I still dont understand why Russia started all of this, why drag Europe into another world war scenario for a few villages? They could have played as kingmaker in the china/USA fight and become as rich as Norway if they had decent leadership. Now everything is ruined for a few villages on the border, nordstream and hundreds of thousands of dead young men and women
> I still dont understand why Russia started all of this, why drag Europe into another world war scenario for a few villages?
Russia's capture of the Crimea ~10 years ago went exceptionally well for them.
Russian special forces struck an essentially unprepared country, got control of a number of cities and key chokepoints, and forced the parliament at gunpoint to vote in favour of annexation, and ran a sketchy referendum with 97% support for annexation - all essentially before organisations like the EU even realised what was going on.
Then, presented with a fait accompli, other european nations could either start a war with Russia or not, and they chose not to.
Presumably Putin thought capturing the rest of Ukraine would go just as easily.
I agree that they were in a stronger political position before the war. Even if they win they probably lose, just by having exposed so much about their military strength, way of operating, internal politics etc. I would say they've ceded global influence to China.
I don't see any of the comments discussing the reason I think they felt the need to do this, even though my opinion is not unique it does seem minority. It was only partially about NATO expansion into Ukraine, and not the defence side of that, it was more about EU membership, and it was even more about Ukrainian politics and society. Ukraine has slowly been moving from a corrupt Russian like state to more resemble an eastern European EU member. Long way to go but the direction was clear from 2014 when Russia first rumbled, and it has accelerated since.
With that in mind, Ukraine presents a clear threat to Putin's regime. The potential of Russians seeing the country next door, of similar people with shared heritage and lots of social cross over, transition to a less corrupt, more democratic, western influenced nation. And if Ukraine had managed to join the EU there would have been a flood of investment, which while bringing its own problems I'm sure, would have improved the lives of Ukrainians. A demonstration of "throw out your corrupt leaders and see what you can have".
So the war is to nullify that, and even if it did not pan out in the way Putin had hoped, it's still succeeded in pushing away that particular threat. Even if the west now gives proper support to Ukraine defence, and follows it up with a rebuild, the war has split Ukrainian and Russian social linkage.
A bloody eighty-year+ history of using Ukrainian nationalism against the Soviet Union/Russia and yet people waffle about “freedom”, “democracy”—the works.
I still dont understand
Step 1: Don’t get high on your own supply. Anyone’s supply.
Ukraine would of course be toast without arms and intelligence from the West, but neither have any interest in starting or perpetuating the war.
I’m just here to correct people who are wrong.
Z-enjoyers like to quip that the only true friend the Ukrainian people have is Putin’s soft heart. The good news for everyone but Putin is that the West has enough to send to give Ukropia the 1945 ending, fulfilling the self-fulfilling prophecy. Nothing I can do to change that.
Russia's folly is convenient for the West though.
I’m positive that things are going to get quite inconvenient in the EU then. The US, too, God willing. What goes around comes around, and not necessarily from the same direction. Believe it or not, not everyone enjoys life under these regimes as much as you seem to do.
Yes that is indeed the typical output of a Russian troll.
Of course that doesn't mean you are one. The strangest thing about Russian propaganda is that seemingly rational people spontaneously parrot it, even though it doesn't make much sense.
sigh This is a perfect example of "I support Ukraine! (don't even bother to learn what it is and never knew)"
Do yourself a favour, go to Wikipedia and learn about Donetsk, at least.
>> Donetsk [...] The population was estimated at 901,645 (2022 estimate)[4] in the city core, with over 2 million in the metropolitan area (2011). According to the 2001 census, Donetsk was the fifth-largest city in Ukraine.[5]
yes but why again? It's not like they needed all of this. They have literally tons of all types of fuel & tons of other resources in demand and their population isn't exactly small
There is some ambiguity here that doesn't help in a fruitful conversation: many people say the war started in 2022. I disagree, I think it started in 2014.
I don’t think Putin would have gone ahead if he expected this fierce resistance from Ukraine and the strong reaction of the west. Most wars start by one or multiple parties miscalculating the cost of the war. Starting with the two WW.
- economically Russia has been doing surprisingly well since the war started. The EU sanctions drove the gas price through the roof last year so Russia could make billions selling it to countries like India and China
- the earlier invasion of the Crimea went pretty smoothly and there were hardly any repercussions
- one of Putin's arguments for starting the war, was that it was to stop the Nato from expanding towards its borders. This argument is not new, Russia also brought it up in 2008 when there was talk about Georgia joining Nato. At that time Russia was able to succesfully overthrow the Georgian government and invade it for a 'peace mission'. So why not do the same thing again?
