What does it have to do with Putin?
I am no friend of Putin, just curious.
With Russian military industry utterly discredited, how many market opportunities have been created by these horrible events?
None . . . the PRC stepped in to fill the gap (much to the eventual detriment of the Russian people).
Admitting the Energiewende is a failure will probably lead to the fall of the current German government.
more likely the fall of the German economy. some people just never learn.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
I predict Germany will turn on a dime now that it’s becoming urgent.
Energiewende has been the policy of the previous governments too, even though its very foolish
I understood it to be a coalition government in both cases, with varying parts. The current government depends on the Greens.
When was the first time any government anywhere admitted a major failed policy was wrong?
Gorbachev?
Did he actually say Communist policy had failed, or did he couch it the usual political doublespeak?
Gorbi said he was an idiot.
So what? Will the new government be any different or, new government will blame Climate and Russia for Energiewende failure and double down on it?
Maybe it will.
But maybe at this point they worry more about lamp posts not working toward their primary purpose being repurposed to the traditional auxiliary purpose. They have relatives. Their soldiers have relatives. How many people can be protected from consequences of the Energiewende?
Even taking money and running to some sunny island, if this will be possible, does not look like a reliable solution now. I mean, the result of this mess is that both the puppets of New World Oder and the upstarts can plainly see that NATO can no longer be relied upon to defend the former and put down the latter. The movement toward multipolar world is visible. So where will it end? They don’t feel like doubling down any more, it’s time to hedge the bets and prepare to look like it’s a fault of someone else.
I believe you (purposely?) spelled “odour” incorrectly.. and yet, correctly.
So Trump’s ‘energy independence’ isn’t just spouting off? The USA has known reserves and untapped possibilities to help the world …. and our economy.
The New York portion of the Marcellus natgas shale isn’t drilled at all because NY banned fracking. The equally prolific Utica shale is virtually untapped except where it is shallow in eastern Ohio, since most of it underlies the Marcellus. Plenty of light oil deeper shale layers left in the Permian basin. And ANWR is untapped because Biden revoked Trump’s exploration permits—likely much larger potential oil reserves than the depleting North Slope with only a simple extension of the existing Alaska pipeline needed.
Drill, baby, drill.
US fossil fuel output under Biden/Kamala is much greater than under Trump. I guess you can be for and and against different parts of Green and Fossil Fuel projects.
‘Biden isn’t advertising America’s record oil boom’
https://www.vox.com/climate/24098983/biden-oil-production-climate-fossil-fuel-renewables
‘Why oil companies are raking in record profits under Joe Biden’
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/11/economy/oil-industry-profits-under-biden/index.htmlv
Vox doesn’t tell you where the additional oil is coming from state land or federal land, under Obama as Biden did was to fight oil drilling thus it was an oil boom on STATE land under Obama yet he got the credit despite that he shuts it down on federal land.
Second link is bad.
despite Biden, not because of him
record prices because of record demand- free up the industry and prices will fall
‘Help the world’? Do grow up. Your administration ordered the destruction of Nordstream II, which has caused European gas prices to rise 500%, due to the USA ‘helping Europe’ by causing gas prices to rise 500% due to their terrorism.
Europe was happy with Russian gas for 40 years and all you Americans can’t cope with that.
The world is turning steadily against you, because you always carry out your imperialism via carpet bombing. It’s impossible to be friends with a nation of baby killers, women killers; a bully that only bombs those that can’t bomb them back.
You foolishly don’t think that Putin has murdered plenty of women and children in hospitals, schools, neighborhoods?
Did rtj1211 suggest becoming friends with Putin?
You have evidence for this?
On the other hand there is endless documented evidence of US/UK/NATO atrocities in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and all the other wars the western nations have sought to export whilst the US has not fought a single battle on it’s own borders since The Alamo.
Quite apart from the wars themselves, and the supposed reasons for them. Bin Ladin and WMD’s to mention just two feeble and fraudulent excuses.
