EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels | Hacker News Reader

EU achieved independence from Russian fossil fuels

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EU continues to important Russian oil, it has just been refined and rebadged by India, Saudi Arabia, China and others, so that a statement like this could be made. EU is basically paying a premium in order to stake a claim to moral high ground they don't hold

They’re doing this while forcing russia to sell their crude at close to zero profit. I’d say that’s a positive.

It might be a positive, but the headline is completely misleading. Which is what this comment thread is about.

Do you have any data on their actual profit margins, or are you speculating?

Elsewhere here this link was given as proof that Russia was back where it started and hadn’t suffered loss of oil revenue.

It shows export volumes pretty steady, but revenue loss of 43%. That would seem likely to have hit profits pretty hard.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/14/energy/russia-oil-exports...

Some would disagree with this take:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/24/ukraine-the-wests-oil-war-ag...

Analysis published Wednesday by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an independent Finnish think tank, found that Russia’s revenues from oil exports have recovered from levels reached in January and February.

The findings show that Moscow has been able to successfully claw back earnings from fossil fuel exports in recent weeks despite the imposition of import bans from the European Union and a broader G7 oil price cap late last year.

Energy analysts at CREA suggested the failure from the so-called Price Cap Coalition to revise price levels and enforce the policy had resulted in the measures “losing traction, integrity and credibility.”

> Some would disagree with this take:

No they would not. From the link you provided:

> “Russia’s export revenue in April was down substantially year-on-year, mainly due to the impact of the EU import ban and lower oil prices. This means that Russia’s budget will likely stay in deficit, constraining military expenses,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at CREA and co-author of the report.

> EU is basically paying a premium in order to stake a claim to moral high ground they don't hold

Not really, EU is paying a market rate just like the rest of the world. It's just that a big part of the profit which would normally go to Russia now goes to middlemen.

The price cap was designed to reduce Russian profits without reducing Russian oil exports..

Europe used to get pipeline gas at a fixed price, and now it's getting LNG at a much higher rate that fluctuates with the market.

Sure, but before that gas was funding a self professed foe. It's much better to not fund your enemies.

That logic only works if Europe was the only trading partner available to Russia. What happened in practice is that Russia simply redirected trade to other countries while Europe now pays a huge markup buying from resellers.

But they aren't selling at their original price, Russia is now selling to those partners at a reduced price.

At the very least it reduces the amount of funds Russia has at its disposal for the war.

The discounts Russia offers to its partners are minimal, and as CNN reports, Russia's revenues are back to pre-war levels. So, not sure what you're going on about there. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/14/energy/russia-oil-exports-iea...

That appears to show that the volume has returned but not its price.

"The revenue is still down 43% from a year ago, the IEA said, as Russia is forced to sell its barrels to a more limited pool of customers who can negotiate greater discounts."

That doesn't actually follow. Had the west not got into a sanctions war with Russia, then they might've never increased their output. The end result is that the profits have not been affected. More importantly, what actually counts is the relative damage. It's pretty clear that EU economy has been affected far more severely than Russian economy. IMF projects Russia to actually have growth this year, while there is a recession projected across EU states.

> IMF projects Russia to actually have growth this year, while there is a recession projected across EU states.

IMF bases their projection on data provided by Russian government agencies. So this works only if you trust Russian government to not fumble data.

I guess we'll see won't we. However, it's pretty obvious that Russia is doing massive amounts of trade with China and India. Trade between China and Russia has already reached over 200 billion this year. So, not really sure what this notion that Russian economy is collapsing is based on to be honest.

> However, it's pretty obvious that Russia is doing massive amounts of trade with China and India.

For sure India and China are eager to exploit the very unequal relationship where Russia now needs India and China much more than the opposite.

The Russian economy is not collapsing, but I'm pretty sure it's hurting. Even if we had real GDP figures, they'd be misleading as now a significant part of the GDP is coming from production of military gear which is literally being burned and does not generate income or feed into other parts of the economy.

This is just wild speculation that's completely baseless I'm afraid. We've literally been hearing this story for nearly two years now, and there is zero substantive evidence to support any of these assertions.

It's just basic economics. India and China have a bigger leverage, it would be stupid of them to not use it.

I mean, what's the alternative explanation of why India increased the Russian oil imports tenfold? It's not because of good will, it's because India can suddenly import Russian oil much cheaper than before. Why does Russia sell oil cheaper to India? Because it won't find another such big customer.

Basic economics say that Russia is a major commodity exporter and that as long as there is global demand for these commodities then Russia will have no problem selling them. It's like you don't understand how basic supply and demand works. India gets a great deal because it can buy oil from Russia at a slight discount and then resell it to Europe at a large markup. The loser here isn't Russia but Europe.

> India gets a great deal because it can buy oil from Russia at a slight discount and then resell it to Europe at a large markup. The loser here isn't Russia but Europe.

You're contradicting yourself. India is selling at a market rate, so if there's a profit to make, it's coming from the Russian side. Pick one - either India has a big markup or Russia sells with only small discount. Both can't be true.

You're the one who said that India can suddenly import Russian oil much cheaper than before. So, using your logic India is selling oil to Europe at a markup. If Russia is selling to India at a small discount, then India is still making money directly at the expense of Europe.

I'm happy to admit that India is making money as middlemen, that's exactly how the price cap was supposed to work. But given India is selling at market price, it's cutting into Russian profits. Indian profit is the same as Russian loss, so it's really silly to claim that Russian discount is "small" while India makes "big" markups.

That's absolutely not how the price cap was supposed to work since India is buying at a higher price than the cap and we've seen repeated complaints from western officials regarding this fact. Again, as many articles I've linked show, there is no sign that this is cutting into Russian profits in any significant way/ However, it absolutely is devastating European economy.

I'll reiterate my point since it clearly escaped you. The question is which economy is being hurt more relatively speaking. There is clear evidence that European economy is suffering and countries like Germany are now in recession. There is no such evidence regarding Russian economy.

> The question is which economy is being hurt more relatively speaking.

2022 GDP growth:

* Germany +1.9%

* Russia -2.1% (according to Russia's agency)

Yeah, evidence absolutely points to European economy getting hammered while Russia is better than ever.

now let's forward and see how things are going in 2023

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/25/economy/germany-recession-q1-...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-25/germany-e...

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russian-economy-minis...

Evidence absolutely does point to European economy getting hammered while Russia is better than ever. I have to ask what your agenda is here given that you keep trying to pretend things that are obviously happening aren't happening?

>> while Russia is better than ever.

In same fairytale, that may be so. In the real world, oil and gas revenue is 40% of Russia's federal budget and down -52% YoY as of April, so that's more than -20% from oil and gas alone gone before taking collapse of other exports and explosion of military expenditure into account. At this rate, we'll see a replay of 1998 soon.

In the real world Russia is making pre-war level profits of its energy exports. It's like you don't understand the concept of supply and demand, the need for the energy and other commodities that Russia was exporting hasn't magically gone away, and you can't just make these things appear out of thin air. The fact that so many people are unable to wrap their heads around is idea is just amazing.

