What the hell are you talking about? It is Europe which introduced the anti-Russian sanctions that led to their internal energy crisis.

They shot themselves in their own femoral artery and you people STILL blame Russia for it. It's amazing. The Eurolemmings are getting precisely what they deserve.

And the hypocrisy is out of this world. Did Europe scream bloody murder when the US bombed Iraq based on the WMD lie, invaded Afghanistan based on the lie they wanted to find Osama, or when they massacred thousands in Libya based on some lie about Gaddhafi?

No, they didn't. And now they are destroying their own economies because of Russia doing something that they themselves have done on countless occasions. How fucking pathetic is that?

Oh and by the way, the "green energy" movement is 100% incapable of fulfilling the needs of the people. Europe needs Russian oil and gas, there is no viable replacement that is not 10-100x more expensive and thus will completely destroy all European industry and small businesses.

Europe is headed back to the dark ages, and I mean that literally. And they ultimately have only themselves to blame.

ssssh orc
no one cares what you think or say, that's why they pay you so little and the propaganda you spew is so bad

Sure, but Russia's market share in Europe's energy sector will plummet immediately. I mean, if there is an end to the war in Ukraine, or perhaps even just a lasting ceasefire, I assume that Europe and Russia will eventually start trading energy again. It's just too beneficial for both sides. But Russia will clearly not get back to the market share they had before the war; Europe will never ever allow itself to become that reliant on Russian gas and oil again.

Hence, if preserving its market share in Europe was Russia's primary goal in this conflict, their actions have directly contradicted and undermined it.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 25 2022 06:06pm

ssssh brainwashed buffoon
no one cares what you think or say, that's why you aren't even paid anything at all to spread propaganda, you do it voluntarily out of your own hilarious stupidity

Solid reasoning, there are some variables though.

Consider if Ukraine was able to freely develop the Donbass gas field. There is already a former soviet pipeline directly into Europe. So at best Ukraine could compete with Russia on the price of gas. At worst it could usurp a large percentage of the supply of gas.
Both scenarios threaten Russia's monopoly on selling gas to Europe, which is paramount to sustaining Putin regime.
By invading they are denying Ukraine ability to develop those gas fields. Directly by controlling them, and also by proxy making it impossible/impractical for companies to invest.
Its inevitable that the EU will continue to buy gas from Russia, most likely for next winter. As reserves probably won't even last this winter without rationing/ shutdowns.
The question would be which scenario would lead to a lesser market share for Russia. Sit back and allow Ukraine to compete. Or go in and remain essentially the sole supplier of gas to the EU.

Obviously there are other motivating factors. We are hearing from Putin it was denazification.
Its more likely to avoid Russia being surrounded by democracies and NATO aligned nations. After all Russia is an autocracy and seeking to be the leader of the anti-nato eurasian axis.
Also Russia's need for a warm water port to project naval surface power all year round.
They have a legitimate concern over protecting their border. Ukraine has also essentially been a proxy battleground for the best part of a decade. Having that ongoing on its southern border is a security risk for Russia. Albeit they encouraged separatists all along in eastern Ukraine. However a full invasion of Ukraine is ultimately doomed to fail.

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Sep 25 2022 06:57pm

The bolded is not true. Russia didn't have anywhere close to a 100% market share on the European gas market before the war. Europe has always been receiving gas from places like Norway, the Netherlands or other fields in the North Sea... and more recently from Azerbaijan via Turkey. Before the war, Germany and Italy, which had among the highest dependency on Russian gas, got around 55% of their consumption from Russia. Buying more LNG from the US, Canada or Qatar was always an option as well. And again: due to efforts to cut down on carbon emissions, the European gas and oil market was bound to shrink in the coming years anyway. All in all, I doubt that the amount of Russian market share that Ukraine threatened to usurp would justify the kinds of expenditures and risks that Russia took to conduct this war. It might have been one factor which brought Putin closer to pulling the trigger, but I'm not convinced that it was the biggest, let alone the sole, factor.



Russia needs a warm water port, but more for economic reasons than to project naval power. In case of a war, NATO members Turkey and Greece can very easily and effectively shut off the Russian Black Sea fleet from access to the global oceans. I don't think holding Sevastopol was necessary for Russia's ability to project military power in the Caucasus region (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan).

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 25 2022 07:39pm

I think your underestimating the reliance on Russia for natural gas.

Russia has about 25% of proven gas reserves
Norway has 1%
https://www.worldometers.info/gas/gas-reserves-by-country/

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-2c.html

About 75% of crude oil imports come from Russia

Also consider delivery of imports. Most pipelines come from Russia. There are north sea pipelines but that sector is not producing anything close to enough to satisfy demand.

Other than that it is LNG which is less efficient and more expensive. Not to mention they are still rushing to build enough LNG terminals in western Europe

With Italy electing a coalition government, parts of which have gone on record saying they don't want Italians to pay more for energy, in order to boycott Russia.
That could erode EU solidarity on sanctions against Russia.
Insane amounts of money spent on fossil fuel from Russia.
Those are amounts spent for a single year.
https://beyond-coal.eu/russian-fossil-fuel-tracker/

"In 2020, Ukraine transited more natural gas than any other country in the world[15] and it remains the main transit route for Russian natural gas sold to Europe"

If you were the president of a corporation of oligarchs, who's existence depended on its monopoly in its supply of fossil fuels.

Any existential threat to that monopoly would be deemed unacceptable.

Well, in theory, we want to transition out of natural gas and oil anyway. Also, other suppliers exist as well. So the argument is not so much that Russian gas is irreplaceable, the argument is rather that all the other options are significantly more expensive. If Europe eschewed Russian gas entirely in the future, it would come with a significant cost and permanently reduce the competitiveness of our industry.


Why don't you even read your own source? You've badly misquoted what the article actually says: in 2020, Russia accounted for 29% of the extra-EU imports of crude oil and 43% of the extra-EU imports of natural gas. Per the article, the EU also produces 42% of its energy needs by itself, these extra-EU imports account for 58%. Hence, a rough estimation is that in 2020, Russia accounted for about 16.8% of the EU's oil demand and about 24.9% of its demand for natural gas.



The Nord Stream 2 pipeline was completed in late 2021 and would have been able to replace a significant share of the gas transit through Ukraine. It eliminted the threat of Ukraine blocking the transit and blackmailing Russia and/or Europe, so this hypothetical threat cannot have been the reason for the Russian invasion.

Also note that Russia had deliberately let those gas storages in Western Europe that it owned run low throughout 2021 and did not refill them at the usual pace, so that we went into the 21/22 winter with unusually low storages. (Thanks again to the braindead previous German government who sold the storages to Gazprom, roflmao ) This strongly hints at Russia having prepared this invasion since at the very least the second quarter of 2021, implying that the decision to invade Ukraine was already made by then and that any developments since that point were not the proximate cause for this war.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 25 2022 09:57pm