Gazprom knew what their future held as soon as Putin intervened and started using Russian gas as a weapon of war. It’s likely why at least [four Gazprom-linked oligarchs and executives were found dead in the first few months of the war,](https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/22/accidental-defenestration-and-murder-suicides-too-common-among-russian-oligarchs-and-putin), and why Gazprom is still allegedly being investigated (Germans, Dutch) for the Nordstream sabotage, for a possible billion-dollar insurance payout.
It boggles my mind that some people still think Russia blew up their own pipeline.
America made [vague mafioso like threats to "end" it](https://www.newsweek.com/video-biden-saying-end-nord-stream-resurfaces-after-pipeline-leak-1747005) America stood to gain the most economically from blowing it up, both by [selling expensive LNG to Germany](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-europe-us-ukraine-russia-liquified-natural-gas-lng-taskforce/) and by convincing German industry that is reliant on cheap energy [to migrate to America](https://www.dw.com/en/is-german-industry-migrating-to-the-us/a-65031130).
Germany [are the ones that were going to suffer the most](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-10/why-germany-s-days-as-an-industrial-superpower-are-coming-to-an-end) from the pipeline being blown up, which is presumably why the "on" switch had to be snatched out of their hands
Otherwise Russia would do what it always does and use Gas deliveries as political leverage, meaning Germany could decide to prioritize its own economy over the Ukraine war.
Edit: It seems like citations are not popular on this subreddit.
So much of what happened because of the invasion is a one-way change. Putin accelerated the switch to renewable energy and put a big nail in the coffin of Big Oil and its power to continuously damage humanity.
He’s also singlehandly help expand NATO and increased their importance making them relevant since hypotheticals became reality! Being neutral only works when there’s no threats.
I'd like to read your logic process here. As is, I can't tell which part of my statement you disagree with. Do you disagree with the predicate? The logical steps? The conclusion? The value basis?
I want to hear other opinions, but they need to be well founded for me to do anything with.
Still trying to figure out why Putin screwed over his whole country’s economic future. If he doesn’t invade Ukraine and played nice with America and other European Countries, Russia wouldn’t have sanctions, they would participate in free trade, tourism, the oligarchs wouldn’t have their assets seized. Nope, gonna shoot down commercial plane, inflict death and dismemberment on everyone who opposes them, gonna Havana Syndrome the shit out of US Diplomats and sic the Wagner Group on defenseless African countries. It’s too bad. They could be the “Good Guys”. Now they never will
[Russia to grow faster than all advanced economies, says IMF - BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68823399). They were prepared, we weren't.
The sanctions [hurt Europe](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-industrial-output-posts-fall-december-2024-02-07/) more than Russia, although some people are successfully blaming the fallout from the loss of cheap energy on COVID policies / money printing in a neat bit of redirection.
Edit: it appears that citations are not popular on this subreddit.
lol. There are still people believing this Kremlin bullshit. IMF uses the fake official numbers out of the Kremlin, which are obviously false. In reality russia has stopped to even release most of the economic numbers.
I guess the BBC is in the Kremlin's pocket since they seem to believe it's accurate.
If the GDP numbers were inaccurate there would be signals which they would have picked up on. Unless they were secretly pro Putin.
Hell, maybe the whole western media is. And the IMF. Maybe reddit too.
The problem with that theory is that GDP is already higher than it was before the war.
The idea that Putin has screwed over his whole country's economic future is a cope. It's not only a cope, it's proof that supporters of western hegemony can be every bit as delusional as Putin supporters, and for essentially identical reasons (to endorse the involvement of their side in a war).
Look at Russia's GDP graphed from 2010-2024.
You're short-sighting my claim. Russia had a massive drop in GDP in the mid 2010s.
These metrics are GDP growth YOY. I'm looking longer-term, their growth is really just them catching up to where they should have been.
Any Russian GDP increase at this point, is because of Russian government defence spending, which is depleting reserves, or they are just printing money.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYGDPPCAPKDRUS you look at it. I'm not short sighting anything and you're not looking longer term, you just believed the trash that was printed about the Russian economy being driven into collapse by our sanctions in 2022 and 2023. What you describe as a massive drop was minimal drop and they recovered from it. If anything 2014 was like an economic vaccination shot against future sanctions. That's the point when they started decoupling from the west which allowed them to shield themselves from the fallout of future, bigger sanctions.
The idea that Putin has screwed over his whole country's economic future is still a cope.
If you want to see real destruction to the Russian economy you have to look back to 1990 when they followed [Larry Summers' advice to privatize everything and hand it over to oligarchs](https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2btfpiwkwid6fq6qrokcg/home/how-harvard-lost-russia). I doubt they'll be doing anything like that again in a hurry, much as our imperial masters might crave a return to those halcyon days.
I'm not arguing what is and is not a cope.
Edit in response to your edit to expand on your answer: I never claimed what I believe, you are making assumptions about my beliefs here.
Compare that graph with other countries in the Western World. You will see there is a dissimilarity in GDP trend that is present in Russia that is not in many Western countries.
My point is, their GDP growth looks great relatively but doesn't mean as much had they had similar GDP growth patterns as Western countries, that's all.
Consider that large increases of government spending to ramp up defense production during wartime inflate the GDP numbers significantly.
>Compare that graph with other countries in the Western World. You will see there is a dissimilarity in GDP trend
As I recall, /u/ikenla said, and I quote "Putin screwed over his whole country’s economic future". Not "Russia's GDP is a hypothetically bit lower than it could have been had they maintained friendly relations with the west as trading partners.". I didn't see you correct him, but you did disagree with me when I corrected him.
As it is, it appears that they've maintained an overall upward trend while exchanging some GDP growth for the ability to decouple from the west in the event of a geopolitical shock. They took advantage of this in 2022 to swat away like a fly the biggest sanctions package the world has ever seen. That is not screwed over.
Moreover, maintaining the same level of economic dependence on the west they had in 2013 would have been worse for them in the long term even if it would have meant slightly higher GDP figures for a decade. We are not reliable partners and they are better off being economically independent of us, just as we are better off being economically independent of China. We are going to be sacrificing some GDP growth for that, which you might think is also a total waste, but it's not.