(This one backfired badly to Putin of course, with Finland and probably also Sweden joining Nato)
> - economically Russia has been doing surprisingly well since the war started. The EU sanctions drove the gas price through the roof last year so Russia could make billions selling it to countries like India and China
The counter argument to that seems so obvious I'm surprised I have to write it down:
If you're a government official and pass a law that in a month a cinema will be demolished - the cinema is going to increase its revenue a lot in that month. There are multiple reasons why, for example:
1) People who planned to go to a cinema two months later have to go there sooner. russian resources are cheap, and so people rushed to buy them BEFORE the sanctions will in effect.
2) The cinema might be selling popcorn cheaper in order to sell all its stock. Plus it's not buying new resources for the following months, so operation costs lower. In case of russia, they were incentivized to sell the resources cheaply; this doesn't necessarily mean cheaper than before, but normally at a surge of demand you increase prizes and that didn't happen here. Understanding this is just a temporary surge, and moreover, the trade might fall down considerably below the before-surge times, russia likely scaled its resource industry down, not up.
So it was good for russia in the short term, but everyone, even in russia that is full of propaganda, recognized hard times are coming.
> - the earlier invasion of the Crimea went pretty smoothly and there were hardly any repercussions
Look at the history of USD to RUB exchange.
> - one of Putin's arguments for starting the war, was that it was to stop the Nato from expanding towards its borders. This argument is not new, Russia also brought it up in 2008 when there was talk about Georgia joining Nato.
Georgia has an order of magnitude smaller population than Ukraine. I think what's even more important is size and logistical problems. Was it really so hard to see that before the war?
Again, I'm not in any way defending Putin's actions. But unfortunately your view on the state of the Russian economy doesn't match reality. According to IMF, in 2023, so one year after the invasion, it grew by 3%. And the IMF forecast for 2024 is 2.6% growth. Not many countries in the EU or even the US can match those figures.
I didn't have an impression you're defending russia, I was just making cold arguments. As per your latest argument: I'm not an economist, but isn't it the case that "war boosts economy" because military spending counts towards GDP? Isn't it a broken window fallacy? I'd think everyone by now understands war is terrible for economy long-term, unless the spoils of war are worth it. There's also a matter of "creative accounting" typical for immoral regimes.
Could you explain to me just *how* would russian economy thrive despite hundreds of thousands of people dying, contracts cancelled, resources being sold for less to China and India and with a mass emigration of intellectual workforce outside of the country?
Some things come to mind:
- prisoners sent to war dying and therefore less upkeep costs for prisons
- people willing to pay higher taxes for war efforts, be paid less, pay higher prices for products... In general the war justifying exploitation of people.
In first case, I'm skeptical this could grant significant savings, as well as I wonder: if it was beneficial, why wouldn't a member of the empire of evil not just kill the prisoners en masse - and if the answer is that it would cause a civil unrest, then maybe we're going to see such anyway - which will yet cause some damage in future.
In second case I wonder: is hardship good for your society? "Hard times create strong men", but on the other hand easy times generate sensitive men; it's hard to be an intellectual if you struggle to satisfy the bottom of Maslow's triangle. And as I already mentioned: some people simply escape to a country that grants them a higher standard of life.
Just so we're on the same page: the article I linked is from the Financial Times, and it's quoting a report from the IMF. There is no creative accounting here.
For sure there could be creative accounting when the Russian government publishes figures, and indeed those figures are even higher than the ones mentioned by the IMF.
About your other points: I'm not sure why you're mentioning them if you already knew that I'm not defending Russia. I'm against their war, against their government and against how they are treating people, including their own.
On the other hand, this is no excuse to close your eyes to reality. The EU sanctions that were supposed to hurt the Russian economy, ideally by so much that support for the war would stop, don't have the desired effect. In fact they might even have boosted the Russian economy at some point, and also they are driving Russia into the arms of China.
> I'm not sure why you're mentioning them if you already knew that I'm not defending Russia.
Because an argument is correct or incorrect regardless who makes it.
> On the other hand, this is no excuse to close your eyes to reality...
For example the reality of USD to RUB exchange rate, that went down after annexation of Crimea, and went further down after February 2022.
> ...The EU sanctions that were supposed to hurt the Russian economy,..
And did.
> ...ideally by so much that support for the war would stop,...
Failed here. We need more sanctions, especially as with time russia learns to circumvent them.
> ...don't have the desired effect...
