A strong strike also makes it less likely for Russia to be able to adapt fast enough using loopholes like these.
https://globallnghub.com/report-presentation/natural-gas-dem...
A strong strike also makes it less likely for Russia to be able to adapt fast enough using loopholes like these.
https://globallnghub.com/report-presentation/natural-gas-dem...
Sure, Russia will capitulate in a matter of months in the face of economic sanctions. Just like Iraq, Iran, Cuba and North Korea did. Oh, wait.
And that's just for the people and the hope they'll rise up. The Russian economy is also very dependent on imports of high quality stuffs they can't replace. Including their main income source, natural resources ( they use Western tech for sensors and whatnot around extracting and transporting oil, gas, etc.).
The idea that Russians will rise up because they can't access YouTube is wishful thinking. Stalin was objectively worse. But he still managed to die in office without ever having to face a real uprising.
While there might be a degradation in efficiency, it's not like Russia will be unable to keep extracting natural resources without Western assistance. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was able to keep selling oil despite the sanctions.
Russian aircraft industry still remains very capable. It's not unimaginable that they'll be able to keep the planes they stole flying for a while. Sure, there might be crashes like with Iran. But it's not like Russian regime particular cares about the lives of Russian citizens.
Last I checked iPhones were made in China. Sure, Apple might decide not to sell them in Russia but that still leaves perfectly serviceable smartphones from the likes of Xaomi, Huawei and Oppo.
Iran somehow manages to keep pumping oil and gas despite the sanctions.
While there will be obvious loss of productivity, let's stop pretending that the sanctions will somehow grind the Russian economy to a halt or that they will induce regime change.
The funny thing is, they can't even attept to give them back, the airspace of "the rightfull owners" is closed to Russia.
And accepting any sort of materials/capital from Russia is frowned upon now.
They build their own.
> iPhones or high precision sensors from China.
China itself won't do it, but I forsee that less savoury third parties are probably very interested in partaking this potential highly profitable triangular trade route.
No they don't. The only airliner they build is the small Sukhoi SSJ-10, which uses French engines and a ton of Western avionics and systems.
Irkut MC-21? Most of the actual aircraft don't need to be big to be effective. Russia actually has a small population for it's size.
They actually (well, not anymore) build a substantial ammount of Ukranian aircraft as well, most of the Ukraine Antonov aircraft was more or less actually manufactured in Russia.
BUT those who live in classic badly/non insulated homes (vast majority of the population, and vast majority of those who can afford new homes and EVs, have no choice than revolt in a new French Revolution, hoping to do better than the first witch means avoiding putting a new élite in chief like the old one, or exactly the old one with different puppets/public face or starve to death. That not counting a "small" fact like the industry energy needs, since even with nuclear not everything is electric and not everything can be electric in a short time period.
The strike of sanctions actually is AGAINST EU interest, far less against Russian interest. The USA/UK want to destroy EU since they know EU was approaching Russia, since that's our best interest [1], and they know the next war in Asia will impede them to keep EU under their boots. A small suggestion: read Klaus Schwab, Mark Carney books for knowing their agenda and Antony Sutton's books to know a bit of history. You'll discovering that you fight/cheering for your own enemy, even if you are from USA. I'm not joking, really.
[1] we have the tech but not space nor natural resources, Russia have natural resources, space and a solid enough country to be a fair partner not a dictatorial one like the USA/UK (together since these days are not two countries but a similar élite that act with equal targets against any population, their one included) and a near partner, Europe by nature till the Urals.
What's your plan? Produce fertilizers without gas + without animals since the Green New deal dislike meat? Produce the electric revolution without energy? BTW strategic reserves are for emergencies, using them without a plan to replenish them means consume anything and remain without anything and no plan.
I've built my new house few years ago, well insulated, with p.v. etc I do not own EVs because so far a far from being a good idea but when neoliberals will push, because they'll do, gasoline to 4 euros/liter than an EV will be needed and I can recharge it, but industries can't and I do not produce such systems in my garage. While vast majority of population can't even afford a new home.
When I posted my first comment, numbers in the link, I expected at least some of the answers to be in the vein of "lol no, we've been caught with our pants down, see this [source], we would have horrible shortages of X Y months before even the next winter", or maybe "ok, looks like we'll make it up to Z date[source], but that's quite the risk to take !"
