Europe is very much dependent on imports, but Russian imports are only a percentage of their overall imports. So even if they cannot survive without any energy or commodity imports, this does not automatically imply that they can't survive without Russian imports. See here:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/infographs/energy/bloc-2c.html

tldr: before the war, imports of Russian oil/natural gas respectively covered roughly 17/25% of Europe's consumption. That's a lot, but not insurmountable in the medium term, even if it's difficult in the short term.


On the flip side, yes, Russian people will neither freeze nor starve to death, but there is more to life than that. Having the same extremely basic living standard as their grandparents might work for the poor Russian peasants living in the rural and remote parts of the country who don't know or expect any better, but will it work for the more privileged Russians from the country's heartland between St. Petersburg and Wolgograd? There's a reason Putin shied away from calling a draft for so many months although the "special operation's" lack of manpower was apparent since March, and then still went for a partial mobilization instead of the full one the hawks had been pushing for.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 28 2022 10:12pm

Thanks for responding.

It takes 3-5 years to build LNG terminals and liquefaction plants, historically. Power Of Siberia 2 is going to be completed in 2025 - same timeframe. (Russia would be fine even if that wasn't the case, since the country is probably the closest thing to an autarky that exists right now - that is, a state that has almost complete self sufficiency in food, energy, resources and technological capacity.) However, this isn't a wash. Japan also depends on LNG, and will be competing for limited supply on the open market against the EU. We've already seen governors in northern states in the US writing letters to Biden saying that US LNG needs to be preserved for domestic use to avoid energy crunches domestically: https://www.cato.org/blog/new-england-governors-seek-jones-act-relief-spike-winter-heating-bills-looms. This coincides with multiple US initiatives to woo European manufacturers to the US: https://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/it-internet/wirtschaftspolitik-immer-mehr-deutsche-unternehmen-bauen-ihre-standorte-in-den-usa-aus-/28697464.html. Recently, Scholz went to Abu Dhabi to try to find new LNG sources, the result is a promise of a single tanker, a measly 137,000 cubic meters: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-25/germany-nabs-uae-gas-deal-as-energy-squeeze-tightens. Russia is "likely to propose a 1 million bpd cut to OPEC+ production (https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-seen-suggesting-opec-cuts-oil-output-by-1-mln-bpd-source-2022-09-27/) and chances are that this will be approved, given recent cuts to OPEC+ production just 3 weeks ago: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/9/5/oil-prices-jump-as-opec-agrees-to-small-output-cut And, of course, the US just bombed two pipelines that could overnight have solved this issue.

What your argument here relies on is that the EU has allies in this struggle to replace their energy sources, when they emphatically do not. Rather than allies, what Europe is damned with is possibly the worst thing you can have - an enemy masquerading as an ally while acting behind the scenes to dominate and subjugate you. In the very best scenario, which we know from the American attack on NS1+2 isn't the case, is that the EU will be forced to compete with other economies around the world for limited LNG resources. The EU doesn't have years to solve this problem. Already, many steel factories, for example, have shut down all or some of their blast furnaces. Non-ferrous metal production has been hammered. Car makers, already struggling due largely to the chip sanctions shenanigans the US is trying to pull off against China, are now screaming about how they may be forced out of Europe.


Maybe, but I have doubts as this drags on, especially in light of America very obviously bombing jointly owned EU infrastructure and the EU meekly turning it's cheek. America doesn't seek to have a situation where tensions subside over time, it's been pursuing maximalist goals against it's perceived enemies.

Consider Venezuela. Under sanctions for decades now. America still recognizes a moronic failson who never held significant office as the president of that country, and has been using that recognition to allow Guaido to stand in American courts as a representative for Venezuela, where he offers no defense to cases brought against Venezuela and signs off on billions of dollars in court-awarded damages. I was getting my first pussy when Bush was trying to coup Chavez for the first time, and here we are 20 years later and it's non-stop. Even now, as the US has approached Maduro seeking oil price relief, they still refuse to un-recognize Guaido.