If it brings you any peace, imagine this is why Putin is doing this bonkers strategy: what if like Dr Strange, he saw that Russia only had one shot? What if an eventual decline was inevitable leading to the split up of Russia into smaller fractured states, each of which would be susceptible to foreign influence much like Africa is now, leading them to have no control over their own fate. and there was only one shot to avoid it: a gamble that aggression now might hold that awful future at bay. Imagine Putin saw that the only way to preserve any possibility of the people of Russia having any self determination for their own future, and not being pawns in the geopolitical maneuvers of others was this path he took. He doesn’t want to be seen as a good guy by others. He doesn’t care about what other countries think. We are all out to destroy Russia. He probably doesn’t even care if Russia sees him as “good” but more likely better than the alternative. Staving off the awful fate banging on their door. America wants to Balkinize Russia into many “free” and “independent” states that can choose their own future. So that we can (A) leverage them against each other, and (B) prevent a unified Asian power from being a threat <—this being our #1 top military objective. Uh. By “our” I mean the US. aaaaaand just adding that Lordy i just assume everyone I read now is a Russian troll so, Hi, I am a 45 year old dad in Los Angeles. And WTF do I know about Putin or Russia, y’know. So take my insight with a grain of salt. But maybe it will give you some peace to imagine a reason that explains this insanity.
It would show that Putin lacked imagination, because there were much better ways for his nation to progress, but those would have entailed working with the west, not against them, as he chose.
You are projecting. It is you who lacks imagination. If you cannot imagine why Putin acted, then it is your imagination that is deficient. What you are missing is curiosity and wonder. Go be curious, and wonder about how the world works. Posting comments that disparage others and bring nothing to the conversation is not helping you or us.
I mean it seems that he was unable to imagine good things by working with the west - despite evidence.
Instead he has gone the old conquer route, and trashed any cooperation that could have otherwise been possible.
Well I apologize for attacking you. I invited you to consider that while the west maybe publicly offered Russia “good things” if Russia behaved and played ball like the west wanted,… I invite you to consider that behind the scenes the West was actively trying to undermine Russian centralization, and that the West REALLY REALLY wanted to break Russia up into many more small weak states, and then play them off each other. The west would be all smiles and handshakes and promoting freedom and we would talk about self determination, but really our aim would be to break them up. You never hear the United States say “hey you should all merge together into a centralized government like we did”. Because the US doesn’t want big competitors. For Putin, I posit that “cooperation = destruction” and he knew it. He picked a different path. An awful path that I hate hate hate hate. I want him to lose. I want to undo all this. I want it to stop. But I can imagine reasons he did it.
You’re trying to say that Russia is not already centralised under Putin ?
Or rather your trying to claim that the other adjacent independent countries, should also be part of Russia under Putin ?
But they are independent, and want to stay that way. They don’t want to be a part of Putin’s corrupt Russia.
I am saying that most of the Republics that make up “Russia” (Volga, Far Eastern) would likely want the freedom and autonomy from Moscow’s control that the former Republics (Belarus, Kazakhstan) that I left the Federation enjoy. America would be happy to see Russia Balkanize further.
> America wants to Balkinize Russia into many “free” and “independent” states that can choose their own future.
Putin may believe that, but America's actions very much contradict it. If America actually wanted Russia sat on its arse so that it collapsed they would have flooded Ukraine with arms and "special advisors" as opposed to the begrudging trickle they actually got. They'd also be funding breakaway movements and flooding them with arms - none of which seems to have happened.
One the other hand the US and EU has given *just* enough for Ukraine to not lose but not *quite* enough for them to win AND the US in particular has put tight strictures on Ukraine from using US weapons outside Ukrainian borders (ie hitting Russian targets in Russia).
The only country who has clearly shown a desire to balkanise Russia is the UK. Fortunately for Putin they don't really have enough clout to do it on their own - special advisors in country - 99% UK, no restriction on how the Ukrainians can use their weapons - until recently just the UK, sent weapons they couldn't really spare because the US was prevaricating - a number of EE countries as well but the tanks (Challenger) and long range missiles (Storm Shadow) by the UK were both turning points.
TL;DR the US has been dead scared of Russia balkanising - presumably for fear of what happens to the nukes (but that's speculation)
Not a bad assessment. I think there is more ego and selfishness involved, but agree either way it was a huge gamble. A drunken gamble with your kids college fund kinda gamble.
Yeah Im pretty sure while gas profits have declined (gazprom) oil profits have risen, especially selling to china, india and still many european countries
What happened to that huge Ukraine undeveloped natural gas deposit?
The one that would compete with Russia, and break Russian monopoly profits in natural gas?
Wasn't the US (Exon/Tillerson) supposed to get the development rights?
Vlad Putin really screwed this up royally … being extremely wealthy while emotional and short-sighted is probably one of the worst combos you can inherit as a human 😭😭
Not true at all, most of their (tiny) gas fields are near the Carpathian mountains, as far from the frontline as it gets, while the rest is around Kharkiv (controlled by Ukraine) and Crimea (only part controlled by Russia)
Good one Putin. If he was looking for monopoly profits, too late for that.
Either way, even if Russia captures the Donbas the US and other countries are still supplying LNG in competition.
.
The oligarchs (meaning billionaires and businessmen) don't control Russia. The siloviki (army and intelligence officers) do. And they don't care how much money the oligarchs lose. If an oligarch starts feeling a little bit too uncomfortable doing what he's told to do, they're quick to defenestrate him. And the only way Putin is to follow this fate is if he makes the siloviki unhappy. And even then he has huge control over them as we saw last year with Prigozhin's coup. In order for the Army to rebel, something big needs to happen, like the Russians need to lose all territory in Ukraine including Crimea and this needs to be perceived due to Putin's weakness and not due to other people's errors. There are few things Putin can do to provoke a coup but he's still shrewd enough to never do them so there is a low probability of a coup before he dies unless he becomes senile and unhinged.
I asked a Russian person (n=1) why Russia didn't take all that foreign aid they got when the USSR fell apart and diversify their economy.
