What do they expect? (Giuseppe Ciccia/NurPhoto/Corbis via Getty Images)
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All eyes may be on the Italian election results this morning, but Europe’s got much bigger problems on its hands than the prospect of a Right-wing government. Winter is coming, and the catastrophic consequences of Europe’s self-imposed energy crisis are already being felt across the continent.
As politicians continue to devise unrealistic plans for energy rationing, the reality is that soaring energy prices and falling demand have already caused dozens of plants across a diverse range of energy-intensive industries — glass, steel, aluminium, zinc, fertilisers, chemicals — to cut back production or shut down, causing thousands of workers to be laid off. Even the pro-war New York Times was recently forced to acknowledge the “crippling” impact that Brussels’s sanctions are having on industry and the working class in Europe. “High energy prices are lashing European industry, forcing factories to cut production quickly and put tens of thousands of employees on furlough,” it reported.
Zinc, aluminium and silicon production cuts (amounting to a staggering 50% of output) have already left consumers in the Europe’s steel, auto and construction industries facing severe shortages, which are being offset by shipments from China and elsewhere. Meanwhile, steel plants in Spain, Italy, France, Germany and other countries — more than two dozen in total — are beginning to slow down or entirely stop their output.
The fertiliser industry, which is heavily dependent on gas as a key feedstock as well as a source of power, is in even bigger trouble. More than two-thirds of production — around 30 plants — has already been halted. The German chemicals powerhouse BASF has temporarily shut down 80 plants worldwide and is slowing production at another 100 as it plans further output cuts depending on what happens to gas prices. To make things worse, EU sanctions have also limited imports of Russian fertilisers.
Dwindling supplies of fertilisers are also having a dramatic knock-on effect on European farmers, which are being forced to scale back their use of the key nutrient. This means higher prices for less output, and the consequences are bound to be felt well beyond Europe’s borders, potentially triggering a global food shortage.
But the shortage of fertiliser isn’t the only problem facing European farmers. Across northern and western Europe, vegetable producers are contemplating halting their activities because of the crippling energy costs — in some cases ten times higher than those of 2021 — required to heat greenhouse through the winter and keep harvests refrigerated, on top of rising transport and packaging costs. Greenhouse industry group Glastuinbouw Nederland says up to 40% of its 3,000 members are in financial distress. This further threatens food supplies — and will certainly lead to even higher food prices which, coupled with soaring energy bills, is likely to drive millions of European into poverty. In other words, the European energy and cost-of-living crisis is on course to descend into an outright humanitarian crisis.
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SubscribeWhat this report illustrates for me is a continuation of a process evident during the so-called pandemic and now seemingly firmly established in politics, academia, science and the legacy media: saying it makes it so. It’s a postmodern decoupling from reality illustrated in gender float and symbolised by our embrace of the metaverse as a totalising future. We’ve been drugged and are being intentionally and systematically stripped of the very tools necessary to survive once – as the title to the post suggests- we wake up to discover this was just a dream.
Progressives have denied reality for so long that I think this is true. Just last week the Atlantic ran a story positing that men are not in fact stronger than women and that it is all a social construct. I think reality is going to come crashing down with a vengeance this winter.
it’s not so much that progressives deny reality. They just think you can change reality by lying about it.
Yes. Islamism and marxism (Rules for Radicals) are two very pertinent examples.
Progressivism’s ‘Grand Delusion’
Yes. Agreed.
The Great Reset: And the War for the World Kindle Edition
”If you really want to know what’s happening in the world, this is the one book you must read now. (by) Alex Jones”
it is all here to read – none of it conspiracy theory as the ones causing this admit it..haha, sheep – you still think your gas prices are worth it for supporting Ukraine? Go get the latest bivalent booster wile you are at it – even though it is known to be destroying your immune system – as this Neo-Con war is destroying your pension, nation, savings, and future. Baaaa
Alex Jones?….
He’s the guy who is getting prosecuted for claiming the parents of the kids massacred at Sandy Hook were actually Crisis Actors.
He’s going to lose $100 million in the suit.
Imagine having that much $ to lose.
Indeed, I would rate Alex Jones as one of the great thinkers of the 21st C–along with Vova Putin and Trump.
We are living in an Age of Giants.
There isn’t much of a taste for sarcasm on Unherd.
Dream! We can build our way out of this with electric vehicles, windmills and solar panels. Bwaaahaaaaaahaaaaa. The Progs and the Green New Fools will be fooling no one when the temperature hits 0 this winter. Tough to dream when you can’t stop shivering.
Very frightening prospect.
You seem to be saying that anyone who opposes Putin is a “Progressive.” You certainly don’t offer an alternative to oppose him.
I find that a fascinating insight!
Opposing him for sure, I think we all do. Fight a war with him maybe. But the sanctions are futile and counterproductive, for sure. They’re hurting us more than Russia, and they’re the policy of progressives.
Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865) “If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five?
No, calling a tail a leg don’t make it a leg.”
It reminds me of how those pundits who warned that westward NATO expansion would lead to war were villified after the invasion of Ukraine, as if predicting something somehow makes it more likely to happen.
Simple question. Where are the trillions the workers have paid the progressives and their socialist welfare state?
Ok, but this government approach was foreseen in Orwell’s 1984 very truly, if on a more entertaining level.
I completely agree. Well said!
The observations and analysis in this article are of course perfectly accurate, and (no offence at all to the author) wouldn’t have taken much digging around, for what is set out on in the piece is as plain as day to anybody taking even the most casual interest in the calamity unfolding in Europe and here in the UK.
What dusturbs me most though is not the attitude of the politicians, who I’m yet to hear concede a single error (no error, that is besides a failure to have enacted more of the same measures that have led to this potentially fatal mess), but a twisting of the narrative by most of the media and how the daily distortions are successfully conspiring not just to blind the public to the facts of the matter, but twisting them to such a degree that the only possible response presented to the situation is to double down on the policies that led to it. To me it immediately brings to mind the still widespread attachment amongst otherwise intelligent people to a communist Utopia, justified by the assertion that the hundreds of millions dead were merely a result of it not being done with sufficient effort.
As I’ve alluded to before, this effect is seen most acutely over at The Guardian, where the various comment sections shed light into the mindset of this brainwashed utopian clergy; whose views no doubt mirror a general mindset amongst those people in society with the power and influence to set the general direction of travel. In and amongst the various ‘Heat or Eat Diaries’ articles – which grotesquely document the plight of people suffering the consequences of the newspaper’s edutorial line – are daily sermons from other commentators that invariably fuse together thoroughly dishonest analysis of the viability / practicality / affordability of non-renewables, massively overplay the capabity & reliability of renewables, and paint an apocalyptic vision for the future should their recommendations not be adhered to by the letter, all with fawning approval below the line and the out and out attack of anybody in even slight disagreement.
