Quote (Black XistenZ @ Feb 6 2024 09:57pm)
Dude, it was Russia which started throttling gas supplies since 2021, it was Russia which voluntarily shut down NS1 in the summer of 2022 while Germany (and other European countries) were still willing trade this particular commodity with them. If trade is so mutually beneficial and should be continued even in times of war or political tensions (like you suggest Germany should have done), then why did Russia hurt itself by voluntarily shutting down the gas trade?
@Bolded In the summer of 2022 the West was waging a full blown economic war against Russia hitting them with round after round of sanctions using whatever they could from cutting Russia from SWIFT to stealing their assets. All trade was sanctioned except energy because the West still needed that. Russia hit back shutting down NS pipelines, the West cried that Putin was weaponizing energy well WTF did they expect.
BTW you didn't see this coming, you were talking about the massive revenues Russia would lose if they did that, posting fancy graphs and what not.
Quote (Black XistenZ @ Feb 6 2024 09:57pm)
Schröder was best buddies with Putin since they first met, he signed the NS1 contract shortly before leaving office in 2005, then became a board member of Russian gas companies mere months later and spent the next 15 years working as a lobbyist for Gazprom et al in Brussels. So he was a great friend of Putin all the way, did Putin's bidding after leaving office, his policy decisions while in office were also in Putin's interest, yet we're supposed to believe that these policy decisions were all the result of a totally neutral, sober, non-compromised thought process? Come on, man! Schröder a corrupt figure, I mean, at one point, he even called Putin a "flawless/immaculate democrat". He's disgraced for good reason.
Germany should be thankful for men like Schroder or Kohl those were men who understood that it's better to have good relations with a country like Russia contrary to that progressive trash that's turning everything they touch into a complete shit show.