Or China. The US has made un-retractable claims against China. Claims of genocide, the first genocide in history without a single identifiable victim, but genocide nonetheless. Signed off on by the State Department under both Trump (Pompeo in his last days as he walked out the door) and now Biden (with that dead-eyed rat looking mfer Blinken). There's no going back from that, the US knows it and China knows it. Under what circumstances would the US ever drop Xinjiang related sanctions on anything from cotton and tomatoes to advanced polysilicon products?

Or Iran. Barely needs elaboration, even when the JCPOA was signed the US wasn't in compliance with it for even a single second and even tightened sanctions against that country.

Sanctions on Russia will not ever be loosened. Not by America, and therefore not by the EU.

- Germany is currently setting up LNG terminals within ~8 months.
- Power of Siberia 2 doesn't come anywhere close to the capacity that Russia's pipelines to Europe had, so even if it's completed by 2025, it will not be able to compensate the loss of the European market.
- Iran, Cuba and Venezuela were all small-ish countries (GDP-wise) in far-away places; keeping the sanctions against them up barely hurt us. The economic benefit from trade with Russia is far greater, so I really doubt that Europe will keep them a pariah forever once there's no more war. This might be a foreign concept to you, but unlike Russia's satellites, America's allies have a wide-ranging degree of autonomy.
- Boo hoo, it's the evil Americans who are trying to subjugate Europe, totally not the Russians whose soldiers and tanks are literally attacking and occupying a neighbor and whose media is overtly talking about either subjugating or nuking Western Europe.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 28 2022 10:38pm

- Cool, you can receive LNG that the world doesn't produce and export enough of. Certainly not in 8 months. Not in 28.
- PS2 is 55b m3 a year, NS1 was 60b as you said. Russia also has other pipelines in the East, and is building liquefaction plants.
- And Russia is a commensurately greater threat to American dominance of Europe than Cuba, Vzla and Iran are. The penalties for deviance will be higher. You have autonomy? No, you have performative autonomy. America worked behind the scenes with Australia to scuttle a 70 billion dollar French submarine deal, and what happened? France recalled some ambassadors and nothing else. Then they went back once Macron had done his little chest-puffed mating dance for French voters and now we're back to square one. Ditto for destroying Alstom, for tapping phones, for flooding Europe with millions of refugees, for getting caught on a phone call saying "fuck the EU" while they started a war in Ukraine. European autonomy is theatrical.
- The US bombed pipelines that could have saved European industry. I know you're one of the ones here grasping at every straw to obfuscate that, but I reckon you must at least suspect it's true.

And no, Putin is not talking about using nukes in Ukraine. Read what he actually said in that address, it's on the official transcripts page of the Kremlin website.

This post was edited by kusotarre1 on Sep 28 2022 11:18pm

Its clearly a veiled threat.

Lol. So now when you're not busy digesting the most absurdly stupid of propaganda and then regurgitating it now you're a master psychologist who can read between the lines of a Putin speech. LOLOL

I do not agree. It's a statement that the US needs to take Russia's nuclear doctrine seriously, and give up the fiction that the US can use a nuclear weapon against Russia and not face a nuclear retaliation.

And of course, threatening to respond to Western nuclear attacks with a nuclear retaliation means, in the Western media, that Russia is threatening the West with nuclear war. likes to play little games making long grasps at 'Freudian slips', you'd think he would have picked up on this one where Western media basically says that it's not really a war if it's not killing Euros and Anglos.

So.. Not a nuclear threat? but a "strong suggestion?? to take their doctrine seriously?

Creating a market for electricity was quite a dumb move in the first place.
I wouldnt want to be german right now. No gas, no nuclear central. wtf is happening to germany rofl



Keep replying to this guy and you will go insane in no time. He likes to write long essays that worth nothing because he is in denial. dont waste time bro

This post was edited by Melatonina on Sep 29 2022 12:13am

Ain't you the mongo that swallowed putins bullshit at the beginning of all this and said he wouldn't invade Ukraine?