At this point then, with an intelligentsia in Europe no longer concerned with reality or the plight of those who suffer the effects of their stupid dictats, I welcome a period of upheaval and then installation of populist leaders all across the continent, because at this juncture it clearly represents the lesser evil.
This is typical of the Neo-Con Guardian.
They also supported wrenching cuts to the British lifestyle 1939-45.
Think of all the prosperity that would have accrued to Britain if it had just been willing to make a compromise over Poland…
And France…and the Netherlands…and Belgium…and Greece…and Denmark…and Norway…and…
Yes indeed, every conflict is exactly like World War II and every foreign opponent is just like Hitler.
Didn’t the neocons say that America would lie in smoking ruins if Saddam wasn’t stopped? I bet you supported that war too.
Actually, I didn’t. I thought it was the worst political and miliary mistake of the 21st Century.
Sadly, I was even wrong there.
Vladimir Vladimirovich’s invasion of Ukraine was certainly the worst.
Perhaps on a par with decisions made in 1939 and 1941.
Happy?
Isn’t it annoying how people who know nothing about you jump in with all sorts of imagined assumptions about what you might or might not think ? Almost as if you shouldn’t be permitted to think for yourself. They likely still don’t believe you about Iraq. I do. The fact that you explicitly criticised neo-cons in the original comment means nothing at all to some of them – you must still be one !
Seriously – the war on drugs, the war on terror and now Covid are all the same thing. Fear.
In this case, all it would have taken is a promise from Ukraine not to join NATO….or did you miss the part where the Soviets were allies to defeat naziism?
Also, if Trump were in office, this wouldn’t have happened. Energy independence is the key.
Don’t get me wrong. Ideally, nazis and communists kill each other off but this blind eye to Ukraine malfeasance is destructively off balance.
Whatever Ukraine would or could have promised, Russia would have still invaded it. This war is not and wasn’t ever about Eastern European countries joining NATO. It’s about Putin wanting to hold on to power by selling the nationalist fable to his constituency and also about Russia’s dream of a golden, superpower era (which never war, not could be).
Every country on the surface of this plante should be able to decide its own path, irrespective of who its neighbours are.
Eastern European countries were not coerced into joining NATO, nor the EU.
Soviet allies? There was no true alliance. The Soviets aided Germany to rearm in the 20s and 30s. They worked hard through Communist union leadership in the USA to block aid to the UK up to the very moment Germany invaded them. During the war, they wouldn’t even let crews running supplies on the Murmansk run get off their ships, and refused to allow British and American bombers land on Soviet controlled airfields, blocking an opportunity to cause Germany harm. They were totally of, by, and for themselves. So Soviet leaders made many choices to advance their beliefs and survival, costing millions of lives under their controls. That it had the incidental byproduct of Britain surviving, and the US being stronger they probably regretted.
Russia has no veto on NATO
If Putin’s motive was simply to prevent a neighbouring, ex-Soviet country from joining NATO why didn’t he invade the much smaller Baltic states that had joined already?
Who could miss the part where the USSR became an important ally – after dividing Poland with Germany and then being invaded by Hitler?
How wrong I must have been.
I actually thought that Ukraine stated categorically in 2021 that NATO membership was not going to be a realistic option. Must have been mistaken.
I was also under the impression that Russia had massed troops and tanks on the Ukrainian border at the beginning of 2022 and then driven them into Ukraine in February with the objective of taking Kiev with a coup-de-main attack followed by land reinforcement. Silly me.
I also missed the bit where Ukraine advanced East with tanks and tried to capture Moscow, prompting a justified Russian response.
Thanks for putting me right.
Bit we did make a compromise over Poland. Poland was invaded by Hitler *and* Stalin. Yet we agreed to Stalin keeping all of Poland.
Thank you. That sums the situation up precisely
What’s fascinating is that many of the people who screamed for harder, faster, lockdowns on the grounds that lives were at immediate and direct risk and never mind the unknowable longer term ramifications or violations of long-established principles, now also appear to be the seem to support the continuation of sanctions & green polices that pose an immediate and direct risk to lives on the basis that failing to pursue them could have potentially large, but unknowable, longer term ramifications and would violate long-established principles.
The cognitive dissonance involved is truly breathtaking. You have to feel a bit sorry for the millions of ordinary people who invested themselves so heavily in conflicting, superficial, and dangerous narratives. Those of us who didn’t, or who were luckily able to snap ourselves out of them early, now have to work really hard to maintain the discipline and compassion to be gentle with the poor folks as they start to wake up, and start with them the task of reclaiming our shared reality and squaring up to the hostile post- neoliberal globe in which we live.
So, whilst my less good nature relishes the thought of seeing populists seize power and tear the whole rotten lot down, in practice that is going to create far more problems than it will solve and it would be incredibly ugly, and almost certainly corrupt. And it would prompt an authoritarian reaction from “the other side”, as it did in the US. Rather we what we need is peaceful, pluralistic pressure from the bottom up to make it impossible for our politicians to carry on the way they have been carrying and retain power, crafting an electorally viable, diverse coalition of the millions of people from all walks of life and across the political spectrum and in varying states of alertness who are fed of being manipulated and lied to but who have no interest revolutionary populism. If such a coalition started articulating itself clearly, the pivot back towards reality could happen very quickly indeed, leaving the gender, environmental, public health and other such ideologues exposed to be the tiny minorities that they are. That is what the elites really fear, and seek to suppress – level-headed, compassionate, articulate, authentic, charismatic pragmatists who would unify ordinary people rather than divide them.
Great comment. Your closing paragraph mirrors my more sensible side and makes a great deal of sense.
(My frustration at times does seem to get the better of me)
The common thread is “do-somethingism” — the belief that any problem needs action, now, never mind any trade-offs or negative externalities.
Wouldn’t that be a great relief indeed—level headed, compassionate pragmatists, and etc…to put our now defunct and sideways world to rights.
On a bit of a tangent, I’ve often thought that one of the major problems with democracy at national level is that most people are perforce reliant on the media to tell them what’s happening, so whoever can control the media narrative ends up wielding vast and unaccountable power.