Then there’s 64 regime changes, contrary to international law, conducted by the CIA between 1947 and 1989 (Prof. Lindsay O’Rourke).
US troops have been sent into service 241 times since 1991 and you’re condemning Putin for targeting hospitals and schools where Ukrainian troops regularly shelter. If they are sheltering there, they are legitimate military targets, as we are constantly reminded when Israel bombs them in Gaza.
You might note that the battles taking place across Ukraine are in the village, towns and cities where troops are hiding amongst the buildings, not out in the open. And when a conurbation is at risk of imminent attack from Russia, it’s evacuated, and if it’s not who is to blame for civilian deaths?
Neocons tend to consider everyone stupider than themselves… and, well…
“You have evidence for this?”
Well, literally several hundred videos showing the Russians destroying civilian infrastructure. Maybe it’s all fake?
Atrocities in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and all the other wars? Sure, war is horrible. No war ever is without atrocities. That fact proves nothing about why the wars happened. So, what’s your beef with western nations having fought wars? You think there were never valid causes? Just imperialism? There’s a case for that but it’s a simplistic view of history. Sure, there has been imperialism- and that’s why Russia is in Ukraine. Since the west fought a cold war with Russia for 45+ years- we can’t trust them as they try to rebuild their glory days.
“Well, literally several hundred videos showing the Russians destroying civilian infrastructure. Maybe it’s all fake?”
Those would be videos you found on the internet, no doubt.
“Sure, war is horrible. No war ever is without atrocities.”
So why are you bitching about what Russia does when you excuse atrocities in every other war?
“That fact proves nothing about why the wars happened.”
We know why the Ukraine war began. Russia had warned the west not to move NATO up to the Russian border since 1991 when the USSR fell. NATO ignored Russia and western nations organised the Maidan coup in 2014, trained and armed Ukraine (including the Nazi Asov battalion) which destroyed Russian orthodox churches, banned the Russian language, ignored two Minsk agreements, attacked the ethnic Russian Donbas region for 8 years before they finally asked the Russians for help. Minsk 2 included an agreement that the Donbas and three other regions were to be allowed an independence referendum but Ukraine blocked it.
Following the Russian intervention in February 2022 Russia and Ukraine agreed a draft peace deal in April that year, just two months after the conflict began. The principle components were that in return for Ukraine pledging never join to NATO and restoring and respecting the rights of Russians in Ukraine, Russia would withdraw completely from the regions it occupied.
Biden despatched Boris Johnson, then Prime Minister of the UK, to Kiev where Johnson ordered Zelensky to tear up the treaty and fight instead.
The four regions held their referendum under Russian occupation, with international observers present, and 85%+ voters chose to to join the Russian Federation.
The fact is, this is Biden’s personal war designed to ensure his re-election in November as a heroic and successful war time POTUS. But that ambition failed as Russia prevailed in Ukraine, and Biden got sacked.
Thanks for the new word for me. (conurbation)
Generally, I agree with your first two paragraphs. Regarding the third…
There are no friends in politics, only partners.
US is only as bad as its power is unchecked in its strive for global domination.
As we know, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
But I doubt that the world turns against US. I think it is more like the world goes about its own business paying less attention to US.
“US is only as bad as its power is unchecked in its strive for global domination.’
BS. It is the dominant power- but that’s not the same as global domination. America did quite well with the nations it defeated in WWII- helped them rebuild. There will always be one dominated power. Which do you choose to have that role? Let us know. The world paying less attention? The dollar is still the world currency because people all over the world like it that way. And American culture, as lame as it often is, is also significant worldwide- along with the English language.
Instead of just being “someone”- as long as you’re going to attack the entire West, it would be nice for you to come out of the closet you’re hiding in so we might determine your prejudices- and who YOU might be a front for.
I do not choose. I am just an observer. And what I see is some quite detectable American superiority complex.
Dollar as the world currency is a way of collecting tax from the whole world without occupying territories and physically extracting them. Romans had to send tax collectors to conquered nations, but US does not have to. As long as dollar is used as payment and investment tool in other economies, a percentage of the work done by people in those countries ends up in US fiscal system, perennially subsidizing it. Without this subsidization US monetary system would crumble fast and spectacularly.