Nice move of goalposts from "better than ever" to "pre-war", that is, Covid-riddled era with low demand.

The hard facts are that federal revenue is down -22% while expenditure is up +26% and Russia is running a 30% deficit.

That's some nice cherry-picking. German "barely a recession" projected at -0.1% over 2023 with most of the Europe growing is "getting hammered". Russia with -2.3% is "better than ever".

I mean if you're just going to keep repeating that then there's no point continuing this conversation. The Reuters link I provided clearly shows that Russia is projecting growth this year.

It doesn’t matter. The margins for the Russians would have been higher without middlemen.

Now they are lower. (Partial) success!

That's not what the article says. In fact, in terms or revenue levels that's the opposite of what it says.

There's no other customer for the gas Russia used to sell to Europe. There are no pipelines from western gas fields to the east.

CNN article I linked in another disagrees with you.

The CNN article doesn't mention natural gas at all.

Russia's April gas exports to Europe up 7.5% from March, and as statistica link shows, Europe is nowhere close to cutting off Russian gas. The whole narrative that EU is independent from Russian fossil fuels is just fake news.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-april-gas-ex...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1306522/key-importers-of...

> The whole narrative that EU is independent from Russian fossil fuels is just fake news.

I agree with you on that one. It's a longer project to become independent of Russian energy completely and we're not there yet. But the level of dependence dropped sharply since last year.

Not nearly as sharply as people claim, what's happening in practice is that Europe is just buying repackaged Russian fossil fuels through resellers. I find it amazing that people can't understand that you can't just make huge volumes of oil and gas appear out of thin air. Europe would have to drastically change its whole energy infrastructure to become actually independent of Russian energy. This will be a decades long project of creating alternative energy production.

Not all. Russia doesn't have any other customers for gas which it used to sell to Europe because of the lack of pipelines leading elsewhere. Its LNG capacity is very limited. Keep also in mind that Russia's gas has never actually been sanctioned and Europe is willing to buy it in the short term.

> This will be a decades long project of creating alternative energy production.

It will take years, yes. Europe kind of ignored this problem, now it will have to pay to get out of it. There's no other way, though.

Russia is already building pipelines to China on a massive scale https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/russia-to-invest-al...

So, by the time Europe actually manages to wean itself off from Russian gas, there will be infrastructure for Russia to direct gas to China and other countries. I certainly agree that Europe has no other choice at this point. How Europe manages its energy transition is a big question though since energy is needed to build out the alternative infrastructure.

First, China has always paid significantly less than Europe for Russian gas.

Now, it looks like Russia is going to spend $100 billion on the pipeline to sell its gas cheaply. But wait, China isn't that eager to commit to the project: https://www.ft.com/content/541f8bcb-118a-419e-869f-3273fcc9c...

Maybe China is trying to bargain even better price? China can, after all, buy energy from other sellers, but Russia has nowhere else to sell its gas.

The simple fact here is that China will want to secure resources from Russia that will not be affected by western sanctions going forward. Russia will sell gas and oil to China at a discount, but at the end of the day Russia gets to offload its resources and China secures its energy.

Meanwhile, Europe is stuck buying LNG on the spot market at a far higher rate than it was getting via pipelines from Russia. I wonder who the bigger loser in all this is...

The whole context here is whether Russia is suffering economically as a result more than Europe. Given that Germany is already in a recession, it's pretty clear what the answer is.

> The simple fact here is that China will want to secure resources from Russia that will not be affected by western sanctions going forward.

Now, that's not a simple fact. A simple fact is that China still didn't commit to the project.

> but at the end of the day Russia gets to offload its resources

Don't you think that the price is an important part here? If Russia "offloads" its resources at prices near break even, then the whole situation is a strategic loss.

> The whole context here is whether Russia is suffering economically as a result more than Europe. Given that Germany is already in a recession, it's pretty clear what the answer is.

Even the poor data we have points to Russia being the bigger loser.

> Now, that's not a simple fact. A simple fact is that China still didn't commit to the project. Large scale projects take time to negotiate, the fact that you're desperate to make something more out of it says volumes.

> Don't you think that the price is an important part here? If Russia "offloads" its resources at prices near break even, then the whole situation is a strategic loss.

Except they're not selling at break even prices, this is just the fairy tale you keep repeating here.

> Even the poor data we have points to Russia being the bigger loser.

It doesn't show anything of the sort as numerous articles I've provided clearly state. However, you're clearly just going to repeat this like a broken record so I don't see any point continuing this discussion.

We'll see who's right soon enough.

Your logic only works if Russia could simply divert the flow of resources from Europe to somewhere else. They can't, not simply.

This has already happened.

No it did not. Neither by volume nor revenue.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/14/energy/russia-oil-exports-iea...

You weren't talking about crude oil only, were you? So what point are you trying to make with this article?

Russia isn't able to sell it to other customers for the same price as they are able to sell it to Europe. Transport, limited buyers all depress the price they can command. The Europeans aren't paying a huge markup - Oil is a commodity sold on an open market. Any oil that was originally from Russia had to been sold to an intermediary at a significant discount.

Long term investment is after Russia implodes the EU won't have to spend as much on weapons as they do now.

At the rate the things are going, it's looking far more likely that it's the EU that's going to implode.

Situation when India and Saudi Arabia profit from that oil is much better than if Putin would get all the profits. Transportation over long distances and opacue pricing also eating into tax income and it does work. Kremlin changing oil export taxation rules every few months in attempt to recover some losses of course.

It will also slowly deteriorate Russian oil refining industry since everyone just want to buy their cheaper crude oil. It will take decade and won't stop the war now, but it gonna be a huge hit in a long run.

So while EU sanctions are weak they do work.

>"EU is basically paying a premium in order to stake a claim to moral high ground they don't hold"

They may or may not be paying a premium, but it has nothing to do with "moral high ground".

Its to do with not giving the regional agressor leverage over your economy. The war between Russia and Ukraine exists in the military domain, the war between Europe and Russia is currently in the economic domain. Even if sanctions only shifted the supply chain to add middlemen, it prevents Russia from having direct control on energy supplies in Europe, which improves Europe's (and Ukraine's) strategic position.

Ukraine and Europe are defending their homes and people from a military/economic/political threat, an imperialist threat, and you think this is about "moral high ground"?

> it prevents Russia from having direct control on energy supplies in Europe, which improves Europe's (

This mainly applied to gas and not oil though. The point of the sanctions is to primarily decreases Russia’s oil revenue.

So you're smart enough to understand this, and the European Union is smart enough to understand this - but the Russians are too stupid to understand it?

You don't have any duty to defend every action of European politicians. You will certainly never be rewarded for your loyalty to them. The best reward you can hope for is increased taxation of your labour and the worst reward is being drafted into an industrialized war.

The EU are not winning against Russia by purchasing energy from them through middlemen.

> but the Russians are too stupid to understand it

Who said they don't understand it? What can they do about it? Nothing.

What they can and have done about it is to redirect their trade towards non western countries that constitute the majority of the world. Plenty of recent articles clearly show that the sanctions have been an utter failure in practice. The only entity that's being severely hurt here is Europe.

https://archive.is/2023.02.23-211202/https://www.nytimes.com...

https://archive.ph/Niqwh

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/can-we-please-stop-comp...