Well said, though unfortunately the consequences of the collapse of the reality vortex inhabited by the world’s political classes and right-on ideologues is neither going to be pleasant or satisfying for anyone.
The mere fact the writer of this article thinks the sanctions are to blame shows me he is more interested in controversy than in the truth. It is most definitely not the sanctions that caused this crisis, but the fact that European countries (Britain included) made themselves dependent on Russian gas in the first place. Europe would be in this situation eventually as the real problem are Putin’s delusional ambitions. If we don’t do anything now we will have to stop him when he will go for the next country in line. Most likely a NATO country which makes the situation even more dangerous. So yes, governments are to blame for their incompetence in geopolitics and energy dependence, but not for finally showing Putin he must stop. His ambitions would never have ended otherwise while now he is slowly digging his own grave.
Before the war, Britain imported only 5% of its overall energy intake from the RF. Far less exposed than most of the EU.
You’ve really bought the neocon kool aid, friend.
Putin is made out to be a voracious lunatic simply to imply to the soft of brain that negotiation is useless.
MOAR WAR !!
You’re not a Raytheon stock-holder, are you ?
For goodness sake, there’s no need for this type of invective.
This isn’t Twitter, and whether we disagree of not with comments (and i disagree with plenty and make that known), let’s not turn the Comments section into a debased knee-jerk for juveniles.
Hear, hear.
Really, all Putin has to do is give up his conquests after 24 Feb. and sue for peace.
Most observers think he should have done that in conjunction with the “Russkaya Mogilizatsia.”
(The latter, of course, is a master stroke in itself)
Hang on everyone, Europe’s gas stocks are already almost full according to current reports. The fall back by industry is being carefully managed in Germany and other heavily industrialised areas. Governments are fully aware of the downside potential for social unrest.This article is extreme in its contrived domesday approach and manipulation of facts, by now out of date anyway. In fact, I would call it clickbait and move on.
But his solution is so plausible!
(Er, there WAS a solution in there someplace among all the doomsday talk?)
By “full” I think you mean 40%, which is actually the stark reality of the state of Europe’s gas reserves.
Pls cite your source for that.
Or might even be a trollsky product..? Unherd is the home of the ”intellectual” trolls.
Thank you, what you say cured my instant depression from reading that article – somewhat!
Well, yes, the sanctions would have nothing to do with it if you think that the West could declare economic war on Russia, seize their overseas assets and embargo certain forms of trade and financial transactions, and Russia would not consider retaliating in kind with the tools at its disposal. Apparently the leaders of the West thought that the case, or were willing to take the chance.
Which makes sense if you are naive and ignorant of how wars develop if they keep going. They get increasingly brutal and positions on all sides harden and demands increase, until at some point one side is crushed (WW2), or exhaustion (one side [WW1] or mutual [War of the Spanish Succession]) sets in, or one or both sides decide the potential benefit is not worth the likely price (Korea).
Very naive, but naivete has reigned supreme in the West through the decades Europe made itself dependent on Russian gas, the US let China destroy much of its industrial base, and set out to provoke Russia to attack Ukraine, despite plenty of Russian complaints that the situation was becoming intolerable, which were met with insults and non sequiturs. And then when Russia took the bait (which they shouldn’t have, I am not absolving Russia of responsibility for launching an aggressive war) the US and the West were not prepared for the war they had provoked.
Fortunately for Ukraine and the West, Putin believed his tale that Ukrainians overwhelmingly saw themselves as Russians that the great majority would welcome him and resistance would collapse–so he invaded with maybe 1/3 of the force he should have used against a country as large as Ukraine. And Ukraine and the West had the opportunity to cobble together a defense.
Naive and childish on all sides, and now everyone, especially Ukrainians, are paying the price for the US and so many EU/NATO countries being run by third-raters and worse for two decades, and Putin believing what he wanted to believe instead of taking more cautious advice–if anyone had the nerve to tell him…
Yep. Russia had no choice but to invade Ukraine. There was literally no other option. Even though Ukraine had admitted in 2021 that they weren’t going to join NATO, Russia quite correctly interpreted that as a signal that Ukraine would overrun Russia with tanks.
Russia did the only thing they could.
Also: why Hitler just HAD to invade Poland. And on p94, Hirohito explains how Pearl Harbor was ‘self defence’. Next week: Ghengis Khan talks about a life of peaceful protest.
There’s a very good reason why Russia put millions of dollars into anti fracking campaigns in Britain over the last 10 years. Our Green lobby have become Putin’s Useful Idiots.
Thomas Fazi states that there is no moral justification to the present policies. I would suggest that there is every moral justification to resist the aggressor that Russia appears to be. What cannot be accepted is the immoral greed that drove EU energy policy into the grip of an untrustworthy autocrat.
A large factor in the EU’s present situation is the posturing over net-zero and the apparent acceptability of off-shoring hydrocarbon extraction whilst still consuming millions of KWh of hydrocarbon energy.
The EU needs to rapidly invest in Western European gas sources including Norwegian and Dutch fields as well as UK fracking to provide some degree of energy security going forward until such time as nuclear (fision and fusion) can provide base load.
A long period of peace has made politicians complacent over energy security and allowed a dangerous reliance on energy from Russia, a country led by a revanchist nationalist, instead of developing nuclear and other energy sources so that Europe is not faced with the stark choice of a severe and devastating economic recession or allowing Russia to expand back into its Soviet era domains. Europe now has only unpalatable choices instead of the luxury of maintaining the screw on Russia without beggaring its population.
In other words, history repeats itself.
As the lone anti-War voice on here, I have the massed down votes to prove it – getting what? I think up to fifty downvotes when I say getting involved in this war – which has nothing to do with us – will destroy Ukraine, the West, plunge the world into depression, and kill a great many millions in the Third world, and plunge a great many second world people into abject poverty.
This war in Ukrane is Biden’s War – because he could have ended it any time – just tell Zalenski it is over and time to negotiate. Putin cannot – he is caught like a Mastodon in the La Brea tar pit, Zaleski is making too much money to stop if Biden keeps paying him to fight… A senile of guy, Hunter’s Dad, or the Big Guy as some call him – he is why you all will be cold and broke, Him and his Mini-Me Boris.