It is laughable to say that this is because people all over the world like it this way. It is this way because US were able to plan and execute it this way, but nothing lasts forever. All empires come to an end, so the empire of dollar will too. As often happened, it will be destroyed more from within than due to outside pressure.
Pease stick to matters, not personalities. I do not recall attacking anybody, let alone the entire West. I speak only for myself and reserve right to change my opinions if presented with convincing facts.
Thank for letting us know, especially the last part.
Trump warned you that EU special interests were going to start the war. You laughed.
. . . and our (USA) economy with a current national debt over $35 TRILLION.
It probably didn’t help engender continued German support when they found that Ukraine had sabotaged the NS pipelines.
That is still an open question. Just look at the logistics it took to sabotage the pipelines. Old Uncle Sam had a hand in it.
Seems likely. It would be nice to know who really authorized / carried out the operation , but I suspect that information is even more closely held than the truth on Jeffrey Epstein.
Don’t think so. US had no strategic interest in destabilizing German energy supply. Ukraine had strong strategic interest in cutting off a major source of Russian cash flow.
WSJ story is credible. The named team of 6 skedaddled after bringing the chartered sailboat back—did not take the time to wash it down. So fingerprints and residues provided forensic evidence to Germany. Sort of since confirmed by senior Poles.
Plus someone bragged to somebody somewhen. The team accidentally dropped one of their four charges overboard in the Swedish harbor, which is why only three of the four actual Nordstream pipes got destroyed. They decided not to retrieve it in the harbor lest give the mission away. No such thing as a scuba holiday in the Baltic at end of September; cover was 6 friends just on sailing holiday. Reality was a seasoned skipper plus a seasoned first mate to handle the sailboat positioning over the pipelines, and four very skilled deep water experienced scuba divers to follow a line down, place charges, then follow line back up to sailboat while decompressing for 3 hours each.
Thanks for that useful summary, I only had heard part of that before.
Everyone forget that Ukraine also relies on Russian gas – they own sources are fairly depleted now. Sending all of germanys gas via the North Sea means Ukraine and Poland might have their supplies restricted or blocked
Russian gas supply into and via Poland was the first to be cut. The Poles were preparing for it anyway, with a new pipeline from Norway and a new LNG terminal at Swinoujscie financed by Qatar and the USA.
‘US had no strategic interest in destabilizing German energy supply.’
Really. I think the US had the same ‘strategic interest’ in mind that Cortez had when he ordered his own ships burned – in this case, making sure the Germans, or any other of our ‘allies’ dependent on Russian gas, didn’t get cold feet over the Democrats’ / neocons’ ongoing spat with Russia.
While it’s possible ‘6 friends on a sailing holiday’ could have orchestrated the operation, my bet’s on the type of deep-state assets that do this sort of thing for a living. And then, there also the fact that Biden, before his handlers learned to keep him on a short leash, ‘telegraphed’ the entire event.
“ongoing spat with Russia”
that’s all that it was? nothing more?
By GDP Russia’s economy is smaller than Canada’s. They’ve fallen out of the top ten list.
Considering how contorted “GDP” is (e.g. a simple explanation here), why would anyone involved care? The people need electricity and heat available before they can be entertained with such stage magic.
Okay then pretend GDP is a fictional number invented for bad reasons. Russia is the 9th most populous country and a median age of 40? If Google search is about right then the median citizen is of “send someone else” age.
Understatement is a literary effect, often used to make a point. In this instance, the Russians, having dissolved the USSR and the Warsaw Pact some 30+ years ago, might be a little wary of the same neocons who blew up the Middle East now having a go at regime change, color revolutions and nation building on their immediate doorstep despite Russia’s ongoing appeals to maintain a demilitarized buffer.
