Quote (Ironfister @ Apr 26 2022 04:09pm)
Plan is simple:
Lng terminal imports 6,5bln.
Local magazines 3,2bln (these are nearly full now, and winter is over).
Self extraction is 4bln.
Baltic pipe 8bln.
We have a connection with a Lithuania terminal that can send us some gas (2bln). They are small countries so wont use all by themselves.
It adds to something like 20,5bln yearly "production" + full magazins ready.
Last year usage was 20bln yearly.
Basically the Baltic pipe + Lithuania line will replace Russia imports.
Poland electricity production is more about coal than gas, and we have our own coal.
What could possibly go wrong with a plan of falling back on other EU countries to pick up the slack when antagonizing the same source that supplies all those EU countries?
Poland has no more winter to survive this year, it was always going to be about next winter. And between now and then, with NATO on a war path with Russia, those international supply lines can't be considered reliable. Its not going to be just Poland shouldering a burden if Russia is weaponizing its control of gas exports. And imagine the sole LNG bottleneck at Swinoujscie getting hit by mysterious explosions like those affecting Russian industry right now. When Russia cuts off the gas, its going to be a scarce commodity across Europe from all its sources, be it Norwegian pipelines or American LNG, and every country is going to scrambling to keep their people warm in the winter. Pressure will be exerted on everyone. Maybe Scholz aka Nu-Merkel will take a sudden pivot to Germany First to ensure their share of gas. I'd get a kick out of it
Quote (thundercock @ Apr 26 2022 01:10pm)
No, targets inside the US would not be "legitimate" because we don't have troops in Yemen and we aren't in an active state of war. If Russia gave the Houthis state of the art technology and it was used to attack one of our ships, we would NOT go to war with Russia. We would go to war with the Houthis though!
No, I don't expect Putin to take assaults "sitting down." Every time Ukraine hits supply targets within Russia, I would expect Russia to hit corresponding targets in Ukraine. As for the bluster, Russia has been all over the place with its threats. They haven't followed through on most of them and we shouldn't expect them to.
Why would Putin make such arbitrary distinctions to restrain his response, when he's openly threatening this escalation right now in public?
Lavrov is out there saying NATO is in a de facto state of war with Russia.
Russia is directly calling out that western weapons are threatening mainland Russia. Whether we supply those weapons to proxies to commit the attacks on our behalf is an irrelevancy. That's a huge escalation over any prior cold war conflict, which both sides restrained to "our proxies fight your proxies", or at worst "our proxies kill your troops inside a proxy country" like afghanistan. There's every reason to think that Putin could retaliate against attacks on Russia with attacks on western targets. He's followed through on his most dangerous threats and we're in the middle of a bloody invasion, and his entire reign has been a series of tit-for-tat reprisals. At some point this isn't a matter of predicting what Putin will do, its the certainty of knowing what Putin will do.