Then Liz Truss… haha I knew exactly what would happen if that idiot was given the PM job. (the opponet is no better, Dumb and Dumber)(unless she is doing it intentionally, which seems possible as no one could be that stupid)
So Friday she comes out and says she will pay everyone’s gas bill – and she is doing tax cuts, and the Treasury is raising interests—-Hahahaaa
So print hundreds of Billions of debt to buy the votes by paying the gas bills – there by causing MORE inflation, then Raise the Interest to fight the Inflation – And make the debt that much harder to pay back – And then Cut Taxes – hahahaaa. The £££ dropped to $1.09 in hours – the finantial world heard that and thought ‘This &itch is Crazy’ – £ to $ parity before 2023?
But Truss told us all she was nuts – she said Boris pushing that &oisn into every arm, locking down, closing schools, and printing so much money it is leading to hyperinflation – and then getting into a foreign war he has no National interest in – and thereby destroying the last bit of the economy….haha, and Truss said he did everything Correctly!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You warmongering Neo-Cons, down vote below because I still say this war was Much worse than Iraq, Afghanistan, and is basically a WWIII the way it has caused the world to be – Allies and Axis. in some global struggle You pushed Russia (who was the enemy or our enemy (China)) into China’s arms – locking them out of SWIFT means the BRICKS, with Iran, Venezuela , and other commodity producing nations are out to create a commodity based Reserve Currency (Biden did this) To Replace the $ as global reserve – it is WWIII – And this will be really bad for USA – and thus the West – imagine if you guys had to keep the sea lanes open, keep a military – and pay for it, because USA does it because it is the $ Reserve Currency.
You silly people with your Ukrainian flags – sheep being led by the great agenda from the MSM and Social Media, and your own government, and the Woke Left Neo-Con warmongers…. good luck with it, because you F-ed it all up.
The real danger is when Putin falls.
Then gas prices contract back to pre-war levels, and even below.
So, send you dollars/pounds/euros to help Putin gain a monopoly on oil, gas, food and fertilizer. His great vision was meant to help us all.
He is our ally, and must be supported at all costs.
When Putin falls? I really don’t understand how people can be so confused about the state of the front lines in Ukraine.
Indeed.
The Ukrainians have crossed the Oskil, and wil cut off Liman soon.
Meanwhile, as his army is crushed, Brilliant Vova keeps ordering pointless attacks on a place called Bakhmut.
He is the best general the Ukrainians have.
With allies like that, who needs enemies?
Not the only one. There are two or three just like you. I complained about your downvotes to the journal’s customer experience rep. Clearly an orchestrated group votes you down.
So you compained about people freely voting and expressing their opinions in a free country. Bravo !
That says everything about you.
The style may be lacking, but the substance is spot on.
Neocons have fomented this war since 2013, and probably before. The CIA has funnelled millions, via NED, into “NGO”s in Ukraine for the sole purpose of “nation-building” – ie fusing the neo-Nazism of Svoboda/Azov/Right Sektor with the dreamy blue/yellow fingernail painted pro-EU dreamers.
The result ? Outrageous anti-Russianism that led to push-back and a desire for autonomy from the Russian-dominated areas. And the push-back led to Ukrainian bombs devastating civilians in towns and cities in the Donbass.
This video, a pop song from 2016 shows you the devastation wrought on the Donbass by the Ukrainian army :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4RbZo-qxXI&list=PL4DS2TT4LUw8xVtyr75h-xzT42ewLrdGc&index=5
That devastation is largely from the outskirts of Donetsk and is no match to destruction of the cities and the numbers of civilians and soldiers killed in just those few months. Ever occurred to you that separatists were shelling the towns on Ukrainian side too — that THEY actually started it? Not to mention, how about Ukrainians taking back Mariupol, Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Severodonetsk, among others, without levelling them to the ground? And how they lived in peace and well during those years with noone complaining about repression of Russian language? I been to them all, I have worked in Mariupol and Sevrodonetsk and I only speak Russian and so do everyone there — and I know the overall sentiment. These are the cities that barely exist today any more and that’s called liberation for ya. Donetsk and Luhansk are different now, of course, having to endure the fighting, where Ukrainian shells fell onto them. But with so many people escaping to the Ukrainian held side and putting the pressure on Ukraine to regain their homes, it was a fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t situation (now many of those people, having settled elsewhere in Donbass, have lost their home twice since 2014). All the useful idiots spouting the bullshit about “8 years” have never even cared to check basic facts, all of whom are on public record and well known. Such as that absolute majority of the casualties of Russia-engineered separatist succession (which was a marginal movement and most separatist leaders being local thugs or Moscow’s placeholders) happened in 2014-2015 and there are particular leaders of both Ukrainian and separatist side who publicly have announced about what they thought were exceptions of the ceasefire. And yet it did become a frozen conflict. Not to mention that in 2014 Ukraine’s military was laughable, letting Crimea go without a single shot. Russia has militarised Ukraine and now it’s militarising NATO, clearly f*****g up the economy and security of the Europe — and, above all, empowering USA. Alarming as it is, knowing what’s going on in Ukraine, makes me happy even to have those right wing battalions to fight for its freedom. They have never been powerful in Ukraine although they did play some role at 2014’s Maidan and subsequently cemented their position as defenders of the homeland. Yet, during the ceasefire years, their relevance was shrinking. They never got the support of electorate. Ukraine was moving strongly towards being a culturally liberal country — and now, of course, those right wingers, who actually have most in common with Putin himself, have again regained prominence. So much for the “denazification”. Your view of CIA orchestrating Maidan etc is extremely simplistic without any local knowledge, it’s just something that fits your overall worldview. I don’t pretend to understand world politics that much to teach anyone on the internet on what is and what isn’t. But I know Ukraine intimately, both from within and from aside since I am not a Ukrainian myself. Whatever advantage the USA has been/is taking of Ukraine, Russia matches it by many magnitudes. And between their country, their culture, their identity being destroyed and American help, I sure know which one to choose.
A comment I quite agree with. Well worth a longer piece for Unherd, IMHO. Sadly I doubt such an article nor comment will please those with their own agendas. Ukraine-Russia issues have a very long history that we once thought resolved.
thankyou muchly for on-the-ground knowledge zee. That is what is badly needed in all this.
From the comments I’ve read there seem to be many other commenters who’s views range from anti-the-war to having strong doubts about it, but they argue in a different way to you (no criticism implied).
Remember, just because the downvotes appear to predominate there could well be quite a few upvotes hidden by them. It’s the reason I prefer the old system where you could see the numbers seperately.
You were not a lone voice
I quite agree. I understand the moral desire to provide no support, whether actual or symbolic, to Russia but the pragmatic argument for our course is rather empty. Put simply, this is not hurting Russia, it is hurting us, significantly.