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russian-economy-minis...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/21/the-west-ti...

It's kind of funny to hear Russians argue how sanctions utterly failed, they are hurting the West, do not hurt Russia, on the opposite only strengthen it ...

There's a saying "never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake", yet it seems Russians do exactly that again and again?

This isn't the Russians arguing, this is mainstream western pres saying this.

Hand-picked to fit your agenda. No need to link the sources which disagree, right?

Also, this link selection is provided by a Russian, so the point still stands.

The only person with an agenda here is the one who keep using ad hominem attacks instead of providing any actual arguments. The reality is that the economic war has gone on for nearly two years now, and so far there is no sign of Russian economy collapsing. The sources I've provided come from mainstream western publications which are openly hostile to Russia, and they explain in black and white why the economic war has failed. I guess some people just aren't capable of engaging with reality.

A person without an agenda would surely link also links which provide a different POV:

* https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/12/01/ukraine-russia-sanction...

* https://www.intereconomics.eu/contents/year/2023/number/1/ar...

* https://www.csis.org/analysis/russia-sanctions-one-year

Nobody claims the sanctions are perfect. Sometimes there are holes which need to be plugged. There are some other areas which should be sanctioned.

The West should of course work on making the sanctions harder hitting.

It's pretty weird to claim that providing articles with the information that supports the points I'm making is an agenda. The problem with the claims in the articles you linked make is that they're at odds with the reality we're currently observing. There has been no evidence that Russia's war in Ukraine has been negatively impacted by the sanctions, and the predictions we hear every month that Russia is going to run out of weapons are not coming true either. Meanwhile, economy in Russia appears to be doing just fine because the void that western companies left is being filled by companies from China and India.

The whole premise of your argument seems to be based on the notion that countries can't have an economy that's independent from the west. This is an absurd idea given that the west accounts for only 20% of world's population. Majority of the world sharply disagrees with the west as studies commissioned by EU and US clearly show:

https://ecfr.eu/publication/united-west-divided-from-the-res...

https://usrussiaaccord.org/acura-viewpoint-krishen-mehta-the...

And here's how NYT puts it:

> A year on, it’s becoming clearer: While the West’s core coalition remains remarkably solid, it never convinced the rest of the world to isolate Russia.

https://archive.is/2023.02.23-211202/https://www.nytimes.com...

What ultimately matters is the relative damage the sanctions are causing to Russia and Europe. There is clear evidence that there has been sever economic impact on Europe as a result of the sanctions, and there is no evidence that there's a greater crisis in Russia than in Europe right now. It's also important to note that Russia has already made it through two major crises in the 90s and in 2014 while Europe has not experienced anything similar in recent history. What remains to be seen is whether Europe or Russia will be able to handle the decoupling better.

> It's pretty weird to claim that providing articles with the information that supports the points I'm making is an agenda.

The problem is that you're presenting the problem as very one sided while it's clearly contested at minimum. This + the fact you're Russian is making it easy to guess whose agenda you're pushing.

> There has been no evidence that Russia's war in Ukraine has been negatively impacted by the sanctions

It's difficult to get neutral data. We have data from Kremlin, but it would be dumb to take their word as true.

An unconvential data measuring emissions suggest that Russian industry is in decline: https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/russias-economy-suffering-...

> This is an absurd idea given that the west accounts for only 20% of world's population

I guess you're intentionally "forgetting" that the west amounts to 50% of world's economy. Being sanctioned by half the world's economy has likely negative consequences.

> and there is no evidence that there's a greater crisis in Russia than in Europe right now.

We have only little evidence unfortunately, since as stated above, we simply lack reliable data. There are a few tidbits which might suggest that the economic picture is not that rosy - the emission study above, the Russian state deficits, dropping oil/gas revenues and even Putin admitting that sanctions can hurt Russian economy.

But to repeat myself, I'm ready to admit that the sanctions regime is not perfect. It's a reminder to work harder on new sanctions and to plug holes.

> The problem is that you're presenting the problem as very one sided while it's clearly contested at minimum. This + the fact you're Russian is making it easy to guess whose agenda you're pushing.

You're literally doing what you're accusing me of in this thread. The fact that you continue to use ad hominem as a form of argument really shows which one of us has an agenda here.

> It's difficult to get neutral data. We have data from Kremlin, but it would be dumb to take their word as true.

We don't have to take their word as true, we can look at the fact that western media is now increasingly skeptical about the direction of the war.'

> An unconvential data measuring emissions suggest that Russian industry is in decline

That's really not showing much of anything, the graphs in the actual report show minor fluctuations, and don't even show longer term trends https://archive.ph/2XS6C

> I guess you're intentionally "forgetting" that the west amounts to 50% of world's economy. Being sanctioned by half the world's economy has likely negative consequences.

I guess you're forgetting that this cuts both ways. Being cut off from a major commodity exporter is currently hurting western countries. That's why Germany is in a recession right now.

Meanwhile, your argument doesn't actually hold because Russia just needs to have enough trade partners to replace the trade with the west, and the west still needs the things it was getting from Russia. So, all that happens in practice is that Russia sells to other countries, and they resell to the west. This is how supply and demand works.

> We have only little evidence unfortunately, since as stated above, we simply lack reliable data. There are a few tidbits which might suggest that the economic picture is not that rosy - the emission study above, the Russian state deficits, dropping oil/gas revenues and even Putin admitting that sanctions can hurt Russian economy.

There are plenty of tidbits that suggest western economies are in a terrible shape and that western countries are experiencing an unprecedented cost of living crisis right now. As I've pointed out before, Russia has made it through much bigger crises in 1990s and in 2014. On the other hand, the west has not had a comparable crisis to what we're seeing now in recent history. We'll just have to see how the west copes with it.

> But to repeat myself, I'm ready to admit that the sanctions regime is not perfect. It's a reminder to work harder on new sanctions and to plug holes.

What the sanctions are actually achieving is creating a whole separate economy around BRICS that will be decoupled from the west. The whole scheme can only work when the west is at the centre of the world economy. That's no longer the case, and we're seeing countries moving off the dollar now at an accelerating rate.

> Plenty of recent articles clearly show that the sanctions have been an utter failure in practice.

None of your links actually say that. What they do say is that sanctions did not have the short term impact that some hoped/predicted. What all of them say is that in the long term Russia is most likely fucked. Your claim that the sanctions have been an utter failure is divorced from logic if we go by the links that you provided.

IMF is literally projecting growth for Russia this year, but whatever you say buddy. Here is another article you might want to read carefully

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-the-economic-war-aga...

> IMF is literally projecting growth for Russia this year

That doesn't translate to "sanctions are utter failure ". Again, your logic is failing you.

> but whatever you say buddy

The articles you linked to are saying that, have you read them? Reading comprehension is a valuable skill to have.

> Here is another article you might want to read carefully

> The country has suffered harm from western sanctions, even if nothing like on the scale that we imagined we could inflict. But if the West is thinking that in future it can fight wars purely by economic means, without bombs or bullets, it is badly mistaken.