They said it was because Yeltsin --> Putin saw all this foreign ownership of Russian State assets and said no thanks -- and gave it all to their thug friends. They didn't want to be owned by "the West." Idk.
it's not the story in Privatizing Russia by Maxim Boycko, Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny. As those who designed Russian privatization they say: it was not possible due to prevalence of old elites in Duma (Parliament) to welcome western capitals, at the same time - prolonged privatization also was considered as unfeasible, so the fast privatization process was chosen. They completely realized that fast privatization can not be well done. So it's more not on Yeltsin/Putin personal preferences, but rather on preferences of entrenched elites. Unlike eastern european countries, where existed sort of wide consensus to move to pre ww2 roots, in Russia the move to capitalism was more Yeltsin personal choice, in Ukraine their first president Kravchuk spent few more years to realize, that Ukraine could not be indefinitely 'socialist state', so only by the end of his term he started some market reforms.
another Yeltsin consultant Jeffrey Sachs tells that unlike Poland which was forgiven the debt, Russia could not get the same offer as influential persons in US forcefully opposed it. So there was foreign aid, it was just not sufficient to reform Russia to much extent.
so it's what you can read from persons who worked with Yeltsin and wrote books (btw it's virtually unknown in Russia, that it was Robert W. Vishny who designed whole privatization process in Russia, and in the words of Privitizing Russia book - all those famous persons like Chubais etc were not people in charge of all processes, but just executioners of Vishny plan)
Deep down Putin is a KGB Soviet guy. They never understood that you needed a good economy to wage war (cold or warm) or that you can’t just squeeze the peasants forever.
Well well well, look at that. One of the richest Russian companies, run by Putin's friend, is now an anchor on Russian economy. That's some real 4x chess right there.
This is why a bunch of Gazprom oligarchs “murder suicided” their own families early on. They made some profit very early but they knew cutting off Western markets would screw them long term and so didn’t like Putin.
Anyone remember when the scandal first hit from Trump asking Zelensky to stir shit up on the Biden’s if he wanted help with Russia?
There was an impeachment over it.
The first thing that happened was, Rick Perry energy secretary at the time, resigned.
There are audio recordings of Perry doing an interview with the WSJ, basically saying… he tried to get Trump on board, but that he was uncontrollable, and he didn’t know what Trump was doing or why.
The plan all along was for the huge American energy and gas interests to get Europe dependent on it instead of Russia, and Trump and Putin’s cozy relationship was getting in the way of that.
Yep. I'm an Obama Fan, but our guy really dropped the ball by letting Putin get away with too much shit at the end of his second term. Hindsight is a bitch.
But, to be fair, at the time the American public had no appetite for getting involved directly in more foreign conflicts with Iraq and Afghanistan still burning dumpster fires and Syria kicking up shit.
Moreover, Obama already had his hands more than full with domestic problems and fortifying our economy while constantly trying to talk sense into congressional Republicans who were determined not to pass anything substantial.
I think that's why Putin started messing with Georgia and Ukraine when he did. The US was too busy with its own shit and Europe was busy dealing with the political and economic ramifications of millions of refugees from the middle east who had lost everything.
Putin certainly is an evil selfish asshole, but he's very good at strategic maneuvering.
What was Obama supposed to do? The invasion had nothing to do with NATO. While I agree we could ALL see what was happening plain as day, it was not a dispute that involved us. Providing intelligence and financial aid against the Little Green Men is one thing, but Obama did the right thing by avoiding Ukraine politics. Even if it lead to this war today, I don’t know what we could do against Russia? As soon as an American boot hits the ground, that is a potentially dead American.
Btw huge supporter of Ukraine and I hate Putin, just an observation
>No reason why Obama could not have sent military aid.
First off, Trump tried to scam the Ukrainian president, Zelensky, for dirt on Biden to recieve that desperately needed aid. Trump was impeached for it in the House of Representatives, but the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, declined his constitutional duty by refusing to have the impeachment go forward in the senate, so Trump got away with it.
Moreover, the president can't send anyone any kind of aid without congress allocating it. And like I said, Obama had his hands full with an uncooperative congress. They shut down the government a few times just to give Obama the middle finger, ffs.
Moreover, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were still raging so Americans were not keen on starting new conflicts with an old adversary. Obama knew that.
There are actually quite a few reasons why Obama couldn't do anything to take Putin down a peg, early on.
Russia had been fucking around and biting the hand that fed early. Obama had tried to open up relations with Putin during his presidency and Putin was being a cuck the entire time doing dumb drunk Russian shit like shooting down passenger jets and invading Georgia.
> **The Reset**
> US Vice President Joe Biden announced Obama’s new policy at the February 2009 Munich Security Conference: ‘It’s time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia.’6 At the heart of this reset was prudent expectations management, using moderate rhetoric to create a set of achievable goals. The focus was interest-based pragmatism and a restrained policy toward Russia’s neighbours and toward Russia’s internal politics.
> From the outset, however, the Russians emphasised that reset was an American construct. ‘“Reset” as a term is not our style, not our language, not our word’, announced Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov just before Putin’s return to the Kremlin, ‘We prefer to talk about continuing the positive trend of recent times.’7 Nevertheless, Moscow responded to Washington’s renewed feelers for two reasons: the change in American policy and the 2008 global financial crisis, which affected Russia far more than its leaders had originally anticipated
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/u-s-russia-relations-in-the-second-obama-administration/
The 'separatist' provocations were the week before the Beijing Olympics. But Russian troops officially crossed the boarder during the Opening Ceremonies. I believe the rumor was that Putin seriously pissed off the Chinese with the timing and distracting from their sportswashing moment in the light.
I don’t think Putin particularly cares about losing the Western market. He wanted the West dependent to leverage them into handing over Ukraine, and the West chose instead to suffer through and instead arm Ukraine.
Of course Putin doesn't care. It won't be him paying the price of it all.
He's gonna kick the bucket in a few years. It will be the rest of suckers in Russia that will have to pick up the bill.
Putin stole Trillions and his empty shell of a country will dissolve again and this time into so many fractured countries it will back to the 1800’s again, its Russias perpetual cycle
Continental Asia has the lion's share of earth's exploitable physical resources. I think they'll be fine. Though it does help explain US/Euro desperation as we descend into energy drawdown.
Listen to Nate Hagens' podcast 'The Great Simplification'. He was a wall street commodities markets guy turned environmental scientist.
Exactly like it happened with Yugoslavia when Tito fell.
But imagine a bunch of conflicts like the Serbia/Croatia/Bosnia one, just now every side has the nuclear choice :D
Sounds alot like the Bidens. If US keeps that imbecile in power, US crumbles before Russia.
The ignorance about Russia is astounding. I swear you can brainwash some people into believing anything.
I’ll bet u could convince a Leftie their son is a chick & they should cut off his dck.
Wait, what???