I don’t comment much any more after a protracted spell of deleted and shadow-banned comments.
“Putin cannot”
Because this war, from Russia’s side, wasn’t about Putin.
It was about ordinary Russkies outraged that after they peacefully pulled back, NATO kept moving East, or that thugs wearing fascist uniforms were bloodying Russian minorities in sacred land they had split blood to liberate in WW2.
If Putin had sat back and refused to intervene, he would have been thrown aside by enraged Russians because unlike the academia and liberal enclaves of the West, the Russians (and most of the non Western world) still believe in old fashioned stuff like nationalism and national pride.
No, the ex-Soviet and the Eastern Bloc countries wanted to join NATO because of what is happening now. And before this NATO members weren’t even meeting their military spending targets, Ukraine’s military was laughable, and Finland and Sweden were neutral. So yeah. The Russians “national pride” is nothing but imperialism and the Ukrainian nationalism is nothing but self-preservation and determination of their own path that isn’t set out by Russia. The simplest indication of what Russia is, is its neighbours attitude, and they all hate its guts, even Belarus apart from Lukashenko and some of his forces. If you speak Russian, I suggest you watch something like Solovyov’s show on their national TV. Then tell me who is the fascist.
Throwing around words like “fascist” is the internet equivalent of starring shouting when you realise you sound stupid.
What exactly was the threat from Russia that made Poland etc join NATO in 1999.
And Russia made no signs of aggression towards Ukraine until 2014 – in other words, until a legally elected government was overthrown by a “popular uprising” that was openly funded by the US.
Ordinary Russians concerned about NATO ballistic missiles and weapons next door to Russia or attacks on Russian speaking minorities is “imperialistic” while NATO countries launching half a dozen wars across the globe in the past two decades was self defense.
Did I get that right?
Oh, Russia has always seen Ukraine as its subservient territory which must align with its interests. There have been several significant pushbacks from the Ukrainian side if you follow the history of the development of their political culture, which although rather corrupt, has been nurturing political participation, activism and volunteering. The Maidan uprising was grassroots, the fact that the US encouraged it, backed it and used it for photo ops doesn’t change that. Do you really believe that people were dying in clashes because this has been paid for or because of some abstract propaganda? There were concrete things they were concerned about. The US, same as some far-right factions, just used it. Better ask why didn’t Russia-funded countermovement work out just as well then? Why did they have to start war instead of countering this with the protests of at least the same scale? This is a common narrative of people who has no understanding of Ukraine and its people. BTW, NATO has been “next door” to Russia since 2004 when the Baltic States joined, of which Latvia and Estonia share border with Russia proper and are not much further from Moscow than Ukraine. No missiles were installed and the presence of rotating NATO force was minimal, such as air space patrol crew based in Lithuania. Now, of course, not only the numbers of troops are ramped up dramatically, there’s also Finland joining.
No.
Between 2015 until the invasion in 2022 over 22,000 of Ukraine’s military were trained here in the UK under Operation Orbital (Gov.UK), so not “laughable” at all. They were preparing for war and the UK were helping them.
Yes, in this case I meant pre-2014 when the war really started. I know because I was following the Maidan aftermath closely and also spent significant amount of time visiting the frontline near Donetsk in the summer/autumn 2014.
I think they might have been preparing for invasion. That’s when another country moves their armed forces into your country.
‘Defence’ is different to ‘Invasion’, despite what Mr Putin might have you believe.
That’s nonsense. Russia chose this war, Russia chooses when it ends. You don’t abandon a nation fighting for it’s freedom and independence because it hurts your pocketbook and you have to wear a sweater indoors. If the US had your attitude in 1916 or 1940 the world would be a very different place.
Why don’t you go after the real culprits? The Green lunatics who shut down European nuclear power, and prevented gas exploration, and the German Quislings who sold out their country for financial gain through Russian gas deals.
Agreed.
But in reality, the USA also decides when this ends. And perhaps to a much lesser extent China. Putin lost control of this the moment he invaded and inevitably pulled in the US. His blunder. He must now face the consequences.
I will say this again – it’s a tragedy for Russia every bit as much as for Ukraine. But if the Russians keep picking bad leaders and won’t be honest about either history or current affairs and keep tolerating corruption, they’re porobably getting what they deserve. At some point, freedom has to be fought for. The Ukrainians care enough about this. But do the Russians ?
Spot on.
You are not an anti-war voice, you are a pro-genocide voice and everything you say clearly shows you have no idea of the politics and realities on ground in the Eastern Europe and Ukraine in particular. Instead, you rely on a prefab global worldview, making sure that the “Ukraine question” conveniently falls into its place as desired.
Th “politics on the ground” are that almost every eastern European nation fears and hates Russia.
And have done so for the last hundred years.
I’ve no idea why people keep giving you down votes…
I expect Churchill could have ended WW2 ‘at any time’ as well; but perhaps he was right not to.
You’re adopting a strictly utilitarian approach, which is very sensible in many instances. But occasionally it isn’t the best thing to do because of the law of Danegeld. Appeasement is often seen by tyrants as encouragement.
Also, some things are still worth fighting for, even if the odds are hopeless.
If there was anything that became crystal clear during the pandemic, it is that the working class doesn’t matter anymore. It is a simply a mass of humanity to control and divide. As we emerge from the pandemic and the hazy gaslighting that remains over much of the response, it is abundantly clear, power will have its way with the underclass irregardless of how bad the outcome is. If someone stands to make billions of dollars, the fate of humanity matters little. It’s a stark opinion by Fazi, and one can only hope that it is extreme, if only to spare the common man the misery of what lies ahead. I have lost faith in all our leaders and institutions – the rot is deep and the incentives are bad and no one has the moral courage to stand up for what truly matters anymore. I often thought that systems collapsing would be a rapid cataclysm but it’s more a painful, slow eroding of everything we hold dear – less like a car crash and more like a terminal diagnosis. How bad does it have to get for the average person to finally say they have had enough…..they can tolerate no more?
The working class doesn’t matter any more because the middle class is the majority and politicians have to pander for their votes. That’s how a welfare state that was supposed to provide security for the working poor became a gravy train for bourgeois guardianistas. It’s also why the left no longer wants to talk about money, preferring to engage in childish pseudo scientific fantasies.
When has the working class ever mattered, except for buying their votes with illusions?
And I fear even Georgia Meloni will be powerless to reverse the smoking ruin that neoliberalism and globalisation has wrought for us.
You act like the European nobility, sorry I meant the technocrat politicians, care about the dirty peasants, sorry I meant the working class.