I recall that you’re a history buff, so you probably know more about the Monroe Doctrine than I do. But I do remember being taught (7th grade?) how wonderful it was that the US had told all the European powers that it would not tolerate any of their efforts to effect regime change, color revolutions and nation building anywhere in our sphere of influence, which I believe we modestly defined as anywhere between the Bering Sea and Tierra del Fuego.
Speaking of the Monroe Doctrine, what do you think would have been the US’ response if, at the height of their power, the USSR had orchestrated a soft coup after a Canadian election to install a Soviet-friendly government that immediately announced its intentions to join the Comintern and the Warsaw Pact?
“the same neocons who blew up the Middle East now having a go at regime change, color revolutions and nation building on their immediate doorstep”
Wow- such naivete. So, it has nothing to do with the people in those nations- it’s all the neocons! Actually, the people in those nations hate the Russians and for good reasons. Look up “holodomar”
The Monroe Doctrine. That was more about keeping European imperialists out of the western hemisphere – than about keeping down the peasants- though there were and are plenty Americans who like to exploit the resources of the region- yes, American imperialists. When America was young, it was weak and was fearful of powerful European nations. It was hardly strong enough at that time to do much about it- other than bluff.
If you the Ukrainian people do NOT want to be part of the European culture and economy and would prefer to be part of the “Russian Mir”- you need to do your homework. Holodomar!
‘So, it has nothing to do with the people in those nations- it’s all the neocons!’
It should be about self-determination, which is why every attempt by the neocons (e.g., Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton, etc.) to bring ‘our democracy’ (I’m betting you’ll hear that term a lot at this week’s DNC) to those pesky foreigners somehow always blows up.
We can dance around this issue all day if you wish. But if you really want to bring me around to your point of view, you’ll have to explain how the same people whose domestic interventions are rapidly and consistently destroying the US are somehow infallible with respect to their foreign policy interventions.
Stop Ukrainian propaganda. There are no facts, just fantasies and outright lies that make Holodomor a planned genocide committed by Russians against Ukrainians.
Holodomor was the result of Stalin’s policies. Intended or not, it is debatable. Most likely Holodomor was not the intended result, just another example of state-run planned economy. Similar results were demonstrated in China by Mao, where something like 50 mln died from hunger.
Stalin was not Russian. The disastrous policies that resulted in Holodomor in Ukraine were executed by ethnic Ukrainians, namely Khrushchev and his Ukrainian accomplices.
Holodomor hit grain and cattle producing regions in Russia and Kazakhstan, not only in Ukraine. Probably in proportion to population Kazakhstan suffered the worst. Russians also died from Holodomor in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and in Russia.
US foreign policy is entirely obsessed with destroying Russia and blowing up Nordstream II was considered a way to remove Russian gas from Europe and then sell them LNG at 500% the price of Russian stuff.
USA had an enormous reason to blow up Nordstream II: in addition to profiteering with LNG, they also wanted to steal German industry by forcing it to relocate to the USA.
If you continue to say you are friends with Europe, you may need to be incarcerated due to mental insanity. Europe is just acceptable collateral damage in its obsession with destroying Russia. Poland was rewarded with Norwegian gas for being virulently Russophobic.
Yeah right, the US has no interest whatsoever in what’s happening over in the Middle East nor in the PRC nor its border with Mexico.
/sarc
absurd! Russian bot!
You may be on to something . . . one of the major MSM outlets of Russian propagande is “RT” news channel. It might not be just a coincidence about the first two letters in the pseudonym of “rtj1211”.
IMHO, all posts coming from rtj1211 have the typical characteristics (particularly, half-truths and outright misinformation/propaganda) of an AI bot . . . and a poorly constructed one, at that.
“obsession with destroying Russia”
The obsession is not with destroying Russia per se, but preventing integration of Russia with its natural and human resources into European markets.
And if Russia integrates with both Euro markets at one end and also with Middle East, India and China, unifying all Eurasia, it is an ultimate nightmare for US.
Huh. And then there are those.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230814171854/twitter.com/GunterFehlinger
Yes, there are politicians that openly dream of splitting Russia in 20+ ukraines, similar to disintegrating SU in 15 states. This is a pie in the sky. But keeping Russia in perpetual check, always under sanctions and severed from Euro markets is the real attainable goal of mainstream elites, already achieved.