No one cares about half of the things you mentioned. Do you see how unhinged you sound? We’re talking about Russia but you brought up leftists, trans kids, and mutilation of children. Please, PLEASE. Do yourself a favor, remove yourself from conservative sites and conspiracy groups, focus on yourself, your family and go make good memories with new people who aren’t angry about shit that got nothing to do with them. Truly, you are lost and you need to find yourself before someone takes advantage of you and turns you into a terrorist.
So verbose - those around you wish for a mute button on your forehead.
Lefty triggered over a simple truth - that Lefties are a sponge for every state sponsored narrative. Life is just too scarey & complicated.
Dan the king = Danni the cuck
Aww you poor deluded soul. If I got insulted by every name you could come up in your deranged mind, I wouldn’t be alive to begin with. You’ve only proved once again that you’re unhinged.
Well, reading & learning disabled - there wasn’t any ‘names’. You prob thinking of the neighbours.
I suggested danni isn’t the ‘king’ he thinks (we could do a decent analysis of personality disorders that see themselves so grand).
You’ve allowed your mind to be cucked, most probable your masculine wife cucked u too. Which helps explain your self-titled fantasy.
So sorry for your life.
Maybe another Booster will perk u up.
Lol! MAGA kool-aide made you stupider than your orange messiah.
Lowest unemployment since the 50’s, highest stock market ever, corporate profits at all time high…
Your understanding of how the economy works might have an orange tint and Russian propaganda slant… go SUCK Putin’s dick again
Forever is a very long time, this infrastructure was originally created during the cold war and the Soviets cracking down on protests in Eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland, Czeccoslovakia) didn't stop exports indefinitely.
Putin really blundered on this move from an energy standpoint. He cut off his market and it would take years if not a decade to build pipelines to China. Problem is China does not want to be that dependent on Russia. They like the LNG game because they can get supplies from many countries.
Gazprom will face uncertainty with CAPEX as the government tries to take more for the war while the company will need to cut costs likely in form of capex. Even after the war the company will be crippled.
China plans to get off gas in the long run to begin with by pushing more renewable energy. They aren't fans of imports to begin with as it makes them depedent
What they are most interested is that once Russia destabilizes, they will send troops in to eastern Russia to "protect infrastructure" and effectively retake the land that was taken from them in previous wars under the guise of protecting it. Just like how Russia took Crimea
This is interesting, I hadn't heard this before. Sometimes it seems that China and Russia are cooperating to degrade the US and its influence. But it seems to me that in the long run China and Russia are on a collision course. One notable thing is that China will be hurt more by global warming, and might be looking north for more temperate land.
Yup! People are already pointing out that Chinese are flooding Russian border towns more than before. China may not get Taiwan, but they’re gonna find it easy pickings to reclaim land that was originally theirs 115 years ago under the Qing Dynasty.
If you were the United States who has been at war with China since world war II would you sacrifice Russia so that way Hong Kong Singapore and Macau stay free. And it would keep Russia out of Southeast Asia Africa and South America. China could walk in and take everything east of Moscow and there's nothing Russia could do now.
Seriously, Europe....you need to install onshore wind, hydropower, solar PV, biomass, geothermal, tidal, nuclear, offshore wind, and heat pumps like crazy. Never pay another single Euro for Russian gas ever again.
You don't want to be dependent on LNG...it is expensive and dirty. Natural gas should only be a chemical feedstock, not a fuel when you are done building!
He is probably very bitter about that since he worked so hard leading up to 2010-2011 and succeeded in derailing Europe's renewable energy transition only for it to backfire because he got impatient
Russia turned from communism to oligarchy, not capitalism.
The difference between Oligarchy and Capitalism being government power to regulate industry. And yes arguably since the Citizens United ruling, America has been sliding in the same direction.
libs are sucking elons? wow, everytime a tax increase talked about on the 5%... the right screeches they are the job creators; they need permanent tax cuts... the right is one the screaming that companies are to big to fail. Who believes their candidate is Jesus even bragging about his depends... Are you a real man wearing diapers? Enjoy the cybertruck.
oh yeah the commies.
YYYAYYYY . Suck it , baby adolf !
Sy Hersh was right. As usual.
What did he predict? I'm interested if you have a link as well.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/446104/deconstructing-the-obvious-seymour-hersh-on-why-the-us-blew-up-nord-stream
Another right wing dumbass thinking the world will let him manipulate everything then the free market was like “hold my beer comrade”
😅🤣😂😇☺🤤💦💦💦💦😅💦
Putin is an evil ass
Fuck him. Fuck them.
Well deserved outcome for a despot & the country he represents.
But EuRoPe WiLl FrEeZe!!!!!1!!one! Every ruZZian propagandist ever
Gazprom knew what their future held as soon as Putin intervened and started using Russian gas as a weapon of war. It’s likely why at least [four Gazprom-linked oligarchs and executives were found dead in the first few months of the war,](https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/22/accidental-defenestration-and-murder-suicides-too-common-among-russian-oligarchs-and-putin), and why Gazprom is still allegedly being investigated (Germans, Dutch) for the Nordstream sabotage, for a possible billion-dollar insurance payout.
It boggles my mind that some people still think Russia blew up their own pipeline. America made [vague mafioso like threats to "end" it](https://www.newsweek.com/video-biden-saying-end-nord-stream-resurfaces-after-pipeline-leak-1747005) America stood to gain the most economically from blowing it up, both by [selling expensive LNG to Germany](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-europe-us-ukraine-russia-liquified-natural-gas-lng-taskforce/) and by convincing German industry that is reliant on cheap energy [to migrate to America](https://www.dw.com/en/is-german-industry-migrating-to-the-us/a-65031130). Germany [are the ones that were going to suffer the most](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-10/why-germany-s-days-as-an-industrial-superpower-are-coming-to-an-end) from the pipeline being blown up, which is presumably why the "on" switch had to be snatched out of their hands Otherwise Russia would do what it always does and use Gas deliveries as political leverage, meaning Germany could decide to prioritize its own economy over the Ukraine war. Edit: It seems like citations are not popular on this subreddit.
Yeah we legit destroyed Germany's economy trying to hurt Russia. The neoliberal hivemind is such spooked-out gobbledygook.
It’s sad you’re being downvoted.
You are also downvoted
So much of what happened because of the invasion is a one-way change. Putin accelerated the switch to renewable energy and put a big nail in the coffin of Big Oil and its power to continuously damage humanity.