So even this new article that you linked disagrees that the sanctions were an utter failure...

>That doesn't translate to "sanctions are utter failure ". Again, your logic is failing you.

If you don't understand how Europe going into recession while Russia showing growth is a failure of the sanctions, then your logic if failing you I'm afraid.

> The articles you linked to are saying that, have you read them? Reading comprehension is a valuable skill to have.

And once you develop this skill then you'll be able to comprehend what these articles are saying.

> So even this new article that you linked disagrees that the sanctions were an utter failure...

Keep working on that reading comprehension.

> If you don't understand how Europe going into recession while Russia showing growth is a failure of the sanctions, then your logic if failing you I'm afraid.

EU is predicted to have bigger growth then Russia, so...

> Keep working on that reading comprehension.

Certainly you could find one passage in those links you provided that is talking about the utter failure that the sanctions are and share it with us. I did that to show my point but for some reason you don't want to discuss the contents of the articles you provided.

Or you could at least show how did you logically go from Russia GDP is predicted to grow to sanctions are utter failure. That was your argument, wasn't it?

They can impose their own sanctions preventing the fuel from being resold, or even better, cut a deal that by reselling the fuel the revenue still goes to Russia.

If they created sanctions to prevent the fuel from being resold then it would be worth even less. That would be a footgun. I don't think China or any other country is going to give Russia the ability to audit their oil sales, which would be required to ensure compliance with a reselling deal. There's no incentive for the reselling country and again it would make the Russian oil worth less.

India wouldn't accept that. They don't have any leverage, they played their hand.

I know nothing of this. If Russia decided to add a "fee" for reselling, does India have an alternative supply to pull from?

If India doesn't buy Russia's oil to resell to Europe, Russia ends up with even less money than they have now. If they want to bite yet another hand that is feeding them, they are welcome to continue being their own worst enemy.

Does this mean that the EU could easily lower its demand?

No?

> If India doesn't buy Russia's oil to resell to Europe, Russia ends up with even less money than they have now.

EU is buying through India, right? If Russia put fee's in place to discourage India from reselling, but EU demand didn't change, prices would have to increase, right? It's a two sided market, supply and EU demand, which makes this "If India doesn't buy Russia's oil to resell to Europe" seem impossible.

India sells refined goods to Europe. They buy crude oil from Russia because Russia has no market to sell it to, and have to sell it at a discounted price. If Russia puts any sanctions on where India can sell their refined goods they'll just buy crude oil elsewhere. Europe isn't the only market, and Russia isn't the only producer of crude oil. India is just making a premium buy using Russian crude oil.

The biggest loss for Russia isn't the loss of crude oil sales, it's the loss of sale on refined goods. They were a massive supplier of things like diesel to Europe.

> they'll just buy crude oil elsewhere.

Ahh thanks, that directly answers to my original question, which apparently wasn't appreciated. It makes sense now.

I'm wondering if there's some interesting metric that can be extracted from comment chains like this, where some semblance of a conversation continues with completely separate people.

What can they do about it? Almost anything they want, including halting all sales to Europe.

What numbers are you working off of? The indications I'm seeing are that some rebagged oil maybe getting through to the EU - but not at scale.

It's definitely not simply a matter of moral high ground. Independent of the sympathies they may have for the Ukrainian side -- it is objectively in the cold, pragmatic self-interest of European countries to not let themselves be beholden to as capricious and unstable a supplier as Russia.

Well, EU was never dependent on Russian oil. Oil is a commodity. A large international market for it exists and it is cheap to transport, and sufficient import throughput was always possible. So there was no dependence: at no point Putin could say, "do X or else we will cut your oil supply" - that won't have any effect, they'd just buy oil elsewhere (heating market up considerably yes, but entire world market in which Russia doesn't have such a high share, equally). Russian choice would be to either sell it's oil to someone else instead, resulting in no effective change and no pressure applied to Europe at all, or not sell it to anyone and ruin his country, but having everyone else pay probably, double or triple the price to Arabs/USA for the oil they import.

What changed now is that he has to sell that oil to others at a steep discount leaving him almost no profit, with the middlemen making all that profit instead - which is OK.

But, EU statement mainly referred to gas, not oil. With gas, situation is a lot clearer - Russia simply stopped producing the gas EU stopped buying, because they can't technically sell it elsewhere, and EU buys it mainly from USA. It took almost a year for market to readjust but now the prices are same as they used to be before all these events.

> It took almost a year for market to readjust but now the prices are same as they used to be before all these events.

And that’s perfect, for the EU. Russia won’t be enjoying that, which was the entire point.

I hadn’t realised gas prices had dropped so much.

That's still a rung lower in the added value chain. Minus the additional transportation. Minus slanted negotiation by China and India.

Also oil extraction is quite capital-intensive. A well will output most of its potential in the first 3 years. Currently, Russia is running on existing wells, and it currently is not profitable to establish new wells for them. For example Venezuela sits on deposits bigger than Saudi Arabia. At current prices it is not profitable to extract it.

They could buy runway for some time running negative, though. Provided they have the internal means to do so.

And there's the question of how much reserves and commercial balance they run at. That's what brought them to the negotiation table in 2014. We'll see what happens in a year or two.

Sanctions work.

The indirection itself serves a perfectly valid purpose, which is to remove a lever of control from Russia.

They are paying a premium for independence. Any given barrel of oil may or may not still come originally from Russia, but Russia can not use it as a lever any more, because there is no single channel any more. Russia would have to stop selling to everyone in the world, or raise prices to everyone in the world.

This probably even drives prices down, which both helps everyone else and hurts Russia.

What country are you from?

This would be impressive if it were true. Unfortunately, the article contents do not match the headline. The article proceeds by quoting the EU:

>Through the Joint European action for more affordable, secure and sustainable energy (REPowerEU), the EU confirmed its objective to reach independence from Russian fossil fuels well before the end of the decade,

Confirmed does not mean achieved. The article further links to Tim McPhie's Twitter but provides a quote that is not on the linked Twitter:

>we are no longer dependent on them

Ctrl+F "dependent", nothing. What McPhie does say:

>joint resolve to terminate EU dependence on Russian fossil fuels by 2027.

Misleading clickbait is misleading.

@scythe two thumbs up. Amazing how blind the majority is even though they have black on white spelled out in front of them.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what's going on with price caps and what "independence" means, so here's an explanation:

The price cap on Russian gas effectively sets a maximum price that those enforcing the cap will pay. This means that Russia can't sell at full price because even those not enforcing the cap aren't willing to pay full price for it (why should they, when Russia's choices of customers are severely limited?). It's an artificially induced market pressure to keep prices down.

Does it stop Russian gas from flowing? No, but that's not the point; the point is to reduce Russia's profits from the gas. The world still gets all their gas, but Russia gets far less money for it.

Does it mean that Russian gas doesn't make it to Europe anymore? Nope. In fact, "Russian" gas probably makes up a big chunk of imports to price cap countries. But since Russia can't charge full price for its gas, the profits go to the middlemen, who raise prices to the actual market rate and pocket the difference while shipping to whoever (including price cap countries, because once it's owned by the middleman it's no longer "Russian" gas, but regular market rate gas).

