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European natural gas imports and storage reserves

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Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#201

Post by jopsen »

red_trumpet wrote: post #69
roenxi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future will show large nuclear arsenals are the worst policy. It is not the 1930s and Russia is not Germany. The borders of the USSR have retreated over most of our lifetime, Moscow controlled all of Ukraine as recently as 1990 and gave it up more-or-less voluntarily. If the US can invade the middle east and not be called an authoritarian regime, I don't think we need to draw a red line at the Ukraine border agai…

> If the US can invade the middle east and not be called an authoritarian regime... First, I wouldn't call this authoritarian[1] but imperialistic[2]. But semantics aside, I don't really get that line of argument. Do you think the US invading parts of the middle east was justified? If you do not, how can this comparison be used to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine? I do condemn both invasions! [1] https://en.wikip…

> I do condemn both invasions!

So does many Americans politicians. Indeed a vocal minority opposed the US invasion at the time (they weren't prosecuted).

IMO, the way the US negotiates and works with allies makes these wars incomparable.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#202

Post by jcfrei »

lumost wrote: post #195
cycomanic wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The German situation was even worse then you describe. They decided to move out of coal and nuclear, but at the same time made windpower significantly more difficult and reduced investment into solar. If you look at the installed windturbines ( https://www.wind-energie.de/english/statistics/statistics-ge... ) you can see an initial boom around 2000 and a large reduction after 2004 similarly things picked up again in…

This really begs the question on whether there was some outside influence on german energy decisions. It's not a given that Russia hasn't been using non-standard negotiation methods for making Germany more dependent on Russian gas by drumming up fear on everything else.

After his term as German chancellor was up (1998-2005), Gerhard Schröder became chairman of several gas companies that were (majority) owned by the Russian state (Nord Stream AG, Rosneft, Gazprom). There was nothing covert about the Kremlin courting Germany with its cheap gas - it was plain to see.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#203

Post by jopsen »

jltsiren wrote: post #148
phicoh wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As we can clearly see now, NATO does not need nuclear deterrence again Russia's conventional weapons. What protects, for example, the Baltic countries is not the threat that the US might take initiative to drop a nuclear bomb on Russia, no it is the vast conventional capabilities of the US. Just supplying a relatively small amount of weapons to Ukraine is enough to destroy most of the Russian army.

Based on Russian performance at the start of the invasion, a similar force would have overrun the Baltic states. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are small and geographically isolated. They are surrounded by Russia, Belarus, and the Baltic Sea. Any attempt to support and supply them would have to go through the small gap between Kaliningrad and Belarus, or over the Baltic Sea, which would be heavily contested. The geog…

Wouldn't any Russian force driving around in the Baltic states be easy targets for NATO cruise missiles and air power?

None of which NATO countries has offered to use in Ukraine.

I think logistics by railway would be problematic if NATO allies launched a few thousand cruise missiles.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#204

Post by bitL »

yabqk wrote: post #150
i_no_can_eat wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very ridiculous thing to say.

It’s hyperbolic, but yes, Ukraine is much more similar to Russia than to Western Europe.

Technically, the last traces of what is known as Western Europe (i.e. catholic/protestant culture/architecture) end somewhere in the western Ukraine. Orthodoxy/Byzantium culture then starts in the eastern Ukraine.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#205

Post by jopsen »

nradov wrote: post #88
roenxi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future will show large nuclear arsenals are the worst policy. It is not the 1930s and Russia is not Germany. The borders of the USSR have retreated over most of our lifetime, Moscow controlled all of Ukraine as recently as 1990 and gave it up more-or-less voluntarily. If the US can invade the middle east and not be called an authoritarian regime, I don't think we need to draw a red line at the Ukraine border agai…

Who is the "we" that should be negotiating? The US, EU, and NATO aren't parties to the conflict. Russia and Ukraine are free to negotiate at any time, and in fact have already held talks at several points during the conflict. I assume thought, that you favor some sort of negotiated settlement. How much territory should Ukraine cede to Russia in exchange for peace? And what would prevent Russia from coming back and ta…

It's also hard to negotiate when Russia said there'd be no invasion, like the day before they crossed the border.

What credibility is left?

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#206

Post by js8 »

stoltzmann wrote: post #171
js8 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Getting rid of nuclear weapons is impossible. I disagree. Progress is being made (see ICANW), despite setbacks, some unfortunately coming from "the West", which is supposed to be morally more advanced. And NATO doesn't need to keep parity with Russia, what for? I also consider nuclear retaliation strike to be morally dubious. What's the point?

NATO does have to at least keep parity with Russia. Russia is the number one threat in the region, and NATO was made specifically for this purpose. Without adequate weapons to ensure peace, there would be no point of the alliance. Nuclear weapons are necessary as a deterrent. In this case from an adversary that has nuclear weapons - without those in stock NATO would be outmatched and vulnerable to being subject to th…

I do not agree with your cynicism. You just made an opposite argument - that NATO doesn't really need nuclear weapons to defend against Russia.