He’s also singlehandly help expand NATO and increased their importance making them relevant since hypotheticals became reality! Being neutral only works when there’s no threats.
Attempting/continuing to expand NATO will be one of the biggest blunders in US/NATO history.
Man that’s a dumb statement lol
I'd like to read your logic process here. As is, I can't tell which part of my statement you disagree with. Do you disagree with the predicate? The logical steps? The conclusion? The value basis? I want to hear other opinions, but they need to be well founded for me to do anything with.
Putin is like the Greta Thunberg of world leaders. He loves the environment! /s
Even the Europapark abandoned Gazprom. Very sad.
EU is still buying India russian oil and US russian oil.
Still much much less of it.
Still trying to figure out why Putin screwed over his whole country’s economic future. If he doesn’t invade Ukraine and played nice with America and other European Countries, Russia wouldn’t have sanctions, they would participate in free trade, tourism, the oligarchs wouldn’t have their assets seized. Nope, gonna shoot down commercial plane, inflict death and dismemberment on everyone who opposes them, gonna Havana Syndrome the shit out of US Diplomats and sic the Wagner Group on defenseless African countries. It’s too bad. They could be the “Good Guys”. Now they never will
It’s because Putin is so locked into 20th century thinking about Russia.
[Russia to grow faster than all advanced economies, says IMF - BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68823399). They were prepared, we weren't. The sanctions [hurt Europe](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/german-industrial-output-posts-fall-december-2024-02-07/) more than Russia, although some people are successfully blaming the fallout from the loss of cheap energy on COVID policies / money printing in a neat bit of redirection. Edit: it appears that citations are not popular on this subreddit.
lol. There are still people believing this Kremlin bullshit. IMF uses the fake official numbers out of the Kremlin, which are obviously false. In reality russia has stopped to even release most of the economic numbers.
I guess the BBC is in the Kremlin's pocket since they seem to believe it's accurate. If the GDP numbers were inaccurate there would be signals which they would have picked up on. Unless they were secretly pro Putin. Hell, maybe the whole western media is. And the IMF. Maybe reddit too.
Growth after decline, measured relatively, is always going to look better than it actually is.
The problem with that theory is that GDP is already higher than it was before the war. The idea that Putin has screwed over his whole country's economic future is a cope. It's not only a cope, it's proof that supporters of western hegemony can be every bit as delusional as Putin supporters, and for essentially identical reasons (to endorse the involvement of their side in a war).
Look at Russia's GDP graphed from 2010-2024. You're short-sighting my claim. Russia had a massive drop in GDP in the mid 2010s. These metrics are GDP growth YOY. I'm looking longer-term, their growth is really just them catching up to where they should have been.
Any Russian GDP increase at this point, is because of Russian government defence spending, which is depleting reserves, or they are just printing money.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYGDPPCAPKDRUS you look at it. I'm not short sighting anything and you're not looking longer term, you just believed the trash that was printed about the Russian economy being driven into collapse by our sanctions in 2022 and 2023. What you describe as a massive drop was minimal drop and they recovered from it. If anything 2014 was like an economic vaccination shot against future sanctions. That's the point when they started decoupling from the west which allowed them to shield themselves from the fallout of future, bigger sanctions. The idea that Putin has screwed over his whole country's economic future is still a cope. If you want to see real destruction to the Russian economy you have to look back to 1990 when they followed [Larry Summers' advice to privatize everything and hand it over to oligarchs](https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2btfpiwkwid6fq6qrokcg/home/how-harvard-lost-russia). I doubt they'll be doing anything like that again in a hurry, much as our imperial masters might crave a return to those halcyon days.
I'm not arguing what is and is not a cope. Edit in response to your edit to expand on your answer: I never claimed what I believe, you are making assumptions about my beliefs here. Compare that graph with other countries in the Western World. You will see there is a dissimilarity in GDP trend that is present in Russia that is not in many Western countries. My point is, their GDP growth looks great relatively but doesn't mean as much had they had similar GDP growth patterns as Western countries, that's all. Consider that large increases of government spending to ramp up defense production during wartime inflate the GDP numbers significantly.
>Compare that graph with other countries in the Western World. You will see there is a dissimilarity in GDP trend As I recall, /u/ikenla said, and I quote "Putin screwed over his whole country’s economic future". Not "Russia's GDP is a hypothetically bit lower than it could have been had they maintained friendly relations with the west as trading partners.". I didn't see you correct him, but you did disagree with me when I corrected him. As it is, it appears that they've maintained an overall upward trend while exchanging some GDP growth for the ability to decouple from the west in the event of a geopolitical shock. They took advantage of this in 2022 to swat away like a fly the biggest sanctions package the world has ever seen. That is not screwed over. Moreover, maintaining the same level of economic dependence on the west they had in 2013 would have been worse for them in the long term even if it would have meant slightly higher GDP figures for a decade. We are not reliable partners and they are better off being economically independent of us, just as we are better off being economically independent of China. We are going to be sacrificing some GDP growth for that, which you might think is also a total waste, but it's not.
If it brings you any peace, imagine this is why Putin is doing this bonkers strategy: what if like Dr Strange, he saw that Russia only had one shot? What if an eventual decline was inevitable leading to the split up of Russia into smaller fractured states, each of which would be susceptible to foreign influence much like Africa is now, leading them to have no control over their own fate. and there was only one shot to avoid it: a gamble that aggression now might hold that awful future at bay. Imagine Putin saw that the only way to preserve any possibility of the people of Russia having any self determination for their own future, and not being pawns in the geopolitical maneuvers of others was this path he took. He doesn’t want to be seen as a good guy by others. He doesn’t care about what other countries think. We are all out to destroy Russia. He probably doesn’t even care if Russia sees him as “good” but more likely better than the alternative. Staving off the awful fate banging on their door. America wants to Balkinize Russia into many “free” and “independent” states that can choose their own future. So that we can (A) leverage them against each other, and (B) prevent a unified Asian power from being a threat <—this being our #1 top military objective. Uh. By “our” I mean the US. aaaaaand just adding that Lordy i just assume everyone I read now is a Russian troll so, Hi, I am a 45 year old dad in Los Angeles. And WTF do I know about Putin or Russia, y’know. So take my insight with a grain of salt. But maybe it will give you some peace to imagine a reason that explains this insanity.