So what is this "independence from Russian gas" all about then? It's about not being directly dependent upon Russia for providing the gas (i.e. Russia can't threaten to turn off the taps if Europe doesn't toe the line). The only thing Russia could do now is stop supplying gas to everyone, which would be even worse than the reduced profits they're suffering already.

Your explanation of the situation sounds like the Byzantine corporate structures that multinationals use to evade taxes. I assume the goal is the same - to hoodwink and exploit the populace.

Morally speaking, I’d expect to have zero imports of Russian fuel to declare “independence”.

The goal is to keep the gas supply relatively stable, while reducing Russia's share of the profits. It's a kind of price-fixing-in-reverse.

And you don't need zero imports to declare independence. You just need them low enough that Russia will gain no political leverage over you by threatening to shut down the supply to your region.

We have different definitions of "independence".

In your rather long post, you did not mention the fact that Russia refuses to sell oil to any country which applies the price cap. I wonder, is this really not relevant for your analysis?

It doesn't help Russia. The end result is the same: A smaller pool of customers and an anchored price for the remaining customers.

In fact, Russia had to reduce their output because they refuse to sell it to countries that participate in the price cap and there isn't enough demand otherwise (also most of their flow goes west through the now mostly idle pipelines to Europe - It's MUCH harder to move oil east or south because the infrastructure in that direction isn't big enough to handle such a surge). So Russia's losing even MORE profits by refusing to sell to them. AND they still have to maintain the now idle pipelines to the West or else they'll break down over time and become useless.

That's just factually wrong I'm afraid https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/14/energy/russia-oil-exports-iea...

"That's just factually wrong I'm afraid"

This kind of response is incredibly rude.

So it looks like their production has since gone up, a lot (after dropping mid last year). Profits are still down because nobody's paying full price.

https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/31/russian-oil-exports-are-...

I'm not sure what's rude about stating that the statement you made is factually wrong. Furthermore, the west doesn't really have good data on the volume of sales Russia is doing because these transactions are happening outside of SWIFT.

> https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/14/energy/russia-oil-exports...

>> The revenue is still down 43% from a year ago, the IEA said, as Russia is forced to sell its barrels to a more limited pool of customers who can negotiate greater discounts.

>> Still, sanctions have made a significant dent in Russia’s coffers. Last week, the government said declining energy revenues had contributed to a budget deficit of 2.4 trillion rubles ($29 billion) in the first three months of this year. Its overall income plunged nearly 21% compared with the same period in 2022, Reuters reported.

So is this article a lie or not? its your own source, you seem to want to very selectively quote it.

Caveat there is that the numbers are based on what US can observe through SWIFT trade, but Russia does most of its trade now in local currencies. So these numbers claiming revenue is down 43% aren't actually showing the whole picture. However, as the article admits, even that is still pretty significant.

> Caveat there is that the numbers are based on what US can observe through SWIFT trade, but Russia does most of its trade now in local currencies. So these numbers claiming revenue is down 43% aren't actually showing the whole picture. However, as the article admits, even that is still pretty significant.

No it's not, the budget deficit information comes from Russia itself.

You're making a conjecture between two separate things. The statement regarding revenue being down 43% is not related to the deficit statement from Russia.

It's all a part of the same picture. Details and figures may vary a little based on which periods are used for reference, but the overall story remains the same. As of April, according to RU FinMin, income from oil&gas is down -52% YoY, expenditure up +26%, deficit at 30%. In a departure from the usual dry and humorless style of official press releases, they describe outlook as positive.

And even these figures are artificially pumped by factors like the previously mentioned "trade in local currencies". India pays for oil in rupees, which are piling up in Indian banks because there is no use for them. Russia has no comparable demand for Indian goods, can't exhange rupees for other currencies, can't pay to third countries in rupees, and is unwilling to invest that money in India. Oil flows to India, nothing comes back.

If this is how Russia "successfully skirts western sanctions", then may it continue for a long time.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens won't we. Seems to me that the economic problems that Europe is seeing right now are far worse than ones in Russia. So, if things continue the way they are European economy can't last a long time.

> I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens won't we. Seems to me that the economic problems that Europe is seeing right now are far worse than ones in Russia. So, if things continue the way they are European economy can't last a long time.

The Russians have a deficit of over 40 billion dollars, it doesn't look super rosy.

Additionally they are losing a lot of people in the war and having countries cancel military equipment orders.

Wait till you find out the deficit that US currently has.

It was $1400 billion for the year 2022

> This means that Russia can't sell at full price because even those not enforcing the cap aren't willing to pay full price for it

India and China have been paying well above the price cap: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/india-china-snap-up-...

They pay more than the price cap, but less than the market rate (because they don't have to pay market rate now that Russia doesn't have much choice of customers - supply and demand).

And that's really the whole point. We'd prefer for China and India to support the price cap because that would even further reduce Russia's customer base (and by extension the price that they can actually sell at). But even as things stand, Russia is losing profits hand over fist.

> This means that Russia can't sell at full price because even those not enforcing the cap aren't willing to pay full price for it (why should they, when Russia's choices of customers are severely limited?)

Yeah, as if energy sources are fashion material and are being bought out of pure fun and leisure. Because countries can just allow themselves not to rely on energy.

What about the countries buying up Russian gas an reselling it to EU countries? Did they stop that or have those countries just gotten smarter in hiding the origins of the gas?

EU never put any sanctions against Russian gas. The only reason why EU stopped buying it is because of Putin genious attempt to freeze EU by blocking gas exports.

On 3 December 2022, the Council adopted Decision (CFSP) 2022/2369 , which established the price cap for crude oil at $60 per barrel.

Okay pardon my far-from-perfect use of English after a day of sleep deprivation.

I should have said natural gas, not gasoline.

> The only reason why EU stopped buying it [...]

> I should have said natural gas, not gasoline.

You need to sleep a bit more: "Spain Boosts Russia LNG Imports 84% While EU Urges Less Reliance"

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-14/spain-boo...

It's not intended. In current situation more money go to middleman compared to ru, because rubis forced to sell at discount with fewer clients, so generally situation is the same but profit margins are bigger for middleman compared to ru

> It's not intended. In current situation more money go to middleman compared to ru

Let's pretend those middlemen are Martians.

https://www.offshore-technology.com/news/trafigura-stake-nay...

Not smarter. Not even trying to hide it. And Russia is selling oil at a price they set. It's just the EU that's paying more to pretend they aren't doing business with Russia.

"India’s diesel exports tripled to ~1,600,000 barrels per day in March 2023, compared to a year ago, making diesel one of the largest components of India-EU trade."

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/India-Leads-In-Russian...

India imports crude oil from Russia and refines it into products that Europe wants, like diesel as you mentioned.

You forgot to mention that Europe imported almost all diesel from Russia.

As of January this year Russia provided about 1/4 of the diesel imports for Europe. That's down from pre-war levels.

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight...

"Although still high, Europe's dependence on Russian diesel has almost halved from pre-war levels when the region sourced 46% of its diesel imports from Russia, the data showed."