But nope, it's mostly been what looks like posturing about how I'm in denial of how the economy needs energy to run or something, even though I've explicitly based my first post on those considerations ! Really disappointed about HN here... (Jancovici, anyone ?)
Climate change is evidently an emergency and evidently the Green New Deal public answers are not answers, their green color is dollar green not spring-grass ones. Actual shortage are probably 30% due to climate change, the rest due to artificial speculations and maneuvers to push "World Government" [1] green deal/great reset. But try to analyze it: from what they published so far if you want a realistic scenario you need to kill around 4 billion of humans, pushing too many more in extreme poverty. Did you really want numbers?
Yet again, why do you assume that I'm guilty of this ? I didn't ask for precise numbers, and you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
I'm talking about the (new) Russian invasion of Ukraine being an emergency.
(And the issues of overpopulation/pollution/depletion of natural resources aren't new - King Hubbert predicted in 1956 that US oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970 - and it did in 1970 - and it's not like he pulled those numbers out of his ass, but he based them on known numbers about production rates and discovery trends. And these topics were discussed quite extensively in the 70's, before we decided that we didn't care about the future - if anything, a forced reduction of EU reliance on hydrocarbons is also a good way to finally prepare us to the inevitable shortages that we're going to face anyway in the next decades.)
Ukrainian war for instance is an emergency in certain terms:
- first for the people living there, on both sides, and that's more a tragedy than an emergency but not a new tragedy, it's start formally in 2013-14;
- secondly for countries that depend on Ukrainian and Russian's grains and poultry like Turkey, Middle-est in general, large part of Africa etc, that's new, but that's not a thing can be solved without ANNIHILATING NATO witch means that the EU en-mass say: we are out, we are interesting in entering CSTO and EAEU as partners, something not going to happen seen actual élites and mean population;
- an emergency because it's the first start of WWIII, witch is a tragedy by itself, and a special one since we have nukes and some in the NATO area think they can be used as offensive means not just as a last resort suicide since the '60s. Again the sole way to stop that is erasing neoliberals, not something going to happen;
- climate change is another tragedy, but not something can be changes by us in little time, we can only adapt, and Green New Deal is not really a way to adapt, it's just a way to replicate a Chinese society in the west, some tech aspects are good of course, but they can't work on scale and more important they can't work if not managed by States NOT by public-private criminal associations, pardon, partnerships, another things that can't be politically fixed soon;
- resources are a big issue that will bring all to war, as always, again not something solvable.
So what? So the sole rational choice I see, seen the mean population, is try to protect ourselves individually, hoping the new "20+years nazi-fasists regimes at war" will not last more than the old ones and that at the end when enough population revolt we still have means not only to revolt but to live correcting the errors of WWII revolts witch means annihilating not just the public puppets but the puppet masters.
Oh, BTW there is NO EU preparation to reduce the reliance on fossils, there is just a push toward impoverishing again and destroying again Europe switching from Russian sold resources to USA sold ones. If you really read the actual state of thing and you try very simple mental calculus that's the sole conclusion you can draw. Even if we start to put all industrial power in p.v. and eolic now we can't really reduce reliance on fossils for decades. We can't really run on p.v. or eolic for industry so without nuclear only fossils remain. As they remain for aviation. The logic path for EU is keeping buying Russian fossils (as it happen) but with a public trial and lifetime sentences to those in EU Energy and EU Commission who choose to transform an inter-State public market in a financial one in Holland, with Dutch TTf etc. clearly saying that now energy sector is back to the public and all managers and politicians involved will discover how hard Democratic justice can be. In the practical side pushing renewables, relocalization, etc BUT nothing done by the private under public-private partnerships. And pushing fusion research with ONLY public bodies involved.
I can't really know how terrible is the actual situations but in any case the sole hope for humans is changing capitalism, not in the Schwab-ian way but in a classic European democratic way, with so hard actions against neoliberals that no one for a century will even though a night to imitate them again.
...The US forced RU to attack Ukraine because EU might get a benefit from RU resources...
Let's just ignore Russian media and actions showing they are executing a full on genocide in Ukraine.
About EU: we do have the most advanced tech of the world, but we do not have natural resources, the nearest, developed and vast potential partner is the Russian Federation, witch is geographically Europe till the Urals (so Moscow and most developed areas included) and we share a vast border, so no third party geopolitical tension can endanger our supply chain. In the last decades Russian Federation have try to offer the olive branch few times [2] but NATO (USA/UK) pressures stop them. In the meantime Russians have made the EuroAsiatic Union (EAEU) and we can complete it, commerce was flourishing etc.