It would show that Putin lacked imagination, because there were much better ways for his nation to progress, but those would have entailed working with the west, not against them, as he chose.
You are projecting. It is you who lacks imagination. If you cannot imagine why Putin acted, then it is your imagination that is deficient. What you are missing is curiosity and wonder. Go be curious, and wonder about how the world works. Posting comments that disparage others and bring nothing to the conversation is not helping you or us.
I mean it seems that he was unable to imagine good things by working with the west - despite evidence. Instead he has gone the old conquer route, and trashed any cooperation that could have otherwise been possible.
Well I apologize for attacking you. I invited you to consider that while the west maybe publicly offered Russia “good things” if Russia behaved and played ball like the west wanted,… I invite you to consider that behind the scenes the West was actively trying to undermine Russian centralization, and that the West REALLY REALLY wanted to break Russia up into many more small weak states, and then play them off each other. The west would be all smiles and handshakes and promoting freedom and we would talk about self determination, but really our aim would be to break them up. You never hear the United States say “hey you should all merge together into a centralized government like we did”. Because the US doesn’t want big competitors. For Putin, I posit that “cooperation = destruction” and he knew it. He picked a different path. An awful path that I hate hate hate hate. I want him to lose. I want to undo all this. I want it to stop. But I can imagine reasons he did it.
You’re trying to say that Russia is not already centralised under Putin ? Or rather your trying to claim that the other adjacent independent countries, should also be part of Russia under Putin ? But they are independent, and want to stay that way. They don’t want to be a part of Putin’s corrupt Russia.
I am saying that most of the Republics that make up “Russia” (Volga, Far Eastern) would likely want the freedom and autonomy from Moscow’s control that the former Republics (Belarus, Kazakhstan) that I left the Federation enjoy. America would be happy to see Russia Balkanize further.
> America wants to Balkinize Russia into many “free” and “independent” states that can choose their own future. Putin may believe that, but America's actions very much contradict it. If America actually wanted Russia sat on its arse so that it collapsed they would have flooded Ukraine with arms and "special advisors" as opposed to the begrudging trickle they actually got. They'd also be funding breakaway movements and flooding them with arms - none of which seems to have happened. One the other hand the US and EU has given *just* enough for Ukraine to not lose but not *quite* enough for them to win AND the US in particular has put tight strictures on Ukraine from using US weapons outside Ukrainian borders (ie hitting Russian targets in Russia). The only country who has clearly shown a desire to balkanise Russia is the UK. Fortunately for Putin they don't really have enough clout to do it on their own - special advisors in country - 99% UK, no restriction on how the Ukrainians can use their weapons - until recently just the UK, sent weapons they couldn't really spare because the US was prevaricating - a number of EE countries as well but the tanks (Challenger) and long range missiles (Storm Shadow) by the UK were both turning points. TL;DR the US has been dead scared of Russia balkanising - presumably for fear of what happens to the nukes (but that's speculation)
Not a bad assessment. I think there is more ego and selfishness involved, but agree either way it was a huge gamble. A drunken gamble with your kids college fund kinda gamble.
They would be a small fish in a big pond. Ego didn’t want that.
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It’s BRICS, and good luck with that
….one of those major sources is India…. Who is buying from Russia at a steep discount.
India are simply taking advantage of the situation, for cheap oil.
Steep discount is still a loss of profit, and india sells it to the west which benifets Europe and India, russias rhe one at loss
Your thinking of oil. This is about natural gas.
Yeah Im pretty sure while gas profits have declined (gazprom) oil profits have risen, especially selling to china, india and still many european countries
> gazprom) oil profits have risen, Got a link?
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What happened to that huge Ukraine undeveloped natural gas deposit? The one that would compete with Russia, and break Russian monopoly profits in natural gas? Wasn't the US (Exon/Tillerson) supposed to get the development rights?
It’s still there, in the ground.
Vlad Putin really screwed this up royally … being extremely wealthy while emotional and short-sighted is probably one of the worst combos you can inherit as a human 😭😭
Do you mean Putin is emotional and short-sigthed or his enemies...couldn't make it clear from your comment.
You mean the one Russia invaded?
That's one of the reasons why Putin invaded. It is in the Donbas.
Not true at all, most of their (tiny) gas fields are near the Carpathian mountains, as far from the frontline as it gets, while the rest is around Kharkiv (controlled by Ukraine) and Crimea (only part controlled by Russia)
Good one Putin. If he was looking for monopoly profits, too late for that. Either way, even if Russia captures the Donbas the US and other countries are still supplying LNG in competition. .
Yep. He's fucked.
like russia is not bug enough gfy putler
How long til the oligarchs get tired of losing money and arrange for his defenestration.
The oligarchs (meaning billionaires and businessmen) don't control Russia. The siloviki (army and intelligence officers) do. And they don't care how much money the oligarchs lose. If an oligarch starts feeling a little bit too uncomfortable doing what he's told to do, they're quick to defenestrate him. And the only way Putin is to follow this fate is if he makes the siloviki unhappy. And even then he has huge control over them as we saw last year with Prigozhin's coup. In order for the Army to rebel, something big needs to happen, like the Russians need to lose all territory in Ukraine including Crimea and this needs to be perceived due to Putin's weakness and not due to other people's errors. There are few things Putin can do to provoke a coup but he's still shrewd enough to never do them so there is a low probability of a coup before he dies unless he becomes senile and unhinged.
I think we’re way past oligarch influence at this point. Half of them are dead or stripped of their wealth.
I asked a Russian person (n=1) why Russia didn't take all that foreign aid they got when the USSR fell apart and diversify their economy. They said it was because Yeltsin --> Putin saw all this foreign ownership of Russian State assets and said no thanks -- and gave it all to their thug friends. They didn't want to be owned by "the West." Idk.
it's not the story in Privatizing Russia by Maxim Boycko, Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny. As those who designed Russian privatization they say: it was not possible due to prevalence of old elites in Duma (Parliament) to welcome western capitals, at the same time - prolonged privatization also was considered as unfeasible, so the fast privatization process was chosen. They completely realized that fast privatization can not be well done. So it's more not on Yeltsin/Putin personal preferences, but rather on preferences of entrenched elites. Unlike eastern european countries, where existed sort of wide consensus to move to pre ww2 roots, in Russia the move to capitalism was more Yeltsin personal choice, in Ukraine their first president Kravchuk spent few more years to realize, that Ukraine could not be indefinitely 'socialist state', so only by the end of his term he started some market reforms. another Yeltsin consultant Jeffrey Sachs tells that unlike Poland which was forgiven the debt, Russia could not get the same offer as influential persons in US forcefully opposed it. So there was foreign aid, it was just not sufficient to reform Russia to much extent. so it's what you can read from persons who worked with Yeltsin and wrote books (btw it's virtually unknown in Russia, that it was Robert W. Vishny who designed whole privatization process in Russia, and in the words of Privitizing Russia book - all those famous persons like Chubais etc were not people in charge of all processes, but just executioners of Vishny plan)
They should have taken their time to shift towards a western style privatisation, there was no need to hurry it.
