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Comment by sega_sai | Hacker News Reader

All these sanctions are a bit of the joke when you are dealing with an insane leader in a country without elections and sitting on top of a pile of reserves. And the west is not doing one thing that could actually actually make a difference -- cutting oil and gas export because the west thinks it'll be too expensive for the west.

I feel these sanctions are still more of signalling, than actually doing something useful to help Ukraine.

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The inescapable fact is Germany intentionally put themselves in a position to be more dependent on Russian oil/gas with their shutdown of nuclear power. The previous US president made a point about how Germany's decision contradicts the purpose of NATO.[1]

1: https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/1496917092351692810

The decision doesn't contradict the _purpose_ of NATO, which is a fairly straightforward military alliance. It does impact the _effectiveness_ of NATO, because one of its member states is economically dependent on a non-member state with a high likelihood of conflict.

Trump is saying that NATO shouldn't exist because of this intertwinement, and there's a sentiment going around that NATO caused the conflict by existing and forcing Putin's hand. Saying things like "the purpose of NATO is contradicted" plays into that narrative.

Interestingly, trump hated NATO and wanted to leave it. I firmly believe that his griping about issues like this, while accurate, was really a move to weaken the alliance and make the relationship between the US and European nations worse.

He even planned on withdrawing from NATO in his second term, had he won the election: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

There hasn't been a large change in imports of russian gas in Germany since the start of the Energiewende. [0] Gas is largely used for heating, electrical heating was never widespread and would not have been a viable alternative, even with keeping more nuclear power online, since it is uncompetititve without major subsidies.

Anyway, gas consumption as a percentage of the total mix has been stable since before the start of the Energiewende. [1] Germany replaced some coal and nuclear with renewables and kept the rest stable while also substantially increasing total energy demand.

Since your are quoting one of the worst people I've ever had the displeasure of having to listen to, it is curious that you ignore that the US is a major importer of russian resources, too, and is now silent now about boycotting russian imports. [2] It was all fun and games when the trade-off was that Germany would have to import expensive American natural gas, but biting in the sour apple yourself doesn't seem to be on the table, at least for now.

[0] https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/exports/germany/mineral-...

[1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...

[2] https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-ne...

By your own [2] above, Germany still consumes more than 67% of its energy from oil, gas and coal. Had it chosen to scale up nuclear instead of scale down nuclear, it would be less dependent on that 67%. France famously gets over 75% of its electricity from nuclear, and has plans to expand capacity by adding 6 more reactors [4]

U.S. is not a major importer of Russian energy. U.S. is a net exporter of natural gas.[2]. Foreign imports for energy fell 30% under the previous admin [1].

Russia only accounts for 6.6% of our foreign imports [1]. And foreign imports have become less important for the U.S. as it has become a net exporter of oil & gas [3].

Under previous admin, our natural gas exports doubled [2].

[1] https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M... [2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/imports-and-... [3] https://dailyenergyinsider.com/news/29194-united-states-expo... [4] https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy/news/macron-presents...

> Had it chosen to scale up nuclear instead of scale down nuclear, it would be less dependent on that 67%.

In my understanding, it wouldn’t change much for the natural gas portion, because that can’t be replaced by electricity for the most part (heating).

Heat pumps? Resistive heaters?

Mutual economic relationships have been seen for decades as means to lower the risk of military conflicts with Russia. I am not sure how much this was considered for the nuclear exit, but in general Germany has more consciously chosen closer ties with Russia over seeking independence than it accidentally stumpled into them.

Germany has traded energy dependence on Russia for pharmaceutical, machinery, and car exports that Russia can get elsewhere. Interdependence works well but this appears quite one sided. In explains their inaction in part, though 40% of Germans also supported the annexation of Crimea.

> All these sanctions are a bit of the joke when you are dealing with an insane leader in a country without elections

Russia has elections, but even having an unelected autocrat doesn't mean that governments are immune to popular opinion.

Ask Louis XVI of France or, perhaps more relevantly here, Tsar Nicholas II of all the Russias.

I know that technically they have elections (I'm a Russian living abroad), they just count in a 'special way' so they get the result they want.

And yes I agree popular uprisings is a possibility. But in the case of Germany in 1930-1940s that didn't quite work.

That's because Hitler kept winning. He militarized the Rhineland in 1936, the allies did nothing. He took over Austria in 1938, the allies did nothing. He occupied Czechoslovakia later the same year, the allies did nothing. With every win, Hitler's popularity increased at home. He's reported to have been quite surprised when the allies finally declared war after Poland.

We have a word for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeasement

Neville Chamberlain negotiated with Hitler over handing Germany large swaths of Czech territory critical for border defense. The Czechs weren't invited to the conversation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time

We know how that turned out.

Hitler didn't have nukes and super-sonic missiles -- you cant do to Russia what you would want to do to Hitler.. at least not without a very heavy price..