As of January the sanctions weren't in full effect. Like the article mentions the ban on refined oil products wasn't in full effect before 5th of February.

Russia has lost the single largest market they have for refined oil products, like diesel and gasoline. This is being replaced by increased production in European countries and emerging markets, like India. India is buying crude oil from Russia at a discounted price. Around a quarter of the cost of refined oil products is based on price of crude oil. Russia has more or less gutted it's entire refined oil industry. India, amongst others, are picking up the pieces.

So no, your assessment that Europe is pretending that they're not doing business with Russia is completely missing the mark.

The EU has achieved "independence" by shutting down much of the German chemical industry. Now they're going to import those chemicals from other countries where they are still manufactured with cheap fossil fuels. Not exactly a net win from an independence standpoint.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/inside-germanys-industrial...

EU traded off massive inflation for independence from Russian fossil fuels. A victory for politicians, not so much for the Otto Normalverbraucher.

Short term loss for long term gain.

Not being dependent from terrorist state for basic necessities like fuel is worth it.

That's why we buy it from countries like saudi arabia, like the guys who had issues flying those planes in 2001.

But since saudis are "besties" with the US establishment, this is a-ok!

More precisely : terrorist state not on your side. Many countries are considered terrorist states in all sides of the world, including France, UK, Spain, Israel, Saudi Arabia and of course USA.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_terrorism

Go easy on France, they’ve only come down here and attacked us in New Zealand that one time.

C’mon, it can’t be the french for military reasons! Probably the MI16! No, the Russians! No, an outsider! No, the far rights! No, Caledonian Barbouzes!

Mmmh finally that was the Frenchs…

Good point. US in particular stirred a lot of shit that's still brewing now...

So do you suggest throwing Ukraine under the bus for cheap energy?

Let's rephrase "throwing Ukraine under a bus" as "not getting involved in a border dispute between two Eastern European countries", and maybe the answer is less obvious.

Border dispute? They invaded the country, surrounded the capital and shelled the shit out of it.

Yes, because they shelled the minority who wanted independence since 2014.

Nato bombed yugoslavia for months for the same thing, and they still act as a defensive organization.

We could discuss the 2014 events for hours and in any case the shelling has been going from both directions.

But there's one clear fact - the war in Donbas was calming down in intensity in the years preceding 2022. In the three years 2019-2021, 78 civilians died in total, mostly from old unexploded mines. There was absolutely no "need" to make it a full scale war and ramp up the number to tens of thousands civilians dead.

Ukraine was preparing a war to take back donbas, and there was no "calming down". The problem is, that the media changed their stories after the start of war.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/osce-reports-surge-numb...

> MOSCOW, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Two regions in eastern Ukraine where government and separatist forces have been fighting since 2014 were hit by more than 1,400 explosions on Friday, monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said, pointing to a surge in shelling.

1400 "explosions" in one day are far away from "calm" to me. This was just before russia entered the war.

On the other hand, eu/nato was training ukranian soldiers since 2015.

> Ukraine was preparing a war to take back donbas

It's sad that there's absolutely zero evidence of that except for Kremlin's justification for its own invasion. Isn't this excuse as old as war? "we had to invade, otherwise they would invade us".

> This was just before russia entered the war.

Well, exactly. Russia was looking for casus beli. There were reports of increased separatist shelling, they likely wanted to provoke Ukraine into moving first, very similar playbook to 2008 Georgian war.

> there's absolutely zero evidence of that

OP linked a Reuters post citing OSCE numbers. This organisation includes most European countries, US and Russia among others.

If we can’t listen to est neither to west, who should we listen ? You, my Colonel ?

Well, have you read the article? It just states that the intensity of shelling intensified, which is not very surprising 5 days before the invasion?

The article did not mention who intensified the shelling in the first place, but states that the only civilian casualty happened on the Kyiv government controlled territory.

Please explain to me, how is this proof that Ukraine wanted to invade.

Shelling 5 days before an invasion reads to me: “shelling is the (or a) cause of the invasion”, not “invasion is the cause of the precedent shelling”. Like “causality happens before consequence”.

However I’m far from being familiar with politico-military strategies and am here to learn. Please accept my excuse for the cynical tone of my precedent message.

Then how is it possible that Russians started the build up of forces around Ukrainian borders months before this increased rate of shelling?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/russia-ukra...

> MOSCOW, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Two regions in eastern Ukraine where government and separatist forces have been fighting since 2014 were hit by more than 1,400 explosions on Friday

How convenient. Russia had been moving soldiers and military equipment for months into position, scheduled a joint exercise with Belarus placing their soldiers in spitting distance of Kyiv, and then suddenly there are explosions "forcing" Russia to invade. Wow, it sure worked out fortunately that half of their military was already there.

> Wow, it sure worked out fortunately that half of their military was already there.

I'll say, if the whole military had been there the Ukraine would be sixteen times larger today!

I say this as an anti-GOP American who has lived a year an a half in Ukraine, has friends I currently financially support in Ukraine, and thinks Russia should be economically turned into North Korea:

Belarus, the country, is "within spitting distance" of Kiev. There has always been tight integration between their armies, as well as open borders. There have Always been Russian soldiers close to Kiev, because that's where the city is geographically. What you are doing is putting a conspiracy-spin on something that is a common occurrence.

To put this in other terms, here's what you stated: "A large number of armed Republicans have been found in the city of Crofton around Jan 6, spitting distance from the white house." Reality: The statement is true. It omits the inconvenient fact that for the last 50 year it's been a republican county with high gun ownership, and that's where they live.

There is an immense amount of propaganda from Ukraine. Ukraine is an extremely corrupt country. They are trying to clean it up, but that's not a viable task at scale. We shipped $25bil in cash there last year - much of that, went into someone's pocket. I read Ukrainian news, in Ukrainian. They constantly announce people getting arrested with millions of fresh dollars in cash. They arrested a government official who stole 18 train cars worth of humanitarian aid, and sold it at his chain of stores. Their banks officially steal money from foreigners and locals under a new asset-forfeture type of law.

Personal story: I have some friends there and a baby who is my goddaughter. Their city got leveled, they escaped westward and now live close to Poland. The government won't let men out of the country, despite my friend having a sick wife, and a 2yo baby. I've wired about $50k over there last year, and continue to send about 1/3 of my salary this year. He rents an apartment. The cities in the west, which are fairly safe - the locals escaped to Poland, Germany, and Canada, and are collecting welfare checks triple the size of their pre-war salaries. They then rent out their apartments to refugees from the east. Rent prices are 5x what they used to be, and they're making bank on their fellow nationals who can't leave. The reason they can't leave, despite a law like that being against the constitution there? Zelensky keeps holding popular votes, and everyone votes to force men to stay in the country. Because they're making bank on the rent.