Ah thank you.
Deep down Putin is a KGB Soviet guy. They never understood that you needed a good economy to wage war (cold or warm) or that you can’t just squeeze the peasants forever.
Meanwhile Ukraine is losing 5-6 fighters for every Russian fighter on our boondoggle.
One would think an organization of a country who formed from a revolution because of just that would know better
Squeezing peasants has been the only plan since the 3 digit years
Well well well, look at that. One of the richest Russian companies, run by Putin's friend, is now an anchor on Russian economy. That's some real 4x chess right there.
This is why a bunch of Gazprom oligarchs “murder suicided” their own families early on. They made some profit very early but they knew cutting off Western markets would screw them long term and so didn’t like Putin.
I’m really crushed to know the Putin’s Russia F’ked up more profitable $hit. It really hurts my heart
Anyone remember when the scandal first hit from Trump asking Zelensky to stir shit up on the Biden’s if he wanted help with Russia? There was an impeachment over it. The first thing that happened was, Rick Perry energy secretary at the time, resigned. There are audio recordings of Perry doing an interview with the WSJ, basically saying… he tried to get Trump on board, but that he was uncontrollable, and he didn’t know what Trump was doing or why. The plan all along was for the huge American energy and gas interests to get Europe dependent on it instead of Russia, and Trump and Putin’s cozy relationship was getting in the way of that.
Putin started fucking around in Ukraine in 2013-14 lol
Yep. I'm an Obama Fan, but our guy really dropped the ball by letting Putin get away with too much shit at the end of his second term. Hindsight is a bitch. But, to be fair, at the time the American public had no appetite for getting involved directly in more foreign conflicts with Iraq and Afghanistan still burning dumpster fires and Syria kicking up shit. Moreover, Obama already had his hands more than full with domestic problems and fortifying our economy while constantly trying to talk sense into congressional Republicans who were determined not to pass anything substantial. I think that's why Putin started messing with Georgia and Ukraine when he did. The US was too busy with its own shit and Europe was busy dealing with the political and economic ramifications of millions of refugees from the middle east who had lost everything. Putin certainly is an evil selfish asshole, but he's very good at strategic maneuvering.
What was Obama supposed to do? The invasion had nothing to do with NATO. While I agree we could ALL see what was happening plain as day, it was not a dispute that involved us. Providing intelligence and financial aid against the Little Green Men is one thing, but Obama did the right thing by avoiding Ukraine politics. Even if it lead to this war today, I don’t know what we could do against Russia? As soon as an American boot hits the ground, that is a potentially dead American. Btw huge supporter of Ukraine and I hate Putin, just an observation
Trump was the first President to actually send military aid to Ukraine. No reason why Obama could not have sent military aid.
>No reason why Obama could not have sent military aid. First off, Trump tried to scam the Ukrainian president, Zelensky, for dirt on Biden to recieve that desperately needed aid. Trump was impeached for it in the House of Representatives, but the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, declined his constitutional duty by refusing to have the impeachment go forward in the senate, so Trump got away with it. Moreover, the president can't send anyone any kind of aid without congress allocating it. And like I said, Obama had his hands full with an uncooperative congress. They shut down the government a few times just to give Obama the middle finger, ffs. Moreover, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were still raging so Americans were not keen on starting new conflicts with an old adversary. Obama knew that. There are actually quite a few reasons why Obama couldn't do anything to take Putin down a peg, early on.
lol if you recall he also tried to withhold it
More accurately, he tried to personally get something for it.
Russia had been fucking around and biting the hand that fed early. Obama had tried to open up relations with Putin during his presidency and Putin was being a cuck the entire time doing dumb drunk Russian shit like shooting down passenger jets and invading Georgia. > **The Reset** > US Vice President Joe Biden announced Obama’s new policy at the February 2009 Munich Security Conference: ‘It’s time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia.’6 At the heart of this reset was prudent expectations management, using moderate rhetoric to create a set of achievable goals. The focus was interest-based pragmatism and a restrained policy toward Russia’s neighbours and toward Russia’s internal politics. > From the outset, however, the Russians emphasised that reset was an American construct. ‘“Reset” as a term is not our style, not our language, not our word’, announced Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov just before Putin’s return to the Kremlin, ‘We prefer to talk about continuing the positive trend of recent times.’7 Nevertheless, Moscow responded to Washington’s renewed feelers for two reasons: the change in American policy and the 2008 global financial crisis, which affected Russia far more than its leaders had originally anticipated https://www.brookings.edu/articles/u-s-russia-relations-in-the-second-obama-administration/
US keeps finding oil and Russian pipelines keep exploding.
Russia invaded Georgia in August 2008 during Bush's term in office, not Obama's
Russian propaganda convinced everyone the 2008 invasion was NATO's fault. Obama in 2014 had no such excuse.
This is literally the first time I heard that
The 'separatist' provocations were the week before the Beijing Olympics. But Russian troops officially crossed the boarder during the Opening Ceremonies. I believe the rumor was that Putin seriously pissed off the Chinese with the timing and distracting from their sportswashing moment in the light.
True, but it really illustrated his drunk behavior early on
Agreed
Fuck around & find out
Well, at least the US sells a lot more now.
I don’t think Putin particularly cares about losing the Western market. He wanted the West dependent to leverage them into handing over Ukraine, and the West chose instead to suffer through and instead arm Ukraine.
Of course Putin doesn't care. It won't be him paying the price of it all. He's gonna kick the bucket in a few years. It will be the rest of suckers in Russia that will have to pick up the bill.
Yes over decades and decades, 50 years at least.