These “friends” can be easily explained: it’s exactly the same problem as difference «between the Palestinian people (or rather, their welfare), and the Palestinian cause». And welfare of the South African people vs the South African “cause”. And welfare of the Ukrainian people vs the Ukrainian “cause”. It’s always the same. All over the place. Again and again and again.
Rud.
This is one of the largest undersea energy projects on the planet. The pipework is large bore concrete reinforced steel designed to withstand everything nature can throw at it, and some mankind can, like dragging ship anchors and doubtless many other hazards.
Five drunk guys and a female (included to create the impression they were on a pleasure cruise apparently) which is the cover story, don’t plan something like this in a few days, jump on a pleasure yacht with suitable undersea explosives and sail off into a war zone. They have to find the pipeline first, how did they do that? It’s not like it’s advertised, and even only a few hundred feet down, it’s dark, and a massive body of water.
Then there’s the problems associated with diving to that depth.
I mean, it would have to be specialist explosives for a start. Where did that come from? Never mind deep sea fuses/timers etc. Do they just order them from Amazon?
And after planning and executing that extraordinarily technical exercise, which they knew would have caused an international incident and invoke the biggest manhunt Russia has ever known, they didn’t sink the boat to destroy any evidence? They just sailed it back, casually anchored up, and abandoned it covered in fingerprints and DNA.
Then there’s the diplomatic row that didn’t happen between the ‘allies’ Germany and Ukraine over Ukraine nationals wrecking the entire German economy. Not a peep. Indeed, Germany has unquestioningly provided Ukraine with war materials and money for the past two and a half years whilst itself going down the financial plug.
The Swedish or Danish (I can’t recall which) spent two years examining the evidence, then just shut up shop. Tight lipped and no conclusions released. No mention of a pleasure yacht either.
Biden and his neocons in the Whitehouse were reckless enough to start a proxy war with Russia, by their own admission to generate regime change itself an illegal activity, why wouldn’t they be reckless enough to blow up a pipeline. They sanctions the life out of Russia after all, they realised that wasn’t working and Biden himself announced America would put a stop to the pipeline. How was that to be achieved by conventional, peaceful means?
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/03/1060558/heres-how-the-nord-stream-gas-pipelines-could-be-fixed/
The WSJ story isn’t credible, it’s incredible that they would expect anyone to believe it.
“US had no strategic interest in destabilizing German energy supply.”
It wasn’t about destabilizing German energy supply.
“US had no strategic interest in destabilizing German energy supply.”
Selling US LNG at much higher price already qualifies as an interest.
Causing trouble to European markets also makes US look like safe heaven for investors.
But most important, the US strategic interest is in precluding cooperation between Eurasian countries that might lead to formation of a unified Eurasian market that is self-sufficient in natural resources, technologies, growing population, improving standards of living, growing economies that rely on local investments. If this happens, US as global power and dollar as global currency become much less relevant. Thus, provoking all kind of conflicts in Eurasia is US perpetual big game. Cooperation between Germany and Russia is the key to the whole puzzle. From US point of view, it must be stopped at any cost, even at the cost of Third World War. This is about as important to US, as destroying Carthage was to Romans.
Ultimately Russian efforts to get the Germans side with them over the Ukraine failed, despite the gradual turn of the screw by progressively cutting gas supplies, finishing with closing Nordstream some weeks before it was blown up. By then Nordstream had lost its strategic importance. It was of course built in the first place to bypass routes that went via former COMECON countries and to try to force yhe West into funding Ukrainian non-payment for gas.
and others
This story about Ukraine is just a diversion of blame from the real planner and executor.
Do you really think they believe that nonsense?
The Germans have recently issued an arrest warrant for a named Ukrainian individual, so certainly publicly they have reinforced the view that they were responsible.