They don't have the desired, as you put it, ideal effect. There is some clear effect however.
> ...In fact they might even have boosted the Russian economy at some point,...
The sanctions like stopping the flights were devastating, so I can't be sure, but I can agree due to the "might" word being used. I'm very open-minded that in the short term such boost may have happened, and I argue how in some ways it's to be expected.
> ...and also they are driving Russia into the arms of China.
The power of China is hugely overestimated by an average Joe. Probably due to Chinese propaganda, people think we (the west) rely on China more than the China relies on us. Which is very far from true. Strengthening China by vassalization of russia is bad, but if russia is forced to become a vassal, it only proves the sanctions do work and hurt it.
Its not really about money - Putin and his friends are already extremely rich. It's about the acquisition of power by recreating the historical Russian empire.
Their loss of Nordstream2 was likely unplanned.
But the lives on either side? I don't think it was important to Putin in any sense. Maybe as human resources mgmt for army recruitment.
I could explain their line of thinking, but the post would be downvoted and labeled as propaganda. It’s not that I agree or approve what’s going on. On the contrary, it has a detrimental impact on me. But even trying to explain the Russian rationale isn’t welcomed. It’s ought to be illogical from the Western perspective, because then you can easily explain why the population has to rally behind Ukraine, e.g. fighting pure evil.
misja111 does something similar above and isn't downvoted. So no, as long as you don't rationalize russians as the good guys, and as long as your arguments aren't (even if neutrally) ridiculous, I don't think you will be downvoted.
You're wrong, not all his comments are about russia (it took me about a minute to randomly search through his comments and notice a comment about GTA, and I think that's all it takes to prove you wrong: not all his comments are about russia if at least one isn't).
Why are most of his comments about russia (if that's the true even): perhaps he is interested in the subject and has a nice attitude of only speaking about something he is knowledgeable in. Or maybe the subject of russia is something he find very emotional and feels an urge to speak about it.
Let me mimic your rhetoric:
Why are all your comments about russia, always pro-russian?
Are you spreading propaganda because you're on a payroll?
From their postings they don't sound like a troll account, and is definitely irresponsible of you to assert that "ALL of their comments" are about Russia when it only takes about 60 seconds to determine otherwise. If they talk about Russia a lot, it's because pro-Russian propaganda is very pervasive, also here on HN -- and unpacking and responding to every instance of it can almost turn into a full-time job.
That said, they (mopsi) do seem to like to say some rather weird, and also intellectually dishonest things -- such their assertion that it was primarily the Russians, not the Germans (with the help of local collaborators) who arranged for the extermination of Baltic Jewry in the summer of 1941:
You know, just because someone, like Putin, appears to be opposed to something you are opposed to (like the MIC) doesn't mean the he is somehow a counterweight to "evil", and that you should give credence to what he's saying. Or that this person can't also be a violent psychopath who flat out lies about basically everything important, to everyone, including you.
Why do we need to listen to justifications of crazy warmongering dictators?
According to Hitler (as well as Putin, who really justified Hitler in that same interview) Poland made him start the war by refusing to give up Danzig.
Any dictator in history had a cover story before starting a war. And by spreading such a story you become a part of the aggressor's propaganda machine.
The ruling Elite are former KGB members who were socialized during the Soviet era. They only know territory and power as currency and now that they own all of the country they don't need to put a mask on (just watch some of the Tucker Carlson interview, where Putin goes back 700 years trying to justify his war in Ukraine).
It's pretty well established by now that Putin (and his closest allies):
1: Fully believed bad-faith reporting from their security services about Ukraine.
2: Underestimated the extend by which the west was willing to help.
3: The sheer resistance of the Ukraine military.
Especially #1 can't be easily disregarded, as the leading security office tasked with subduing UA had its upper leadership entirely purged after the first assault had failed.
Before the war, Russia had two possibilities: Align further with the west or become a vassal of China.
Edit: I would appreciate to know why I'm being downvoted. I'm all open to hear more substantial information on this topic.
Russia was not delivering on its contractual obligations to deliver gas. There were actual monetary penalties attached to not delivering, painful monetary damages, and those were to come into effect soon.
With the pipeline gone, they no longer could deliver gas through it, and thus were no longer in breach of contract.
2. Indirect monetary benefit
Gas prices spiked heavily afterwards. Even without NS1/2 Russia is still a heavy supplier of natural gas and thus benefitted from those spikes.
3. Political benefit (threat)
There are other pipelines in the baltic supplying former Russian gas customers. The message is: we can blow up this pipeline, we can blow up yours as well.
