- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
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Maybe it’s time for some more Ukrainian sanctions on Russian exports?
Imagine how fast Russia would surrender, if the EU could just stop buying their fucking oil and gas for a minute?
The EU from April banned Russian LNG imports under short-term contracts, but imports under long-term contracts can continue until January 1, 2027.
Let’s see
It’s really interesting that all the official declarations coming out of the EU about this…going all the way back to the beginning of the war…have all stated that they are phasing out or cancelling their dependency on Russian oil. But then, six months later, all the independent reports seem to indicate the exact opposite is actually happening.
It’s a broken record, just repeating the same line over and over, but never actually getting past that point.
You understand the EU is a humongous entity with a load of moving parts and actually a democracy without a dictator Donny? It takes time to coordinate you know?
Wanna do something? Join solar punk, get a few panels and some storage. Buy and electric bike, reduce power usage. Plant a few trees Every bit helps.
This isn’t a matter of “getting all the parts moving”…it’s a matter of even starting to move in the direction they say they are.
It’s like watching an alcoholic saying they’re going to quit this time, for real…and then watching them drink even more the next day.
You know your example works very well. An alcoholic will die if he quits cold turkey is he is really addicted. The EU member states are quite addicted to Russian energy and finding alternatives will take some pain. Its a multi step process like quitting addiction is.
You understand the EU is a humongous entity
Unless it is about chat control, then they quickly find solutions.
According to fightchatcontrol.eu they first proposed chat control in 2022.
It was temporary, and they quickly found a solution to continue it. That mental agility could be applied to energy supplies, too.
https://feddit.org/post/32613173
EU parliament lets Meta and Google keep scanning users’ messages, in a win for ‘Chat Control’ backers. What it means – and why it matters
That has been backdoored, which happens in the US daily. Its angering a lot of people and I hope it won’t stand. This has some Donny qualities and the responsible CSU politician will hopefully get a beating for that.
Imagine how fast Russia would surrender, if the EU could just stop buying their fucking oil and gas for a minute?
China has said that they cannot allow Russia to lose. It could be for a reason:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History
China had a trillion trade surplus. They can finance Russia longer than the EU can finance Ukraine.
Would Russia accept that, though? China would literally own them.
Besides, China doesn’t have the capacity to process or even store that much oil and gas. As much as they’re buying right now, they would have to double it to cover the loss of the EU market…and they are nowhere near capable of accepting that much. Long before they managed to scale up their capacity to meet that supply, Russia would either have to withdraw from Ukraine or go bankrupt.
Would Russia accept that, though? China would literally own them.
That’s imperialist thinking. We ascribe it to Russia, but let’s not forget that Putin was KGB. They could do a communist revival, this time with China as the more powerful partner.
But:
Besides, China doesn’t have the capacity to process or even store that much oil and gas.
China doesn’t have to buy gas. They can finance Russia directly. If Russia is beaten and shifts to the West, China has a serious security problem. So maybe China just hands over money.
That’s a lot of very bad economics you’re talking about. Right now, Russia has been dumping money into a deepening hole, and getting nothing back…and their economy is starting to collapse.
What you’re suggesting is that China starts dumping money into that exact same hole, and getting the exact same nothing back. China will soon find its own economy in the same situation that Russia is in. Backing Russia unconditionally like that, will eventually become an anchor dragging them down. It is not sustainable, even for a country like China.
The West is equally dumping money. Whoever wins will control Asia and its resources, according to the above linked strategy.
That’s true. The difference is, the West is also making money from it.
In which way? Right now money is shifted from the EU to the US and Ukraine is accumulating dept. The West, in total, doesn’t make money, only the weapon manufacturers
Last month the EU made up 11% of Russia fossil fuel purchases. The honest answer is that Russia is not going to surrender, if those purchases stop.
Except, they’re already hemorrhaging funds right now. The entire economy is already running on debt, and now their oil and gas production has been almost cut in half. Losing another 11% would be devastating.
But, I agree they are not going to surrender. Putin will drive the country into bankruptcy before he admits defeat. The same stubborn pride led to the fall of the Soviet Union. Then it was Afghanistan, and this time Ukraine.
https://www.russiafossiltracker.com/
That are Russian oil exports. So the volume has not changed much over the years and production certainly has not halved. They just get paid less for the oil. However as you can clearly see a 11% drop in sales to the EU, would probably just be replaced by some other customer. They pay less, but Russia will not have a 11% drop in fossil fuel profits.
This is not to say sanctions do not work. However right now, the key is keeping up sanctions and supporting Ukraines long range drone campaign. Not getting spare parts for refineries makes those much more effective.
The Ukraine war would have played our diffetently had Europe reduced its reliance on fossiel fuels decades ago. The continent is paying for its short-sightedness.
Why would Russia react differently knowing that the majority of Europeans are brain-washed idiots easily manipulated by bots.
Russia sells <10% of their (already deminished, too) exports to Europe, yet an idiotic article without any actual references makes you believe that Europe is failing and has to be blamed. Sanctions totally demolished Russian imports, yet for years we get articles hallucinating how the import increases in neighbouring countries obviously circumvent those sanctions - even when in reality those increases make up less than 1% in total of what Russia lost, so the actual story should have been that they are 99%+ effective.
It’s always the same pattern: “Look, big number! Be angry!! Europe bad!!!” And it works -as can be seen by all the comments here- every single time. Or did you actually stop one second to check those numbers in relation to former imports? Or in relation to Russia’s output? Or did you even notice that the article very much avoids to give any reference for their numbers in the first place?
Being obviously unable to annex Ukraine, not even in the planned few days but at all, did not stop them from continuing. But losing about 5% of their already failing economy that is now basically tailored to producing weapons for the war exclusively would totally have made them stop. Sure…
You seem to be putting words in my mouth, ie I don’t think sanctions failed, so I’m going to ignore the conclusions you make from that.
A breakdown of my comment :
The war would have played differently if dedaces ago, ie BEFORE the start of the war, european countries had reduced their reliance on fossiel fuel.
In 2020, the EU was Russia’s biggest trading partners, and fossil fuels were a large chunk of EU import. It took years of sanctions, of setting up alternative energy import deals, and of electrification efforts, to get a points where Russia-EU trades are a small parts of today’s total trades.
During those 4 years, Ukraine severely suffered from Russian’s invasion, and Russia was cashing in on energy export to the EU. Less export and less revenue from exports would have it more difficult for Russia to finance war, and easier for the EU to quickly sanctions Russia.
So yes, the EU’s energy policy was bad for some time, because of its members’ reliance on fossil fuel, and overreliance on Russia as energy provider. It’s definitely improving, better late than never. It’s clearly not as simple as “EU bad”, the union is doing a great deal to sanction Russia and support Ukraine.
On the one hand I hope for a smoking accident. On the other it could upset a lot of people in Europe.
On second thought: Let’s go with the smoking accident.