Now? Just for Ukraine read the OSCE report about who have started the war, who are the criminal (well the most criminal, at least) and where arms came from: https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/e/7/233896.pdf also if you really follow the news you'll easy discover that vast majority of war crime reported on medias are classify as fake in few days, by western sources, like Italian TV showing a cut-scene from the game War Thunder stating that's the bombardment of Kiev, crying mothers sold as Ukrainian (true) omitting that's not a 2022 picture but one from 2014 of Russian-speaking Ukrainians mothers after Euromaidan nazi massacre so "one the other side" or the pregnant influencer "forced to live the maternity by the bomb" that declare just few days after that Azov nazis force her and other to leave because they took the hospital for military reasons etc. Oh, I've no doubt that there are crimes on both sides, that happen in all wars, but definitively the genocide I see is of Russian-speaking Ukrainians by nazi militia armed by NATO, and no I'm not a Putin fan. BTW just demand yourself why bomb a hospital, a theater etc if that's not used for military reasons, missiles have a price, an error can always happen, a systematic bombing means wasted gears so a nonsense.
I'm a nephew of decorated Italian Partisans from WWII I was trained from my childhood to spot nazis with and without uniforms, and these days I realize that Putin is a dictator, but the USA and UK are worst dictatorship then him, also against their own people interests, and being European my interest is on the opposite side of the front because my interest if form a real EU, not just a monetary one, a Democratic one, not a Barnum circle, having cheap and abundant Russian resources not skyrocketing prices before the war because EU neoliberals, son of those who have created original nazi and fascist regimes, want big profits against their own people interests, my interest is a Russian Federation detached from China because China need a war just to have food for it's enormous population and USA/UK need a war to counter China because loosing South America and the see dominance for them means being destroyed and unable to continue their cleptocratic policies so my interest is left the hitting each others while EU+EAEU remain aside an profit.
No conspiracy theory there just history, geopolitics and basic simple reasoning instead of slavishly and acritical trust of propaganda, from all sides.
[1] for instance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/cold... https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/operation-unthink...
then
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dropshot http://www.allworldwars.com/Dropshot%20-%20American%20Plan%2... https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/2268796/a-declassified-milit...
[2] http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/65899 then https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-urges-vladimir... then https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210625-eu-leaders-rejec... followed by https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/06/25/kremlin-regrets-eu... and slightly before https://tass.com/politics/1342189
Even though we rarely had a war where the side that is in the wrong was so clear cut ! And it's not like this war hasn't been ongoing for the last 8 years ! (And we still don't have any concrete proof that, say, the CIA was (directly) behind the Maidan massacre - in an age of WikiLeaks/Snowden (!!) - I mean, if Macron had ordered to open fire on the Gilet Jaunes manifestations killing a hundred, I would hope that a coup would have shortly followed, regardless of whether a significant fraction of the protesters were CIA agents !)
I guess it's some combination of "the enemy of my enemy of my friend", and the sheer lack of interest in most (?) EU media (but especially the French one?) in the ex-URSS, resulting in a lack of competent specialists, resulting in an astounding lack of understanding of the situation, after which Russian propaganda was quick to fill the resulting void (especially noticeable in the "alternative" medias like Agoravox since 2014).
Did you think OSCE publish Russian propaganda? The Atlantic Council? Rand corp? Because those are my cited sources... Beside that I'm not worried by USA propaganda but by propaganda in general and by the vast mass of vulnerable people that ingest it acritically: thanks to propaganda we already have had two world war, I think they was enough...
> Even though we rarely had a war where the side that is in the wrong was so clear cut !
Wars are done for interests, needs, not on moral basis there is no right or wrong side, just interest on one and another and also other sides. Best EU interest is the Russian side, best China and USA interest is keeping that war a long as possible to on one (USA/UK) side demolish a resurgent EU that was about to left NATO oppression and on the other (China) push Russian resources and military tech to China, witch means they'll be ready for WWIII in just few years.
> And it's not like this war hasn't been ongoing for the last 8 years !
OSCE report? It's from an EU official body, hard to say it's Russian propaganda... Or another example https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraine-s... just to add another I do not cite before. Or you prefer the Russie.NEI.Visions in English from the French IFRI to cite another definitively not putinian body? BTW you can find sources from The Diplomat, Foreign Policies and various others of the same kind, all you need is a honest web search...