Something to think about for anyone who realises that our so-called leaders may not be our true leaders; most governments of EU member countries have only relative freedom of decision. Especially larger intergovernmental and international issues, like the conflict in Ukraine and how to deal with it f.e., are decided above their paygrade, and they simply parrot those decisions and sell it to us as their own decisions, even though they often won’t even know who actually made the decisions.
In other words, most of our apparent leaders may be sleepwalking, but the actual leaders who own them and us, may not be sleepwalking at all. Maybe they actually want chaos and anarchy to occur as an opportunity to ‘save us’ from it and rebuild Europe in their image. Impossible? After what I have seen happening in the last few years, I’m not so sure anymore.
Alien lizards?
When the Green Dream turns into the Green Nightmare this winter the politics will be ugly.
If only it was just the politics.
A remarkable article. The situation described by the author is truly surreal. I’ll be interested to see if Unherd commenters provide a counterargument, with supporting evidence, showing that Europe is better prepared for this winter, and the next several winters, than the author suggests. As an American viewing this situation from afar, I can hardly believe the situation is as bad, and mismanaged, as the author suggests.
The UK government is no better.
Europe natural gas is $60/MMBTU.
US natural gas is trading at $10/MMBTU.
They were roughly the same, and both lower, 3 years ago.
Europe is paying 5 times the average price everywhere else for its most critical industrial feedstock and its most essential source of energy.
Industrial and energy production at that cost differential aren’t sustainable. So they aren’t being sustained.
I have just read Matthew Syed’s article in the UK Sunday Times where he posits that energy is the principle driver of economic growth.
The US investment in fracking has resulted in strong indigenous supplies of energy and underwrites the US economy.
Maybe Syed has a point about the correlation between energy and economic growth.
I would go further and suggest that economic growth is dependant on indigineous energy availabiilty. The UK grew dramatically with the extraction of coal and was further lifted by North Sea Oil and Gas. Now we face economic uncertainty at a time when we have turned off the North Sea Oil and Gas (becoming dependant on imported LNG), banned fracking and delayed investment in new Nuclear.
Maybe the Government should make investment in indigenous energy generation its main priority.
First, we still have and are going to use, North Sea gas, second, this government is now moving to allow fracking. I think we need a sense of perspective here, which this article and its adherents seem to have lost, or has become out of date. We adapt, which in all these cases, seems to get left out of the equation.
Yes.
If you vote for ANY renewable energy project without galactic support for fossil fuels you are digging your own (and me and my family’s) grave.
Why “maybe”? It’s a no brainier, and the same goes for food
I think it has finally woken up to this (politically) inconvenient truth.
Better late than never.
Expect screeching from the usual culprits.
Interesting to learn how much Russia has subsided the anti-fracking movement in UK over the last decade. Can’t think why…
I hope you’re right! You’d think that as demand reduces, reserves increase, green energy costs are minimal and subsidies kick in that things would improve. And yet. Even if Putin falls tomorrow, our leaders will still follow the same trajectory.
The bit about people dying, children’s futures at risk etc., is, in my view, overcooked. It relies on typical leftist assumptions about the populace’s inability to look after itself if the government can’t.
The rest of it, plant closures, weaker economies having no economic tools to help them etc., is verifiable from a number of sources. Whether the impacts of these will be as catastrophic as Fazi contends remains to be seen.
He writes from a far left perspective and therefore will be salivating at the imminent prospect of the ‘revolution’ but its hard to knock the analysis of grotesque weakness.
Truss has given fracking the green light. In Britain we have better access to gas than most of Europe from the North Sea. In theory it should be possible for us to decouple the price of our own supplies from European energy markets but I’ve not heard it being proposed anywhere.
UK fracking would also help with the balance of payments (how curious we never heard this expression for around 20 years) and as a result the strength of the pound.
Even if fracking had no effect on the price of natural gas (the laws of supply and demand not applying for certain critics), it must improve the balance of payments.
But when did facts ever apply to discussions about fracking (which has already been done at Wych Farm in Dorset) ?
I suspect you are correct.
The article has the usual thinking error of assuming that when something changes (Russian gas is sanctioned), governments and people do not change their behaviour to pursue alternatives.
That is not to say that there is not a difficult winter ahead for many Europeans (though certainly not the ruling elites who dug their people into this hole – and as many rightly note, this is 80% due to policies adopted well before Russia invaded Ukraine – that is merely the trigger event and not the main cause). But the catastrophic projections (almost always from those who will not be seriously affected) are almost certainly overstated.
This crisis is going to force much-needed changes in energy policy, thinking and behaviour in the West. And that at least is welcome.
Any talk of supply is missing the forest for the trees. The PRICE at which energy supply will have to be balanced with demand is going to debase UK, EU, and JPN currencies so hard against the dollar that the spike in dollar will cripple the global financial system (for all the countries that hold FOREX reserves in USD, which is most – something like $7.3 trillion total). Can you imagine if they all called up and asked for their reserves back at the same time to try to prop up their failing balance sheets? Currency catastrophe. The destruction of fiat currency and the end of the dollar as the global reserve.
The EU is ‘anarchy’. It does not do the ‘rule of law’. It does ‘rules’. Arbitrary regulations made and set up by and for the convenience and benefits of bureaucrats.
Thanks – that’s an interesting distinction and one I hadn’t noticed.
My only addition – the ‘rules’ only apply to some.
Very true Peter. Case in point. ECHR rulings. Most are ignored. But UK must obey, apparently.
This article is a lot of extremist hype I was born just at the end of world war 2 in 1946 shortages of everything and then around about 1947 the coldest winter for 100 years we didn’t have central neither, then my mother was left on her own we got our energy through gas and electricity coin meters in the house we put shilling coins in sometimes my mother didn’t have any money so I used a file down the side of a old half penny so it went through the slot then in 1970 we had ted heath and the three day week with energy blackouts what society has become today is made up of a lot of week needy people.
Born in winter 1947,slept in a drawer on blankets. Few photos but my dad,newly back from fighting in Burma,took one of mum holding me in a fur coat down to her ankles, standing in the snow. We all survived!
I was born in 1682. Had to pull turnips out of a frozen field with my teeth and sleep on a bed of dung and rocks. Never did me any harm.
Tell that to the young folks of today, and they won’t believe a word of it.
Luxury.
The assessment of the catastrophic consequences in this article is correct, but the diagnosis of the problem – in blaming free markets for problems caused entirely by the hijacking and corruption the markets by those who aim to distort it to suit their own agenda – is breathtakingly dishonest.