However, Germany has not been an importer of Russian LNG, which has recently been more concentrated on more lucrative Far Eastern markets especially with the Arctic route being open. European destinations have mainly been Spain, Belgium and France, with more limited volumes for the Netherlands and Portugal.
German LNG imports have been mainly from the USA. There have been very small volumes of Russian pipeline gas from across the Ukraine and Hungary to the Austrian hub at Baumgarten and thence Southern Germany: around 25% of former levels. The contracts supporting this run out in October, and are not going to be renewed.
Hoping for the United states to jump in and fill the void is wishful thinking. With a national debt of 35 trillion and growing by another trillion every 3 months or so, The United states doesn’t have the wherewithal to be fighting any more wars, no matter what the government thinks.
However, most democrats and many republicans exhibit the Buzz Lightyear mentality.
The US national debt will never be cleared.
It’s a Sword of Damocles that each successive administration passes on to the next generation of income tax payers.
The only measure to manage this debt’s crippling interest is to raise more and more tax revenue.
Problem is – governments keep giving away more “goodies” to garner votes than the additional taxes bring in.
And just about all western democracies are following the US national debt playbook.
When this all starts to unwind in some sort of dominoes event, the “climate crisis” will seem like a midsummer night’s dream.
This article explains the huge moral difference between private and public debt.
https://mises.org/mises-daily/repudiating-national-debt
It would appear the Biden governments solution to the debt problem is:
Use Ukraine as a proxy means to cause a political coup in Russia, install a favourable government, thereafter balkanise the nation and plunder it for its mineral wealth.Use Taiwan as a proxy means to cause a political coup in China, install a favourable government, thereafter balkanise the nation and crush it’s manufacturing industries sending it back to the stone age.
“Ridiculous” I hear, yet Professor Lindsay O’Rourke has identified and documented 64 American induced regime changes between 1947 and 1989.
The 2014 Maidan coup unsurprisingly replaced a Russia friendly regime in Ukraine for a US friendly regime that demanded membership of the EU and NATO.
The recent Bangladesh colour revolution, virtually identical to all other colour revolutions in the last 30 years, has replaced an India friendly government with a US friendly government. According to informed commentators plans to create a US naval presence in Bangladesh to control the Bay of Bengal have been on the back burner since the 60’s/70’s.
Meanwhile efforts are being made to persuade nations in the eastern Pacific to have them join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
The Biden government, and Republican RINO neocons (step forward Lindsay Graham) are completely out of control.
If Trump doesn’t win in November his loss couldn’t possibly be legitimate and the American people must surely intervene.
“The only measure to manage this debt’s crippling interest is to raise more and more tax revenue.”
To raise more tax revenue, the tax rates should stay the same or lower. The Laffer Curve clearly shows that increased tax rates actually reduces tax revenue. If only we had democrats like JFK that realize more money in citizens pockets, increases prosperity for all including government coffers.
The current tax revenue is larger than it has been in ages, possibly in history.
The U.S. doesn’t have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.
FKH
Sadly, JFK and his successors were/are socialists.
Never trust a socialist.
JFK did lower tax rates resulting in a robust economy.
He was anti-communist.
His actions were more in line with what we wish present day politicians would do.
Was WW2 started by wealthy countries?
Many here have forgotten the non-observed Minsk Accords. Nobody cares about Russian-speaking Ukranian citizens, I guess.
From Italian TV RAI
Have only a look at the photo….
Long story short for those who don’t understand German.
Two Italian journalists followed the Ukrainian insurgents into the Kursk region, for which the Russians can legitimately prosecute them as it’s Russian sovereign territory.
Whilst there the Italians took the shots of a member of the the Ukrainian unit with a Nazi emblem on his baseball cap.
The event was reported by Der Spiegel (German media) but they ‘forgot’ to include the important information on Nazi emblems sported by the Ukrainians.
Thanks for the better translated explanation, as I would be able to.
“Spiegel” of course is a left wing propaganda paper.
You’re welcome but I can take no credit. MS Edge provides a good translation app which can convert web pages on the fly.