I think, if NATO countries (and the U.S.) wanted to, they could make lot more effort to denuclearize. I don't think NATO can institutionally do it, though (it wasn't designed for it). For example, they could propose more aggressive mutual disarmament treaties, that would decrease arsenal in certain proportions on a timeline, with inspections. They don't do that, so I conclude that they don't really want to.

As for the peace - plenty of countries in Europe that are not involved in nuclear weapons and yet enjoy peace. As you said - nuclear countries bully the non-nuclear ones around, therefore, effort should be made to get rid of them completely.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#207

Post by dnh44 »

distances wrote: post #114
dnh44 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not think that the US has a huge sphere of influence? It seems to me that the US can and does take any action it wishes to outside its borders. Sometimes those actions have a good moral justification and sometimes they don’t. >US and Russia simply can not agree between themselves what should be Ukraine's place in the world. I’ll argue the opposite. The Ukraine has no inherent right to join NATO. Ukraine isn’t…

> The Ukraine has no inherent right to join NATO. This is not what is argued. I agree with you, it's of course up to NATO and EU to decide who they accept as members, and they may include Russian interests in the decision if they want. Point is that Russia has no say over Ukraine's ambitions. The war started because Ukraine wanted away from Russia and moved towards Western values. This is unquestionably Ukraine's rig…

Sorry, it seems I misinterpreted your comment.

>Point is that Russia has no say over Ukraine's ambitions...That Russia must simply accept and move on.

Well, that's the crux of the matter isn't it. They've not accepted it and haven't moved on and unless/until they are expelled from Ukraine they have a rather large amount of influence over what happens there.

It's interesting to watch that's for sure. One way or another the world is going to look different when this is over.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#208

Post by bhaak »

tablespoon wrote: post #119
bhaak wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What diplomatic off ramp does Russia need? There is a simple first step towards redemption and that is get out of Ukraine right now. Better yesterday. Western Europe just learned a painful lesson that you can't trust Russia. Eastern Europe tried to hammer that point into the brains of the other European politicians but it didn't work until now.

> What diplomatic off ramp does Russia need? One that saves face, to at least some degree. > There is a simple first step towards redemption and that is get out of Ukraine right now. Better yesterday. Simple for you, because you're not the one losing face For example, here's another "simple first step" for Europe "towards redemption" (in the eyes of the Russians): withdraw all military and financial support for Ukrai…

They've made a bad mistake and if they were the men they've were portraying themselves to be, they would own up on their mistakes.

Only cowards need to save face.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#209

Post by nosianu »

nikolay wrote: post #122
iSnow wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's wrong with stop-gap measures to prevent an energy crisis?

As we can see, sanctions and arm-twisting are not stopping the war, not weakening Russia. Not even politically given the recent elections in Russia! Even Ukraine keeps buying Russian gas and I can't recall any comment from otherwise very vocal Zenesky about it! If there are supply issues, is due to all the nonsense coming from EU, which only hurts it, not Russia. Even if EU deversifies from Russia, it will be at a de…

Yesterday's headline:

"Russia’s budget surplus evaporates as energy revenues shrink"

https://www.ft.com/content/d9cdc51f-5fe3-4f4a-b0e8-054ef21a2...

> Russia’s budget surplus for 2022 has almost evaporated after a sharp drop in energy exports during August led to a monthly deficit of as much as Rbs360bn ($5.9bn).

Russia is increasingly cutting itself now too:

> Revenues look set to worsen following Russia’s suspension of Nord Stream 1, one of its main gas pipelines to Europe, in early September.

> Russia’s economy shrunk 4.3 per cent in July 2022 compared with the same month a year earlier, according to the country’s economy ministry. Analysts at Aton, a Russian brokerage, expect the economy to contract by a further 5 per cent in 2023 because of falling energy output.

Re: European natural gas imports and storage reserves

#210

Post by wbsss4412 »

anticodon wrote: post #200
wbsss4412 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It wasn't a revolution - it was a coup funded and organized by the EU and USA. I don’t doubt that there was western involvement, just as there was certainly Russian involvement supporting prior administrations. While it can be difficult to discern the true desires of Ukrainians given outside involvement, its very easy to say that the current government in Ukraine is much more democratic than plenty of US Allies in…

> its very easy to say that the current government in Ukraine is much more democratic than plenty of US Allies in other parts of the world, eg the Middle East. What makes you think so? What was/is democratic about Ukraine? How Zelensky, for example, crushed all the opposition parties and media, and even arrested some of his opponents after he came to power? Do you know about that? BTW, here's the video of him before…

> How Zelensky, for example, crushed all the opposition parties and media, and even arrested some of his opponents after he came to power? Do you know about that?

This has been covered in Western press:

https://m.dw.com/en/ukraine-zelenskiy-bans-three-opposition-...

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/former-ukraine-presiden...

However, I haven’t seen any thing that says _all_ opposition has been banned, do you have proof of this?

> Would you be able to understand without translation? Who would translate it to you?

I’d rather you post something than just make blanket statements with no basis. Unfortunately I can’t understand Russian/Ukrainian, but then again anything translated into English would be from western sources anyways.

> I'm pretty sure it won't exist for long on YouTube, and it won't be ever translated to English

Everything you posted has been up for years.

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