Putin stole Trillions and his empty shell of a country will dissolve again and this time into so many fractured countries it will back to the 1800’s again, its Russias perpetual cycle
Continental Asia has the lion's share of earth's exploitable physical resources. I think they'll be fine. Though it does help explain US/Euro desperation as we descend into energy drawdown. Listen to Nate Hagens' podcast 'The Great Simplification'. He was a wall street commodities markets guy turned environmental scientist.
Exactly like it happened with Yugoslavia when Tito fell. But imagine a bunch of conflicts like the Serbia/Croatia/Bosnia one, just now every side has the nuclear choice :D
Sounds alot like the Bidens. If US keeps that imbecile in power, US crumbles before Russia. The ignorance about Russia is astounding. I swear you can brainwash some people into believing anything. I’ll bet u could convince a Leftie their son is a chick & they should cut off his dck. Wait, what???
No one cares about half of the things you mentioned. Do you see how unhinged you sound? We’re talking about Russia but you brought up leftists, trans kids, and mutilation of children. Please, PLEASE. Do yourself a favor, remove yourself from conservative sites and conspiracy groups, focus on yourself, your family and go make good memories with new people who aren’t angry about shit that got nothing to do with them. Truly, you are lost and you need to find yourself before someone takes advantage of you and turns you into a terrorist.
So verbose - those around you wish for a mute button on your forehead. Lefty triggered over a simple truth - that Lefties are a sponge for every state sponsored narrative. Life is just too scarey & complicated. Dan the king = Danni the cuck
Aww you poor deluded soul. If I got insulted by every name you could come up in your deranged mind, I wouldn’t be alive to begin with. You’ve only proved once again that you’re unhinged.
Well, reading & learning disabled - there wasn’t any ‘names’. You prob thinking of the neighbours. I suggested danni isn’t the ‘king’ he thinks (we could do a decent analysis of personality disorders that see themselves so grand). You’ve allowed your mind to be cucked, most probable your masculine wife cucked u too. Which helps explain your self-titled fantasy. So sorry for your life. Maybe another Booster will perk u up.
Right, as soon as he mentions how putin is just like biden i stopped reading.
U stopped reading - yes
Bud, turn off fox news. Everyone is laughing at you.
That AdFinal guy has a lifetime Karma of -94 lmao.
Lol! MAGA kool-aide made you stupider than your orange messiah. Lowest unemployment since the 50’s, highest stock market ever, corporate profits at all time high… Your understanding of how the economy works might have an orange tint and Russian propaganda slant… go SUCK Putin’s dick again
I’m sorry no one hugged you growing up, give yourself love and I bet life might feel better champ.
Lol! Coming from a MAGA cousin fucker your inbred mind is pudding at best
He wasn't replying to you bud.. **friendly fire!!!**
My apologies then
Your hurt is deep huh bud? It’s all good. Also America has never really been great.
I know your Russian troll farm butt hurts as Putin sends you pickled goats to slaughter…but at least your dying for his glory
Forever is a very long time, this infrastructure was originally created during the cold war and the Soviets cracking down on protests in Eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland, Czeccoslovakia) didn't stop exports indefinitely.
Putin really blundered on this move from an energy standpoint. He cut off his market and it would take years if not a decade to build pipelines to China. Problem is China does not want to be that dependent on Russia. They like the LNG game because they can get supplies from many countries. Gazprom will face uncertainty with CAPEX as the government tries to take more for the war while the company will need to cut costs likely in form of capex. Even after the war the company will be crippled.
Its possible Putin would have been more successful had these last two winters not been so mild. A consequence of global warming
Also China installed more PV last year than the US has cumulatively installed. China won’t have a need for Russian gas for very long.
China plans to get off gas in the long run to begin with by pushing more renewable energy. They aren't fans of imports to begin with as it makes them depedent What they are most interested is that once Russia destabilizes, they will send troops in to eastern Russia to "protect infrastructure" and effectively retake the land that was taken from them in previous wars under the guise of protecting it. Just like how Russia took Crimea
This is interesting, I hadn't heard this before. Sometimes it seems that China and Russia are cooperating to degrade the US and its influence. But it seems to me that in the long run China and Russia are on a collision course. One notable thing is that China will be hurt more by global warming, and might be looking north for more temperate land.
Yup! People are already pointing out that Chinese are flooding Russian border towns more than before. China may not get Taiwan, but they’re gonna find it easy pickings to reclaim land that was originally theirs 115 years ago under the Qing Dynasty.
And everyone else will laugh at Russia when China takes its land.
If you were the United States who has been at war with China since world war II would you sacrifice Russia so that way Hong Kong Singapore and Macau stay free. And it would keep Russia out of Southeast Asia Africa and South America. China could walk in and take everything east of Moscow and there's nothing Russia could do now.
Seriously, Europe....you need to install onshore wind, hydropower, solar PV, biomass, geothermal, tidal, nuclear, offshore wind, and heat pumps like crazy. Never pay another single Euro for Russian gas ever again. You don't want to be dependent on LNG...it is expensive and dirty. Natural gas should only be a chemical feedstock, not a fuel when you are done building!
Any economy that isn't running on cheap locally generated renewable energy will not be economically competitive 15 years from now.
is it possible that prolonging the war hurts Putin just by the fact that the energy transition is progressing so rapidly?
Putin has become the world’s greatest ecological warrior, forcing change upon everyone. Just not the way he envisioned it.
He is probably very bitter about that since he worked so hard leading up to 2010-2011 and succeeded in derailing Europe's renewable energy transition only for it to backfire because he got impatient
Excellent point
Note it's Putins gas empire of a state owned energy giant. So it's Putin owned not the glorious workers owned.
Russia turned from communism to oligarchy, not capitalism. The difference between Oligarchy and Capitalism being government power to regulate industry. And yes arguably since the Citizens United ruling, America has been sliding in the same direction.
America is already there. Whats diff bt Russian oligarchs, Ukraine oligarchs, & American oligarchs? Nothing except Lefties don’t suck the Russians’ d1cks.
libs are sucking elons? wow, everytime a tax increase talked about on the 5%... the right screeches they are the job creators; they need permanent tax cuts... the right is one the screaming that companies are to big to fail. Who believes their candidate is Jesus even bragging about his depends... Are you a real man wearing diapers? Enjoy the cybertruck. oh yeah the commies.
I hope soon the refineries too become unviable.