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If the U.S. had had a moderate Ukraine policy, none of this would have happened. Instead, Germany's energy policy is now based on U.S. dependency in the hope that the U.S. will play nice. Which it does not.

The thing that gets me with arguments such as this is that it talks right over the heads of the Ukrainians like they don't matter. "Oh, the U.S. should moderate it's policy." "NATO shouldn't be pushing East." "The West didn't listen." I hear the same sentiment around the Baltic states: "NATO shouldn't have pushed in, and that angered Putin."

Give it up for those repeating those misconceptions and making the argument into one where NATO is pushing, or the U.S. isn't being "moderate" enough with regards to Ukrainian sovereignty.

Talk to the Ukrainians, the Lithuanians and Estonians, the Poles, and the Finns. And they'll all tell you the same: It's been Russian imperialism for centuries, be it under the guise of the USSR or Tzar or the current president for life. They don't want to give up their land and populations to become part of Russia's empire. And just a very cursory glance at history will pull examples of this. Finland lost it's second largest city in the 40s, and is still without it. The Baltics and Ukraine only became free in the 90s. The Poles went through multiple stretches of time where they were divide up and didn't exist.

Your country gets invaded one day, the occupied lands vacated of their residents, the children re-homed in families elsewhere, but you'd tell them to "moderate" their policy? That further more, they shouldn't be allowed to seek alliances? If someone invaded the U.S., I seriously doubt that line of opinion would obtain support anywhere.

It's not about U.S. policy. It's about Ukraine wanting to be independent and Russia wanting it as part of theirs. Simple as that. Don't ask the U.S. about Ukrainian policy like the Ukrainians aren't there. Have some respect, and ask the Ukrainians what they want.

Then I dare you to tell them to moderate it.


Of course the Ukrainians matter. That is why they should have accepted the Istanbul agreement (confirmed by Naftali Bennett and not the Russians) after the illegal and horrible Russian invasion instead of fighting a U.S. proxy war and dying for nothing.

Ukraine refused it because they couldn't trust the Russians especially after the Bucha massacre. How is it a proxy war?

You mean this one that he walked back? https://web.archive.org/web/20241213114710/https://www.busin...

How is it a proxy war? Again, you frame your argument as though is the U.S. driving everything, and that the Ukrainians have no agency or say. On one hand, you take shots at the U.S. as running roughshod over other country's wishes, and yet in your very same argument, deny that these nations have any say of their own.

Try this one on: The Ukrainians don't want to stop fighting, because they want their land and people back. They were given a security guarantee once, handed over their nuclear weapons as part of it, and that guarantee was ignored. They're not going to be burned twice.

If I were a Ukrainian, I'd find it rather insulting to be told that I was "dying for nothing" and that my country's sovereignty didn't matter, and that furthermore, I wasn't part of a real country (as Putin attests) but just some U.S. puppet.


It's quite obvious there a Russian shills all over this thread...

Germany has a much stronger reason to want Russia to lose then the US does. Germany is closer to most of Russia and other EU countries are next door. Germany is still in the EU and claims a sort of leadership role in the EU

No it is not "small fry". Whole industries shut down, it has nothing to do with Merkel. Cheap energy from Russia was sabotaged by provoking the Ukraine invasion.

Sabotaging German energy from Russia isn't new. Already Reagan did that. Tony Blair of course also wanted a huge Russian oil deal, but was rebuffed. Perhaps that is the cause for the jealousy.


The Germany would have to get nuclear weapons. The U.S. knows that perfectly well, that is why it stays and hypocritically complains that the EU isn't doing enough.

Also, the U.S. MIC wants to sell to its NATO "allies".


The U.S. and France bought Russian uranium until 2024, long after the Nord Stream pipeline was blown up.

They bought Russian oil via the so called shadow fleets. Pure hypocrisy.

Just now Biden sanctioned Rosatom and the shadow fleets in order to make things more difficult for Trump.

Just last month The U.S. coerced Ukraine to stop transit of Russian gas (while collecting transit fees).


The US probably bought uranium because of fears it’d otherwise get sold to North Korea, Iran or terrorists. Just like it basically financed the Russian space program for decades to ensure those rocket scientists didn’t take a nice salary from Iran.

Uranium contracts are long lived contracts. It doesn't make sense to kill off a contract in the middle. They also buy uranium from many other countries since it is available only in certain countries.

Nord Stream was a very long lived contract that is attacked viciously in this thread.

Because it was a project negotiated by a German Chancellor in the waning days of his office as a way to bypass countries the gas would have otherwise transited through. That chancellor immediately took a job on that project's firm, then later became an executive in those same Russian energy companies. It was extraordinary conflict of interest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der#Views_an...


> The U.S. and France bought Russian uranium until 2024, long after the Nord Stream pipeline was blown up.

Unfortunately in times of conflict like this, things aren't exactly clear cut, and our need for Russian uranium may be too high to stop buying. It is what it is.

> They bought Russian oil via the so called shadow fleets. Pure hypocrisy

Cite your source.

> Just now Biden sanctioned Rosatom and the shadow fleets in order to make things more difficult for Trump.

How does this make things more difficult for Trump? You mean it makes things more difficult for Russia? Or should we buy oil from Russian shadow fleets? I'm not following your point here.

> Just last month The U.S. coerced Ukraine to stop transit of Russian gas (while collecting transit fees).

Weren't you complaining about the United States and France buying Russian uranium?


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