No, Russia did not remain a stable producer and it wasn't the West's "sanctions and sabotage" that did the real damage. Russia turned off the taps, plain and simple - in fact they started turning down exports and draining Europe's gas storage the autumn before. In some cases they may have made excuses about how sanctions meant they couldn't get the parts to operate their gas pipelines, but those excuses were bullshit, loosening the sanctions to give them what they supposedly needed just caused them to give more and increasingly bogus reasons for not supplying gas, and often they didn't even bother with that.
Because Russia saw what was coming and Europe's efforts to mitigate sanctions that were coming but not yet in effect. Europe was trying to buy as much gas as they could before the sanctions went into place, so by stopping early Russia had a better change of the sanctions hurting Europe enough that they stopped them.
Between the warm winter and the other mitigations Europe did there was no problem and Europe didn't hurt too much, but that was the goal.
>Russia remained a stable producer. It was the Western reaction, i.e. sanctions & sabotage, that did the real damage.
What sanctions? Russian gas was basically the only thing the EU wouldn't touch. Gazprom was the one that pulled the plug. The closest we got was refusing to insure oil tankers if Russia sells over $40/bbl, and that was months after Russia cut off European gas.
> It was the Western reaction, i.e. sanctions & sabotage, that did the real damage.
There is an actual death toll and very real crimes have been committed. Your ‘comparing and contrasting’ needs a bit more thought if you think the consequences equal.
> Russia is primarily responsible for causing death in Ukraine, closely followed by the other material participants, due to its choice to destroy Ukraine's military.
That isn’t the aim though, why are so many attacks targeted at civilians and civilian infrastructure? This isn’t about destroying their military, it’s about destroying Ukrainians and their country.
> why are so many attacks targeted at civilians and civilian infrastructure?
This simply isn't happening. The better question is why didn't Putin flatten Kiev on day 1, or any day hence, since his goal is "obviously" to kill as many Ukrainians as possible? Washington showed it was possible in Baghdad.
Russia's economy is in very bad shape. They can pretend otherwise, but the west is hurting them. It isn't as obvious as the results of military action, but it still hurts.
Germany's gas storage were half-empty in 2021 and prices in Europe were high. Russia had brought a large share of those gas storage facilities under its control. Gas deliveries were lower than usual. In the winter Putin than started the war against the Ukraine. Putin had prepared for the situation - sanctions against Putin were supposed to create energy shortages and fear among European citizens, give how much Europe's energy supply (gas, oil, and not to forget nuclear) depended on Russia. Sanctions were supposed to damage Europes economies, too. And they did, prices went up.
The war was supposed to last only a few days and then Russia would control the Ukraine - Putin would have the Ukraine, the Pipelines, the energy. But that was not what happened.
Putin miscalculated the situation and the reaction. Instead, the Ukraine government survived the first Russian attack, the war is now more than a year old, several stages of sanctions were brought into place, Europe&US delivers support for the Ukraine, Russia's energy industry is now largely decoupled from Europe, Russia is a political paria, and there were hundreds of thousands war victims and millions of refuges, due to Russias war on the Ukraine. Russia has yet failed to react to the political & military pressure against it with any signs of willing to end the war.
>Pipeline deliveries from Russia declined by 25% year-on-year in Q4 2021. This decrease in Russian pipeline supply to the EU became more pronounced in the first seven weeks of 2022, falling by 37% year-on-year. The last pipeline deliveries to Germany via the YAMAL pipeline (which goes through Belarus) were on 20 December 2021. Gas flows via Ukraine to Slovakia have fallen from an average of over 80 mcm/d in December to just 36 mcm/d in the first seven weeks of 2022.
The sanctions were a reaction to the Russia’s genocidal war. Late reaction, as it should have happened in 2014 or even in 1999, but it’s better than nothing.
So, yes, the putin’s war has wrecked the energy markets in Europe. And many many peoples lives as well unfortunately.
Another way of achieving that moniker is raping and murdering your way across a country, taking the children and killing the rest while erasing cultural symbols and monuments.
This is an absurd nitpick. First, nobody would read the claim as a literal one that Putin blew up the relevant gas infrastructure, especially since the background assumptions to the Western reaction include one that Putin would be willing to continue selling. If he weren’t there’d be no debate on energy sanctions. Also gas continues to flow through Ukraine as any fule kno.
Second, a further ‘important technicality’ is that even if the West (quite correctly) blew up Nord Stream II, it wasn’t in use, so its destruction didn’t disturb energy flows.
Third, Western interventions would also be described as ‘wreaking havoc’, so this isn’t the gotcha proving Western hypocrisy you think it is. And even if it were, the answer is to consistently oppose, not acquiesce, to imperialist aggression; many people are capable of opposing more than one thing.
You're being downvoted, I can understand why, but there's some truth that must be addressed before deeming your comment completely bogus.
Gerhard Schröder, former German chancellor, was a big advocate for the Nord Stream pipeline and then was appointed in the board of Gazprom, the sole (Russian) shareholder of the aforementioned stream.
Germany paid the highest price when Russian gas was cut off and the government, led by a coalition that includes the Green party (die Grüne), had to open new coal mines.
Something was obviously wrong in our (the EU) energy policies.
What is "wrong" about Germany buying cheap energy from a willing local producer, and profiting enormously from it?
In Washington's fever dream, where it is "right" that Germany should instead buy expensive energy that is shipped across the Atlantic and lose its industrial advantage as as result.
It is totally, comically absurd. Untethered from reality.
Because we now have 20/20 hindsight that Russia is an evil actor and would not reform. Therefore Germany should have spent the previous 10 years getting off Russian gas (leave nuclear power plants open is one obvious example)
If your geopolitical thesis includes the word "evil" you need to work harder on it. That word is meant for children's books. The real world is complex.
> Self-interest also implies that it works for Russia.
define "works".
there's a big divide in the World on this war, it could be considered a victory for Putin, he made friends fight over it, turned allies into adversaries and made enemies even more suspicious of each other. We are at a peak high level of conflict, like we haven't seen in decades.
EU has problems because of massive foreign influence (mainly Washington), not because individual participant states promote their own interests, as they should.
It's hard enough to maintain a federation of neighbor states. It's impossible to do that while also catering to the whims of a distant superpower.
Could be, not wanna open that discussion, but teaming with Putin (Gazprom equals Putin) it's not the smartest of moves, especially if you are a former influential European politician.
Let's put it this way: there were (are) plans on every desk of every Prime Minister or President in Europe that say "we could let Putin take Ukraine and avoid a conflict that could harm us all".
I fail to see what is wrong about maintaining the spirit of the Budapest Memorandum. Since the events of 2014, it can't be totally restored, but the spirit can be reimplemented (by Minsk, etc). It seems that many thoughtful EU statesmen, like Schröder, believe that.
> I fail to see what is wrong about maintaining the spirit of the Budapest Memorandum.
> It seems that many thoughtful EU statesmen, like Schröder, believe that
I believe one doesn't maintain the spirit of the Budapest memorandum by entering the board of directors of the largest Russian gas supplier and becoming director of the board of Rosneft, largest Russian oil producer, years after Russia invaded Crimea. Don't you think?
But I concede Schroeder that he might have truly believed that he could keep Russia from invading Ukraine. Nonetheless mixing politics and business was a bad mistake on his part.