Importantly, they could do this without an actual attack on a NATO partner. It's their own pipeline after all. But of course, they had to do this covertly in order to send the message that they could also do this covertly to other pipelines.
4. Nothing to lose economically
The pipelines were economically useless. Nobody was going to buy Russian gas again through them after Russia first threatened and then actually cut off supplies. So an economically worthless asset. Sacrificing that to get the benefits 1-3 is easy.
5. Nothing to lose politically
The pipelines were politically useful as a threat towards Europe: don't cross us, or we'll cut off your gas. Well, the warning wasn't heeded, gas supplies were cut and ... nothing big happened. So the pipelines were no longer useful politically, as well as economically. Once again, sacrificing them to get benefits 1-3 was well worth it, because the price for Russia was close to zero.
6. Sweden dropping the investigation
The reason given was: "we do not have jurisdiction." Well, if Russia blows up its own pipeline, Sweden would not have jurisdiction, would they?
7. Precedent
Russia has blown their own pipelines up in the past.
1. Could be, although I doubt they would pay considering the war and sanctions
2. I thought they were forced to sell to China at a heavy discount because it was their only option ?
3. That could be an argument against anything and any side, so I do not buy it
4. I doubt that Germany would not buy Russian gas. Which would be a reason for the US to blow up the pipeline. So it is a hypothetical which cannot enforce either argument.
5. Nothing big happened because of luck. Let me remind you that the EU gas reserves were pretty low, and only managed to be not depleted because of the mildness of the 2022 winter.
6. They do not have the jurisdiction to prosecute, but why would they not disclose their findings, at a period where western media takes the extra mile to throw shade on Russia ?
7. I am not convinced, the fact that it has happened before could as easily be used as an argument for a false flag operation.
In re 5 - nothing big could have happened even if there were no baltic pipelines at all since the whole RU-EU gas transport system was at below 50% utilization for years.
> 1. Could be, although I doubt they would pay considering the war and sanctions
There are plenty of frozen Russian assets available in the West for seizure after a court order. These have not been touched so far, although there have been repeated suggestions of using them to pay for the damage in Ukraine.
> 2. I thought they were forced to sell to China at a heavy discount because it was their only option ?
Hadn't heard of that, but you are making my point for me: lots of incentive to try and spike the price! (A motive for an action doesn't mean it will actually succeed)
> 3. That could be an argument against anything and any side, so I do not buy it
How so? And it's not an argument "against" anything. Russia was using (their) energy supply to try and blackmail Europe. Europe switched to other sources. Threatening those other sources is a logical next step.
> 4. I doubt that Germany would not buy Russian gas.
You can doubt it all you want. Russian gas is over in Germany. I am from Germany.
> 5. Nothing big happened because of luck. Let me remind you that the EU gas reserves were pretty low, and only managed to be not depleted because of the mildness of the 2022 winter.
Oh yes, the mild winter definitely helped. Though reserves were actually very high, the gas storage facilities were topped up to the rim and the government had scrambled like mad to secure alternative supplies.
This is the data, it covers April 2022 to the start of 2024.
What I heard is that Germany essentially bought up all gas available on the open market. Now this is not really a sustainable strategy, and particularly not a replicable one (only one country can do it at a time). Which is why the winter 2022-2023 saw a nuclear renaissance in pretty much every country apart from Germany. They all saw that our "Energiewende" was built on a dirty little secret, that secret being cheap Russian gas. With the emperor now naked, that dream was over.
> 6. They do not have the jurisdiction to prosecute, but why would they not disclose their findings, at a period where western media takes the extra mile to throw shade on Russia ?
They handed their findings over the Germany after discovering enough to know that they did not have jurisdiction.
"Ljungqvist said the main task had been to establish whether Sweden or Swedish citizens were involved in the attack, which he said had taken place in international waters.
“The answer to that question is ‘no’ and there is nothing in this case that poses any risk to Sweden’s security now that we have seen how things stand,” he said."
So while the non-release of the details also bothers me, it seems to be fairly standard operating procedure: hand the data over to the Germans, let them decide.
> 7. I am not convinced, the fact that it has happened before could as easily be used as an argument for a false flag operation.
No. While almost anything can be used once you go into the convolutions false-flag operations, such arguments are not nearly as easy as the simple one. Occam's razor applies.
In addition, the primary suspect in a false flag operation would be Ukraine, and one thing the investigation did uncover, and a piece of information that was revealed, is that the operation required resources that Ukraine simply does not have. And Russia does.
