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Comment by mech987 | Hacker News Reader

I've only thought about it for a minute- but I might speculate that it is a signal from Russia- "even if we decide we want to turn the gas back on, you might not be able to get it when you want it."

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Incentives don’t align for Russia (lose revenue) and Russia could just turn off the gas if it wanted to. Putin is a wildcard, but still, if he wanted to “teach Europe a lesson” he would just come out and say I’m turning the gas off, freeze to death.

Also, Biden promised that they had the capability and desire to take out the pipelines if Russia invaded so there is that. Plus, the US would stand to profit from exporting LNG to Germany.

Russia would only be losing potential revenue if the pipelines would be getting used any time soon, which is highly unlikely. They already did turn off the gas, now this just confirms it for the long term, with the added bonus of lots of people immediately blaming the US for it. Middle Eastern nations would benefit far more than the US, which has basically sold all of its capacity for LNG already. The EU is looking to sign LNG deals with those nations, see for example Scholz touring the Gulf region recently.

    Dear Russia


    Thanks for confirming so clearly that you are an untrustworthy and manipulative partner. 


    Best,
    -The Rest of Europe.

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