> Hitler didn't have nukes and super-sonic missiles

While relatively late in the war so it didn't have too much strategic impact, the Nazis literally invented the supersonic missile.

I meant to say 'hypersonic' nuclear icmbs

And when Putin threatens nuclear first strike unless the west removes sanctions, or abandons the baltic republics, what next?

At some point you have to just call their bluff. Earlier is better than later. Putin himself knows that he'll be the first casualty in nuclear war, and I doubt very much that Putin's deputies would go along with a plan that results in the annihilation of the Russian people. He's playing a high-stakes game of chicken.

What does 'call his bluff' translate to in this context? Not take the threat of a nuclear war seriously and engage with Russia militarily anyways as-if the threat didn't exist?

Yes. Use NATO air power to tip the scales in Ukraine. They seem to be doing pretty well by themselves, even just a little help may be enough.

Putin is gambling that the west is too cowardly to fight, and so far he's right. Hitler made the same gamble in 1936.

Didn’t seem to end particularly well after the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty either. Adding nuclear weapons doesn’t make the prospect of political upheaval (let alone violent revolution) in Russia sound any more desirable.

The only people that can realistically help Ukraine right now are the Russian people.

The sanctions are theatre and will be lifted in a year or so.

If the West really cared Swift would have happened long ago.

The reality is they do not care for Ukraine.

> The reality is they do not care for Ukraine.

I've been thinking about this all day and feel incredibly upset when I see what's going on.

What can we do? Have you seen what the Russians did to Grozny?

It all boils down to the fact that EU simply can't start a war with a maniac that has thousands of nukes. I'd say let him have it and Ukrainians refugees are welcome here by the millions.

Putin's now threatening Finland and Sweden should they dare join NATO and there's talk of the conflict spilling over in to Moldova and Georgia. That would change things drastically. As soon as EU or US forces take military action against Russia we have to assume he'll retaliate and then it's basically WW3. If that's what it takes to get rid of this maniac then so be it but the consequences for everyone will be severe.

> Putin's now threatening Finland and Sweden should they dare join NATO

do you have a link i can read up on? I would imagine everyone is running to the safety of NATO now and i can totally see Putin saying "if you try then you're next".

> ...then it's basically WW3. If that's what it takes to get rid of this maniac then so be it but the consequences for everyone will be severe.

"severe" would be the mildest term possible to describe what would happen heh

https://mobile.twitter.com/g_mastropavlos/status/14972378568...

It was on the Guardian news feed, can't find it again but here's another link

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-threatens-finland-sweden-nat...

Sweden and Finland probably don't feel the need to join Nato but the threat that was made is enough to put EU on edge. Scandinavia is much "closer" than Ukraine.

Severe indeed.

They literally state that every few months. Lavrov just said it in December.

>> The reality is they do not care for Ukraine.

The facts support that interpretation. USA withdrew troops two weeks ago, which signaled to Russia they could move in.

https://www.trtworld.com/americas/us-withdraws-nearly-all-re... ' US withdraws nearly all remaining troops from Ukraine '

The energy/heating situation in Europe is very tenuous. In the UK most everyone has gas central heating, and energy bills are skyrocketing. This is the most pressing domestic issue in the country right now, far above covid. Johnson is attempting to gain some popularity by putting on a tough face, but there is no chance he can survive if energy prices rise any further.

Here a staggering number of people die every winter due to not being able to afford heating[0] (something like 30-50k). I think it's not quite so bad in other EU countries but some (like Germany) are still extremely reliant on Russia for energy. Due to strategic shortsightedness, cutting off oil and gas exports is simply not an option.

[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/27/dying-...

I absolutely agree (I live in the UK), but in the end it's a question of money I believe. Somebody has to bear the cost of more expensive fuel/gas. I am sure if UK wanted it could have subsidised those costs till the next winter. I don't know how expensive that would be, but I doubt it's astronomical. On a balance of costs between squeezing Russia more or saving that money they (and Europe it seems) decided to save the money and go for measures like prohibiting Aeroflot flights or throwing Russia out of Eurovision.

The frozen accounts if the Russian perpetrators could be used to offset the cost of the subsidy!

30-50k is just the excess mortality in winter months. Further in the article they estimate the number of people who die whilst having difficulty paying for heating to be 3k, and even that is only a correlation - poorer people die earlier for many different reasons

They are signaling. Push came to shove and the unfortunate reality is that Ukraine isn't that important to most countries and the risk of a greater war is worse.

The lesson here is that every country should learn to defend itself.

I think the lesson is Ukraine should have joined NATO years ago and countries should only elect leaders who respect the alliance and want to keep it strong.

That would have just moved the timeline up. Ukraine is in a shitty position. Russia has always had a "red line" of conflict if Ukraine joins NATO. NATO has always known this.

Russia's neighbors want in to be protected from war, but there is no way in without starting a war.

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