Recently, a new regulation passed, allowing the national bank to take money out of people's accounts, if they receive over $11k in a 30 day period. I wired $15k to my friend for the next 3 months of living expenses. The national bank confiscated the wire transfer, asking my friend for proof of where it came from. I had my bank send a letter saying it came from my direct-deposited salary (in America), and wrote a letter myself saying this is financial aid for my goddaughter's family. The bank refused to deposit the funds into my friend's account, and refused the request from Wells Fargo to reverse the wire. I then tried to send using paypal-xoom as it's still free for now. They're blocking transfers to Ukraine, because apparently many of their customers have had the funds confiscated, and never returned to the sender.

From what you wrote, you're on a dopamine rush, and the Ukrainians are infallible heroes. I've lived in Moscow for 4 years for work, I've lived in Ukraine for almost two. I have professional contacts and friends in both places. The only difference between the people in charge of Ukraine, and the people in charge of Russia, is Ukraine doesn't have the military to go threaten the world - and if they did, they would. And yes, there are lots of nazis there, and they do celebrate nazis on public media. Less than we do stateside, but that's a stretch of truth, not a lie from Putler. Step back, analyze the situation with logic, and don't let your feelings guide your beliefs. Otherwise, you're the same as the nutjob republicans, just have different opinions.

From what you wrote, you think because you've spent a few years living in Russia that it makes you an expert on the realities of international relations instead of a common parrot.

You've written a large wall of text to debate something that was already settled as fact in February 2022. Did you actually forget that this wasn't a "common occurence?" Russia literally did invade Kyiv from Belarus. I've watched the Russian preparations for war unfold since October 2021.[0][1] The Belarusian military exercises were a pretext for military invasion, indisputable after-the-fact now. They shipped their heavy materiel to the border, held some exercises, and then immediately after invaded from Belarusian territory. Please point me to your public explanation of the issues back then.

Every country has corruption. Ukraine certainly does, just many countries with weaker institutions the world over: India, Hungary, Serbia, Brazil, Turkey, etc. It is not an excuse for invasion and the slaughter of tens of thousands of humans.

You're also tangentially inserting a debate about the validity of martial law requiring men to stay to defend their country from invasion, missiles, and slaughter, which most countries and countrymen would support. (horrendously suggesting the reason is rents??)

Lastly, let me remind you that yesterday, today, and tomorrow, Russia keeps marching onto new Ukrainian cities, destroying infrastructure and human beings with artillery and missiles, shooting people that resist a Russian army come to take over their land. And it keeps happening because enough people like you carry water for their garbage excuses.

[0] https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1473362460673515527

[1] https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1491636736291655682

So what is a good reason to attack a country? Just to compare to other wars and how we treated the countries that started them?

Since you’re Serbian and clearly referring to Kosovo…

How about a war costing 500 civilian lives, with no land conquest by the perpetrator (NATO countries), so that in a few months you can bring an end to the systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, and arsons in which over 13k people were killed or missing during the two year conflict. The Serb forces caused the displacement of between 1.2 million to 1.45 million Kosovo Albanians.

Ya post-facto seems like a trolley problem with a better outcome than your desired alternative of thousands of more dead.

Serbia has never come to terms with how much death and destruction they caused in the 90s to their neighbors. Sad to see them still support other countries doing the same. This attitude will hopefully not lead again to the further killing of your neighbors and same international shameful pariah that Russia is experiencing.

I'm not serbian, but it doesn't matter.

The KLA is a terrorist group, and the last time some terrorists did something in USA (although the number of dead civilians was ~6x higher), the USA decided to attack and occupy afghanistan for 20 years.... just because some saudis couldn't fly a plane. Imagine mexican terrorist groups killing civilians in mexico for years, usa sending the army in to fix the problem, and then russia nuking the hell out of USA because of the anti terrorist actions.

First, I'm not going to click on your twitter links or know what they are, because like those trumpers I just made fun of, you seem to think twitter is some kind of a source of something.

Second, there is no martial law requiring men to defend their country right now, and there is no mass mobilization. Here is what there is, and I actually know and skype with people who this has happened to. There are assholes walking the streets and grocery stores, hunting men. When they find you, they lock you up in a room for a day. During that day, they ask you for increasing amounts of cash to let you out. If you are still there at the end of the day, congratulations, you are now in the army. This is reality.

What makes me an expert, compared to someone like yourself who has not been to either country, and gets his opinions from random twitter accounts and one-sided news, is my parents escaped the USSR, I have lived and worked in both countries, and I have and currently do, talk almost daily to people I know in both countries.

>It is not an excuse for invasion ... lastly, let me remind you that yesterday, today, and tomorrow

I am not sure to whom you are replying. try reading what I wrote, and replying to that. your little rant seems unrelated to the conversation.

>I've watched the Russian preparations for war unfold since October 2021.

you haven't watched anything. you have watched twitter clips from random people, while sitting on your couch, and selecting just the news you want to read, translated into your language by someone. the parrot, is literally you. I am contributing first hand personal experience from myself, and people I actively talk to on the ground in both places. you don't want to read it? you seem to not have. then don't reply to the voices making up a strawman in your head. if you don't read, you can't reply to what's written.

if a quarter of a book page is "a wall of text" to you, this actually explains a lot.

compared to someone like yourself who has not been to either country,

You don't know anything at all about this person.

And gets his opinions from random twitter accounts and one-sided news,

Pure ad-hominem and absolutely against site guidelines.

What makes me an expert ... is my parents escaped the USSR, I have lived and worked in both countries, and I have and currently do, talk almost daily to people I know in both countries.

This background is sufficient to make you informed; but it doesn't make you an "expert" about anything.

>You don't know anything at all about this person.

I know what he wrote. No personal experience, no credible sources, his reply was a bunch of twitter links. As such, all I do know about this person, is he has no personal experience with the matter, as per his comment.

>Pure ad-hominem and absolutely against site guidelines.

He literally keeps posting one-side of the news, and random twitter links. If you feel attacked by facts, it's time to go vote for trump. stating facts, is not against site rules. In addition - you're not in charge of site rules, and you should eff off with your spam.

> it doesn't make you an "expert" about anything

and as I've said to the other guy, you should read the thing to which you are replying instead of making up a strawman. nowhere did I say I'm an expert at anything. I shared rare personal experience so people can form more balanced opinions, based on extra information.

Half of my family grew up in Kyiv Russian-Ukrainian, experienced other Russian atrocities, or is still there under duress like my uncle’s family. So you’re already blatantly wrong.

Your entire framing is about low level random anecdotal details instead of the actual high level issues, because you have minimal personal experience on the ground yet entirely ignorant on history or geopolitical reality.

The only difference between the people in charge of Ukraine, and the people in charge of Russia, is Ukraine doesn't have the military to go threaten the world - and if they did, they would.

I don't buy this assessment at a all.

Based on everything from their origins, to their voluminous public statements, to their actions, to their deportment and vibe -- not to mention the basic historical record of the two countries -- there's an astronomical difference of mindset between Putin and Zelensky, and between their respective supporters. I'd go into more detail ... but the other half of your statement is basically vacuous, so why bother? (I mean yeah, I suppose Ukraine would carry itself with more swagger if it had nuclear weapons; so would Fiji or Mexico).

Oh, and then there's this statement:

What you are doing is putting a conspiracy-spin on something that is a common occurrence.