““Spiegel” of course is a left wing……”
As was the Nazi party by it’s own admission. The slur far- right is projection from the left which should be repelled at every opportunity.
https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm
Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators, build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators, remove all wind and solar from the grid, update the grid and look forward to a happy life.
I assume that a typical American would describe how nuclear reactions work by an experiment involving ping pong balls and mouse traps. This thread contains much commentary about global conflicts that might unfold differently if related technology were better understood and less feared. I’m not sure the world is better that way.
I don’t buy the underlying Russian LNG premise. True, Russia is the fourth biggest LNG producer. Not true that most of it goes to EU (Germany). US is biggest German LNG supplier by far.
Germany is pinched by 3 things:
So German politicians got nothing left to give Ukraine with bigger political problems facing a fragile coalition at home.
Its so small the LNG supply , exactly who is largest is a hollow victory
“The total volume of natural gas imported into Germany via German LNG terminals in 2023 was 69,656 GWh. This represents 7% of Germany’s total gas imports.
https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2024/20240104_Gasversorgung2023.htm
Germany still has a strong current account.
https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/current-account
The economy appears to be impervious to the ups and down of their weather dependent energy supply.
Germany is shifting reliance from Russia to China; gradually moving its manufacturing to Chinese bases.
There has been a quiet revival of gas plant construction and coal is still needed to keep the lights on.
My bet is that the UK will be the first modern economy to suffer through black outs. But Australia will be heading toward high summer demand as UK is heading toward its high winter demand so could be neck and neck.
Not for long. Manufacturing is down by 20% since 2019. Given their energy costs BMWs and Benzes will probably be made in Poland in 10 years. Not great for an export economy, won’t matter when your country is a retirement home/tourist destination.
Why shouldn’t Germany buy gas from Russia? There’s no evidence that the USA is any less genocidal than Russia, indeed the evidence is voluminous that the USA is the most genocidal nation on earth since 1990, when the new Russia was formed. So no nonsense from the USA telling Europe who they have to buy gas from, particularly when US LNG is so disgustingly expensive.
Nor does anyone in Europe have to bow down before Ukraine, who took the US billions and is now becoming a US protectorate, economic colony and worse. If the USA thinks it can still play at imperialism, when it is a financially insolvent country, it is being extremely stupid.
Russian bot!
Not the only one….
Care to cite any qualified, credible reference—say something like a finding from the International Court of Justice—to support that absurd statement . . . or did you just get it from some second-hand AI bot out of the Kremlin or PRC?
Sorry, but the reason for Germany’s declining support for Ukraine is entirely fiscal: Germany is over their constitutional debt limit, and the present government’s attempt to end-run around the constitution was killed by the German constitutional court.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with German purchase of LNG of any provenance except very indirectly: loss of government revenues due to declining economy/industry due to Nordstream destruction.
German social spending is already being diced and sliced; any euros going to Ukraine are now literally coming out of the German pockets that are supported by the German social safety net.
Not gonna happen. Each nation has to struggle with its budgets but- Europeans are horrified of another H*tler on the loose invading his neighbor and they will continue support Ukraine even if Trump doesn’t. Not counting Putin lovers leading a few of the least important European nations.
“Definitions of fungible. adjective. of goods or commodities; freely exchangeable for or replaceable by another of like nature or kind in the satisfaction of an obligation. synonyms: exchangeable. suitable to be exchanged.”
Al sells Bill apples (while Cal sells Doug apples too)
Then Al is a jerk so Bill says
“I will not buy apples from Al”
Then:
Bill competes with Doug to buy apples from Cal
So Al asks Doug “Would you like to buy some apples cheaper?”
Result:
Al sells Doug apples (while Cal sells Bill apples too)
The end situation is _probably_ less efficient than the start situation, meaning that Al, Bill, Cal and Doug all do worse on average – even if Doug does the worst-est.
Even if Bill says
“I will not buy apples from anyone ever again”
Then:
Doug benefits for a while, while both Al and Cal do worse for a while… and Bill has to live without apples.
One question: What happened to the oranges?