> And we still don't have any concrete proof that, say, the CIA was (directly) behind the Maidan massacre
We have phone interceptions but it does not matter at all a single episode, what it matter is the macro level, witch means NATO expansion, NATO creation of nazi forces not even just in Ukraine but in all western EU, and not today but in few decades (did you remember op. Stay Behind, Aldo Moro killing etc? To cite some historical and well documented ones). We can't know the truth about a specific episode even if someone say it. We can instead know the global truth because at macro scale nothing can be really hidden for long.
> resulting in an astounding lack of understanding of the situation
I suggest you to try the mirror test: how can you say that you have a clear understatement while those who think different are caught in Russian propaganda? How many reasonably official source of information you have read, looked for? I mean public institutions not generic press of any kind and any country. How much you followed in the timeline the news stream? How much you know about Ukraine, just in history terms (did you actual Ukraine was a Soviet-made country from 1954?), did you know who manage Ukrainian infrastructures especially oil&gas ones? (hint: USA, UK and Holland companies, like for Kazakhstan). Try to honestly reflect on those aspects. Than tell your conclusion.
Oh, in evilness terms, did you remember the Iraq invasion based on claimed lies from some USA and UK élites about the Saddam mass destruction weapons that do not exists? Or the Afghanistan invasion based on the false claim they protect bin laden? Or the France ops in Libya when Qaddafi start to touch France-controlled CFA? Or Syria? Just to cite actual ones, but we can also came back to famous propaganda-made wars like Guatemala, the last strike of Eduard Bernays for the United Fruit co, those of Chiquita bananas between the rest.
Putin's side is even more tied to fascists (even and especially across EU !) than the Ukrainian side...
I have a much better understanding than your average West European because I was born in Russia, am fluent in Russian, and have family roughly split between Russia and Ukraine (and for what that's worth, had a grandfather that actually fought Nazis - I can't really believe it, but I'm now glad that he didn't live to 2014 and to see this insanity).
And now I'm going to have to cut this discussion short because I have to try to reach my Ukrainian relatives again, which I'm having a hard time to, because cellphones have trouble working from bomb shelters, and they're even being shelled during the day these days.
Of course, that's does not means Putin isn't similarly a dictator, the the blackbird is black like the crow of course but actually Russians aren't ready for Democracy so unfortunately they haven't much choice. Back in the past when bolsheviks overthrown the Mensheviks (thanks to Kaiser money, via Sweden) was already clear that seeds of Democracy were not enough, for Russian Federation Putin now it's the sole option, the other one will being back to a new and correct Soviet Union but that's an utopia so they can just try to be back as an empire. That's is.
Similarly most EU citizens are pushed again toward nazi ideas, we are around the thirst 20-30 years of 1900, a new world war is "needed" and many civilians will be killed, NOT much by Russian army, far more by militia armed by the same cancers of humanity that crafted nazi-fascism before.
BTW I'm Italian but I have some Russian and Ukrainian friends with various political ideas, and some news: if you imaging that "cellphones have trouble working from bomb shelters" you are just spread propaganda for a very simple reason: Russian targets are unknown to us, but Russian strategy is not: they do not bomb anything like USA in the WWII or NATO thereafter, they want a country or part of it, not ruins, when they bomb hospitals they bomb military targets occupied by Azov, C14, Pravy Sektor, Svoboda, ... not because that's what their press say but because bombs are not cheap and they haven't the USA military-industry complex nourished by wars and reconstructions thereafter, so an error can happen, but nothing more than that for mere practical reasons. Bomb shelters beside these days does not exists anymore than in the USA and some abandoned in Swiss. They came from WWII kind of mass-bombing not today's one.
So please do not consider that a sterile polemics or a personal attack but from what you write I can be wrong of course, but I suspect you have absolutely no knowledge of what's going on in Ukraine nor in EU. That's perfectly legit, you probably just "trust the system", accepting propaganda press not that different than soviet Pravda, as reality, but on HN typically there are a cohort of people who look under the tree, no one is immune to propaganda, no one can really know the truth but dissecting news enough to understand what's real and what's manufactured at a certain level is easy.
Rolling blackouts everywhere throughout Europe and in the next winter everyone freezes?