I'm not sure what innuendo you're making here, but since you're apparently referring to the massive pre-invasion mobilization -- to say it was "a common occurrence", or compares to a bunch of GOP apparatchiks gathering in Crofton -- is just too bizarre for words.

So, I will admit - my Ukraine-experience-based Opinion about Ukraine may be wrong. It is my opinion. Have you, um, been there, not like a tourist? Like rented an apartment, dealt with their government offices and low level officials? How about just managers and people in offices and on the street?

"to their voluminous public statements" - I'm sorry - what??? My comment was literally about many of their public statements being propaganda, and your reply is... based on their public statements? What do you think about China's public statements that American soldiers brought covid to China?

The people who get in power there, are mostly toxic pieces of power tripping corrupt crap. You should at least - if you're only basing your experience on reading internet news while sitting on your couch - look into the history of their police and politicians and officials. They execute people or lock them away for life when they get in the way. They literally beat gay people to death for holding hands - something I've personally watched. They are very close to that same drunken macho trash that is Russians.

That, sir, is my opinion. I am not asking you to buy that assesment, and I'm not here to convince a random internet stranger of jack. The whole purpose of my post, is so people like you, who form strong opinions based only on things you Chose yourself to read, step back and realize you're behaving just like the redneck self-brainwashing crap taking over this country.

>I'm not sure what innuendo

The innuendo is not there. The accusation that someone took a normal event and spun it to keep themselves angry, and is trying to spread that bs on the internet, is there, in plain text.

>gathering in Crofton

no one gathered anywhere. that was literally the whole point of that simple comparison paragraph. now if someone were to spin it as a gathering, that would be a bad actor spreading conspiracy theories. Get it now? of course you don't.

Have a good life buddy. bbye, and enjoy your velcro shoes. that's another one you won't get, and the cause for not getting it, is the cause of the velcro shoes.

Have you, um, been there, not like a tourist? Like rented an apartment, dealt with their government offices and low level officials?

If you only knew, comrade. If you only knew.

But you don't, and by this point you've adeptly demonstrated your behavioral tendencies. This combination of profound intellectually dishonesty and intentional baiting and button-pushing has no place on HN. You bore us, and will have to take your game elsewhere.

This was just before russia entered the war.

The war started (and Russia entered it) in 2014, as you are perfectly aware.

On the other hand, eu/nato was training ukranian soldiers since 2015.

As Ukraine had every right to, given the events of 2014.

>in any case the shelling has been going from both directions.

Except the russians seem to direct their shells at hospitals etc.

> Yes, because they shelled the minority who wanted independence since 2014.

Funny way to spell “fought separatist forces supported by Russia”.

That's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I fight separatist forces. You violently suppress minorities. He has been charged with war crimes under the Rome Statute.

So now it's called a "border dispute" and no longer a "special military operation"? /s

New metodichka landed, comrade?

"Massive" is a bit of a strong word. One year of 8-16% inflation with historic averages close to 2-3% is actually quite ok and demonstrates the European Central Bank's credibility.

In the long term, Otto will be happy about this.

Having Russia as a supplier does not save you from inflation. Worth remembering that the unprecedented price rise of natural gas started in 2021, months before the war started.

The price rise was caused by supply restriction from Russia in preparation for the war and likely intended as a blackmail all along.

I prefer my government not to be profit-driven sociopaths, thanks.

Fossil fuel prices in Europe are actually back to pre-war levels. (Nevertheless, inflation is still rather high but that seems unrelated to energy now.)

There were already quite inflated for at least half a year or so prior to the war.

The price now is the same as 2 years ago, before the big price hike: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas

The prices will likely jump again in the fall/winter (but likely nowhere near to the 2022 winter).

Why is the gas price still €2.40 per cubic meter where I live then? That's nearly 10x what it was two years ago.

Depends, maybe you have a long term fix price contract. Energy providers are slow to lower the prices, because they have long term contracts (to be fair, they were often slow to increase the prices as well - I got my first increase literally a month ago).

A "victory for politicians"?

Some of us think it was a victory for world civilization.

As an armchair fan of the German language, I appreciate you teaching me the phrase “ Otto Normalverbraucher”, it’s delightful.

Not taking steps to decrease Europe’s reliance on Russia fossil fuels in the years after Putin took power was immensely idiotic. Both politically and economically.

At this point there was no non-painful way to do this.

Now if we only could get rid of USA and dollar as well. For truly independent and free Europe. The actions on SWIFT system proved that they cannot be trusted as reliable partners.

What actions and why? Weren’t the sanctions widely supported by most European countries?

>EU traded off massive inflation

Single digit inflation with a pandemic, supply chain disruptions a war and an energy crisis is a lot of things but hardly massive. Given the horror stories that we were promised by defenders of the status quo this is a joke, and I say that as a German citizen who had to absorb a few nasty electricity bills.

If this is all it takes to wean ourselves off autocratic blackmail we have a lot to be ashamed off for the years where we pretended this would impoverish us and we'd freeze to death. Turns out that has a lot more to do with our ex-chancellor sitting on a Gazprom board than reality.

Massive inflation happened because of many reasons, but it has affected even countries outside the EU, and it's affecting especially european countries that never stopped buying Russian fossil fuels (Turkey, Hungary, Serbia) more than the EU average.

Of course it’s independence from Russian fossil fuels that caused inflation, and not a year lockdown because of global pandemic.

If we could just convince India to boycott Russian Oil as well, the regime would crumble, no ?

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65553920

Russian crude is primarily procured by Nayara Energy who refine it and export it to the EU. Indian Oil and Bharat Petroleum who supply the domestic market don't buy Russian crude in significant quantities.

Cutting off the third largest producer of crude in the world is going to spike prices globally. Nobody is interested in that: not the US, not the EU and certainly not India. The Saudis would love that though.

That's not really the intention behind the price caps. Unfortunately world is still quite dependent on Russian oil and removing it from the market would cause a significant price rise which might cause (political) problems for the western countries (and all other non-producing nations as well of course).

It's actually much better already. Russia is currently getting paid for good part of oil and other natural resources in Indian rupees that are completely useless for Russia.

Since February 2022 India imported products from Russia for $50+ billion - mostly oil.

At the same time India export to Russian is 10 time smaller so there is massive trade difficit of $40+ billions.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-russia-address-tra...

[1] Official Kremlin source in Russian: https://ria.ru/20230311/indiya-1857181972.html

This article is quite confusing with the links in this article pointing to a press release and tweet from March 2022. Also, I can't find the quote from Tim McPhie.

It could be this article is related to this EU publication, but that's just a guess:

REPowerEU – one year on: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/publications/repowereu-one-year_...

You've misspelled: taking Germany to a recession.

Edit: Downvoters please explain how the two things are unrelated. Thanks

It appears blowing up gas pipelines is a valid solution. The US will no doubt use this solution in the future.

Honestly, it's not enough. There needs to be a full stop on Russian Gas/Oil imports _now_, no matter the cost. You're literally funding innocent people to be killed.

Most likely the EU created new dependencies, which will bite them in the future.

I can achieve independence from food.

Question is: at what cost?

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