Those reports based on anonymous sources fail to explain the logistics of lowering several hundred kilograms of explosives in deep water with no visibility.
Meanwhile, the SS-750 salvage ship, designed for specialized underwater operations with a mini-submarine, was operating in the area four days before the blast.
> lowering several hundred kilograms of explosives in deep water with no visibility
You mean the 17th century technology pioneered with diving bells? Like using some rope or a cable?
Edit: pioneered with. You just need a diver who would drive the pilot cable to the exact place, then you just rope the load to that cable. But sure, ignore the common sense in the presence of angst.
"one of the most heinous acts of this century" was blowing up a gas pipeline that was delivering very little gas because of "extended maintenance" on the Russian side? The company operating NordStream 2 went bankrupt 6 months before it was destroyed.
I would love to live in a world where that was close to one of the most heinous acts that year, let alone century. The release of natural gas into the environment was very bad but the impact on humans was essentially zero.
Edit: Wikipedia has a helpful graph showing NordStream gas flows. You can see that in the month before the sabotage it was already pretty much zero
I also think this is a genius move that effectively rallied up flaky european allies such as France and Germany but my mind can't accept that the environmental cost was worth it.
However bad is the invasion of Ukraine, climate change remains the worst threat for humanity.
If you don't like tyrants and like democracy, what do you think will happen to democracy when energy, hence food is more scarce and you try protect militarily your resources against countries that are eying them ? History knows the answer.
The "good" news is that this methane will turn into CO2 + water within about 12 years. In terms of climate, it will be no better or worse than having burnt it.
The pipeline was not in use. The sabotage did not impact Russia's profits. If anything, it helped Russia financially, since they no longer had an obligation to pay for the pipeline.
And it was USA's interest to sell its liquefied gas to Europe, to at least get something out of their support.
I mean if you're going to support Ukraine with your billions while your allies are dancing around the issue because they're hooked up on your ennemy's gas... I doubt the US can tolerate that.
Now that's just my pet theory, I'd love to hear counter-arguments.
" Blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline was one of the most heinous acts of this century." - I thought uyghur genocide in china is among the most heinous acts of this century, or russian invasion in ukraine where thousands of people are killed and thousands fled their country, or lack of accountability for petrol industry for all pollution and global warming and fairy-tales govts are saying related to being on path to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, I haven't thought that blowing a pipe would be part of the same list for some people...
The capabilities to lower several hundred of kilograms of explosives on several points in the deep and muddy waters of the Baltic is not something you can do with some training and a backpack full of kit.
You need a specialized boat to do so, if possible with a submarine. Like the SS-750 which was there a few days before the explosion.
Ukraine will send drone to attack compressor station on shore, like we do now with oil refineries. Why we need to play in a muddy waters at all? We are at war with RF.
>Not only was the welfare of millions jeopardised, as Europe would've probably plunged into crisis if the winter of 2022 wasn't particularly mild
Dude, Russia had already cut Nordstream months before it blew up. No gas was flowing through it (the gas that leaked was the gas remaining in the line).[0]
Whoever did that, did Germany a solid by speeding up its decoupling from a murderous dictatorship.
> I wonder when countries on the macro scale stop acting like fifteen year old boys fighting over the same toy. Not in our lifetime for sure.
Maybe it would help if we properly sanctioned the countries who are starting the wars. By, I dunno, no longer sending them Billions of dollars for their stuff. And by helping the victims to defend themselves.
Yes but how long your democracy is going to hold russia-backed far-right populists when the prices of everything spikes
The explosion on the other hand forces all the previously change-averse industries to quickly find out new sources. And politically, no rival can tell that you should lift sanctions and buy russian gas again for the people
You agree that " Blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline was one of the most heinous acts of this century." ? Do you put this on the same level as genocide in china or russian invasion in ukraine that killed thousands of people and thousands more were left without home? You put all these heinous events on the same level with blowing a pipe that didn't even transport much gas at that time because russia itself stopped it? No wonder why you get downvoted
While I personally don’t believe in this Ukraine yacht story. It actually sailed from Germany, via Poland, if I am not mistaken. So not sure how the Swedes would have ruled this yacht hypothesis out?
Currently 30% of the comments in this thread are you claiming that. Why are you so invested in this that you resort to spamming it all over? Someone else pointed out that this yacht traveled through germany and poland too. Nobody knows anything substantial, even if they did, we wouldn't be able to tell truth from fud.
#/media/File:Emblem_of_the_Defence_Intelligence_of_Ukraine.jpg){kind=link}
