Well, in theory, Indian steel producers could move some of their production to Russia to make use of cheap, idle energy. But then they would have to eat the additional cost of shipping the steel/aluminium back to where it's actually used. No idea if the difference in energy prices between Russia and India would be big enough to cover these extra expenses. And it of course hinges on the Arctic Sea being reliably open for huge cargo ships.

The Gulf countries have the advantage of being much closer to the South and East Asian markets.

Germans got rejected because Qatar doesn’t want to invest billions into production facilities for Germany that might get cold feet with the next green government and cut use of fossil fuels. They therefore demand long term contracts to ensure they can pay back the investment to increase capacity of their exports.

Long term contracts was the cornerstone of a trade war between Gazprom and EU few decades ago as EU didn’t want to sign any and Gazprom wasn’t happy with “spot purchases” as they have to keep huge infrastructure alive.

Now Germany cut Russians away and are starting this whole “long term contract” thing again with Qatar, only this time also antagonizing Qatari pet project HAMAS with their support of Israel, while desperately trying keep general public calm despite collapsing Energiewende policies.

You can demand higher prices per cubic meter on LNG deals, but the trade volume possible via LNG is so much lower that it can't compensate the lost revenue from pipelines.

Modern research suggest that planet will start cooling down around 2031-2040 based on Milankovitch cycles with a local Maunder Minimum (Dagsvik, Moen, ssb.no article from October 2023 throws a massive shade over modern climate alarmist) - meaning that window for the Arctic route is open only for about two decades at the most.

Ideally Russia would want to capture whole supply chain - machinery, tools, cars, airplanes - not only intermediate products like aluminium so that cost of logistics and reshoring makes commercial sense.

That would only be the propaganda spin of the Europe's ruling Leftwing-fascist regimes.

In reality, if the conflict would end with a peace treaty enshrining roughly the current lines, in their allies minds & in their peoples hearts, Russia would clearly be viewed as the victor that has withstood the combined NATO coalition's will under unprecedented sanctions.

Expectations around the world, including among Russia's allies and among their own domestic population, were that Ukraine stood no chance and would get steamrolled. That didn't happen. Then the expectation was that Russia would eventually grind out a win, which also didn't happen. Since June 2022, Russia has taken a grand total of ONE larger city (Bakhmut) - after months-long battles and a huge death toll, and only after razing it to the absolute ground.

Also note that NATO was rather weak-willed, they didn't come anywhere close to going all out. Ukraine got no jets, barely any cruise missiles, barely any battle tanks and only limited amounts of artillery.

West's expectations were that "gas station with nukes" would collapse under their combined pressure. Now any other outcome except that one, is a win for Russia, and that's their own fault.

Zaluzhny admits counteroffensive was a massive failure and he fucked up.

Begs for more weapons from the west to keep murdering people.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2023/11/01/ukraines-top-general-on-the-breakthrough-he-needs-to-beat-russia

To keep murdering people?

Craziest framing yet.

Incredible watching people scrambling to explain how a complete military disaster was actually win for Russia. Mental.

This post was edited by Prox1m1ty on Nov 2 2023 06:58am

Are we so sure? It's looking increasingly likely that Russia was correct to believe they would win a long war, that Ukraine will collapse at some point, and that Russia will achieve it's own maximalist aims.