The elephant in the room that ideologues are desperately trying to ignore lest their pet political theories are dragged down with the crisis, is that there are no incentives for long-term speculation in energy markets while unaccountable trans-national institutions are trying their hardest to sabotage them.
Ostensibly this is driven by acts of imbecility like imposition of ESG to ‘phase out’ fossil fuels, but dig deeper and you find an agenda that cares little for the destruction of freedom and life so long as it aids the establishment of a globalist utopia, governed by those who have an ever tightening stranglehold on national governments and institutions, and herd populations like frightened cattle through the use of guilt and fear:
“There cannot be a lasting recovery without a global strategic framework of governance.. The more nationalism and isolationism pervade the global polity, the greater the chance that global governance loses its relevance.”- Klaus Schwab
“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth.” – Ottmar Edenhofer, UN International Panel on Climate Change Fourth Summary Lead Author
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” – Christina Figueres, executive secretary of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
It’s a category error to think that the EU cares about ordinary people – so reversing sanctions for the sake of the ordinary people is not on the radar. They are just consumers.
Reversing sanctions for the sake of Big Business is a much easier policy reversal.
In the spirit of “no hospital beds for the unvax’d” I say cut off the power of anyone showing a Ukraine flag first
Show Zelensky how much you appreciate him by eating cold tinned beans all winter.
I can do that – did it back in the 1970’s. No biggie.The consumer generation has just got much too soft. I fly a Ukrainian flag and have stickers on my car saying ‘Slava Ukraina’ because there is a profound moral issue on the table, and golly gosh, if all it takes is to eat tinned beans, I am proud to do it.
Not tinned beans.
Cold tinned beans.
Maybe I am soft, bit have tried that once. Horrible.
quite nice on hot wholemeal toast ! (over the fire) though might be a bit windy under the heaped up covers !!
Lions led by donkeys. Post modernist EU elitists are not going to survive this one. Everyone is about to choke on a big red pill.
If that’s what it takes.
‘There’s simply no moral justification for destroying the livelihoods of millions of Europeans simply to school Putin.’ The hard truth is no hand-wringing over what is morally just or not in this particularly inflamatory situation is going to change the bare geopolitical facts – Putin may be the one taking the lead in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and arguably its ultimate architect, but what matters is the Russian state is behind him for the time being, and so this has become more than simply ‘schooling Putin’ as you dismissively put it – this has become a matter of geopolitical competition between the US-led Nato and the Russian Federation over the international order with Ukraine as the pivot point. Without this grounding in mind, it is impossible to understand this conflict or see any way out of it.
We can indeed debate the finer points of morality as to how this war started, which forces on each side are culpable, and what is the most moral way to bring it to a peaceable end and avoid both further terrible destruction and death in Ukraine, the economic and social wringer Russia is putting itself through with this act of bare agression, and the awful cost-of-living wounds that are about to rupture most notably in the West but across the global economy at large. Such a debate however is all academic really – morality has little to do with the decisions being made, even if it is propped up as the chief guiding force of both ideologies – revanchist Russian imperialism and Western neoliberal imperialism.
Instead, geopolitical realism is a much safer guide to understanding and perhaps even resolving the conflict in as equitable a manner as possible, taking a more pragmatic approach as you suggest, but also understanding (as I think you may have overlooked) that the ideologies themselves have to be taken into account in the calculus of compromise. This means accepting that Russia has real geopolitical concerns with NATO, and these are not just convenient casus belli excuses as portrayed in the West, but equally it means accepting that the established rules-based international order which predominates in world politics has to be accepted by Russia and Ukraine’s sovereignty respected, the latter of which is clearly being misrepresented in Russia, the former of which is starting to look increasingly more that way. If neither compromise is reached, more war is inevitable, and more war means greater chance of escalation and even greater human suffering that it almost doesn’t bare thinking about.
Basically both the West, Russia and Ukraine in the middle need to start thinking more hard-headedly about where they believe all their moral righteousness is going to lead them in the end if they continue down an inherently invective path, with neither side willing to accept the part they have made for themselves in this terrible charade.
We are supposed to believe that 45m Brits will be in fuel poverty?, there’s only 65m to start with
I hope your other statistics make more sense
It depends how you define poverty. I’d agree the term is overused, but the ONS assessment is alarming. Genuine poverty or not, living in anxious misery about the affordability of basic resources is not a great state for an individual, country or economy to be in.
UK gas prices fell again today. The cost of the price cap will continue to fall if this continues
It is a good and quite sobering article. It is frustrating to hear here and there that we simply need to support Ukraine and that’s the path to a bright future. Well, let’s assume that the war is over. Right now. No matter who wins, nothing is really going to change. The sanctions will not be lifted on both sides. N.Stream-2 will not start pumping (as it was not pumping before Feb). Russians will be angry over lots of weapons supplied to kill their soldiers, so other “streams” will be eventually redirected to the Far East customers. The era of cheap energy is gone for a while. European production will diminish to like 20% of 2019 levels. Euro will have less and less GPD behind it and Yuan will replace it as “number two reserve currency”. Markets for EU production will be eventually lost without a chance to reenter. I almost think it’s orchestrated by Ursula FDL and others. This idiocy does not make sense to me. Just one simple question: WHY?
I think Russia could end this war by retreating to their own country.
Seen a joke on Quora today..
Will you freeze and starve for Ukraine when the weather freezes everything?
Northern Europe: we ARE winter! f**k Russia and your gas, we’ll manage.
Southern Europe: what’s winter? f**k Russia and your gas, we’ll wear trousers and long sleeves. We’ll manage.
Western Europe: we have money. f**k Russia and your gas. We’ll manage.
Central and Eastern Europe: f**k Russia! We endured cold and starvation under your rule for 50 years. We’ll do one more just to see Russia ruined. We’ll manage – with big smiles!
I think that the last part is the key insight – people totally fed up with having to look over their shoulders from generation to generation fearing what the bullying bear is up to this year,,,,,,
It is, we realize, politic de rigueur means “out of strictness” or “according to strict etiquette”; is always when you, the socialist one-world elite, embrace the foiled concepts of control to profit the few at the expense of the meritorious many, rail against the potential cure.
Decommission the cleanest most efficient power sources and their most efficient producer The US, nuclear energy, Natural Gas, and further empower tyrants for short-term profit. Really, now you sit on your fat “veranda” and frown about the poop unwashed.
45 million people in the UK face fuel poverty?
Seems unlikely given the trillions in unearned property wealth that 50+ percent of the population has acquired during the past 30 years. Maybe the government should focus it’s help on people who don’t own property?
Once i’d read that line in the article i began to see it in a different light – as propaganda. It’ll be interesting to revisit this next spring, to see how Fazi’s predictions have fared. From a UK point of view, leaving the EU and the fuel payments handouts will see the vast majority of the population and businesses come through the winter just fine.
What happens in the EU, however, is a different matter. If the consequences lead to an uprising against the Brussels bureaucracy it might just have longer-term benefits, since with those unelected elites still in positions of power the EU will only continue to decline in economic stability and influence.
How are you supposed to use the fact that the market value of your house has gone up to pay the heating bills?
Borrow against it.
And what happens when the market value goes down again? Maybe that is the point you are making and your comment is black humour.
House prices in England are not going to go down when there are a million new people coming in every year and no new houses being built.
Unearned? Says who?
I do. The equity in your house is a consequence of 20 years of government policy deliberately intended to artificially inflate asset prices in order to buy the votes of the middle class. You didn’t earn it.
The upvoting/downvoting thing is stuffed, again. Better to get rid of it if it can’t be made to work accurately.
More excitable pro-Putin rhetoric from this stooge:
“the EU’s gung-ho approach to Russia one of the main causes of the present crisis”
Translated: I want you to appease my nationalist hero, Putin.
And:
“the only voice of reason appears to be that of Hungary’s prime minister, Victor Orbán. For weeks he and other members of his government have been warning about the economic calamity facing Europe. “The attempts to weaken Russia have not succeeded,” he said recently. “By contrast, it is Europe that could be brought to its knees by brutal inflation”
Translated: Putin’s Project Fear has a new idiot.
In reality: contrary to Orban’s fawning drivel, Putin’s grip on power is shakier by the day, his rabble of drunken rapists are on the run, China and India are losing patience with him, and China is re-exporting Russian gas to the EU lol:
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/China-Is-Quietly-Reselling-Its-Excess-Russian-LNG-To-Europe.html
In any event, gas is a sunset-fuel. It’s unfortunate that it took a war of imperial aggression by the second-rate Kremlin gangsters to usher in a change of policy away from such an obsolete and politically-uncertain fuel, but it is good news that Europe is closing the doors on Russian gas – long overdue.
I am truly happy for you not having a slightest worry about your energy bills next February. Some of us are not so lucky.
As for your comment : well, Mr. Putin seems had already won this round. Good guys always win — but only in fairy tales. Besides, “good” or “bad” are realtive matters. He is good for his people I guess.
It’s like the 1920s: guess what follows?
As an outside observer to the EU project, I have to wonder when the pain is felt acutely enough for NATO to finally sue for peace. Here you have an entire globe barreling into a currency crisis (which I cannot find mention of in “reputable” circles), which is already unfolding before our very eyes (indeed, it is more readily at hand than the icy grip of winter), and nobody’s going to blink? It would be real… interesting to see actual sovereign defaults.
‘There is a deep irony that Europe’s wind turbine factories were among the first to close in the face of our growing energy crisis. Nevertheless, it goes a long way to demonstrating the fundamental flaw in the net zero project – while the harvested energy of the wind may be renewable, the technologies that do the harvesting are not. Indeed, these supposedly “green” technologies depend upon complex global supply chains powered by fossil fuels at every stage of their manufacture, transportation, deployment, maintenance, and decommissioning. But that inconvenient truth was never allowed to get in the way of the technocratic net zero fantasy – aka “the great reset,” “the green new deal,” or “the fourth industrial revolution’.https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2022/08/30/net-zero-is-dead-so-what-now/
Wow. This article unceremoniously junks the idea that Britain’s crisis is unique, caused by specifically Tory incompetence. A combination of support for climate hysteria, and support for Ukraine, is pushing Europe into years of poverty.
Very welcome that the writer presents no coherent alternative–other than that Europe is essentially a criminal conspiracy.
Apropos, Vladimir Lukyanov, the Kremlin publicist, said just before the war that Putin’s goal was to ignore Europe and make a deal with the US. The former were of no consequence.
Amusingly, Lukyanov didn’t let on that it would involve the greatest land war in Europe since 1945.
Now everyone in the Kremlin has reason to be very angry. Europe didn’t follow its assigned role in Vova’s complex, carefully crafted plan to destroy Ukro-Nazis in Ukraine.
Europeans were just supposed to roll over and comply. Instead, they are making things very difficult for Putin’s war effort. Indeed, the Ukrainians made another break-through in Kharkiv only yesterday.
Still, Vova waits patiently. He is doing this for the good of all Europe. He makes the entirely reasonable proposition of trading gas for all of Europe’s sovereignty–and permission to rid it of Latvo-Nazis, Polsko-Nazis, Anglo-Nazis, Franco-Nazis, Dano-Nazis–and eventually the ones still in Argentina.
And whatever Nazis are in Greenland.
As in 1939, this is Europe’s best chance to again break free from the chains of the past (democracy, human rights, etc.).
But if it does not grasp it with both hands, the opportunity may never come again.
Calm down guys! You all deserve it. Now you have the fruits of your labors.
I will not hide the fact that I am a former citizen of Ukraine, I left Ukraine 24 years ago, but I am for Ukraine, and not at all for the author of this article and those sufferers who do not care about 40 million crippled lives, because your own comfort is more important to you.
You yourself are the culprits of your troubles, so I don’t feel sorry for you at all.
I think to return in one of the next articles about your future sufferings and in a long commentary I will try to explain to you why it is time for you to pay for your laziness and stupidity.
See you soon, fat losers!
It seems the west (E.U. nations in particular, but also the west in general) is losing a purely economic war to Russia, because Russia possesses the one commodity ace that matters. It’s hard to visualize man’s man Putin suddenly evolving into a conciliatory, trustworthy negotiator. That leaves the west with (horrors!) a military option. Thus far, NATO has refrained from giving Ukraine certain weapons, on the ground that this might serve to widen the conflict. What if NATO were to go all in with weaponry and logistical support–enough to enable Ukraine to inflict a crushing defeat on Russian arms? Putin wouldn’t like it… he’d probably be apoplectic with fury over the failure of his invasion… but he would certainly recognize and understand it.
If Ukraine and NATO could pull this feat off quickly and decisively, Putin’s energy ace would be trumped. The harsher the winter becomes for Europe’s population, the more tempting this military option becomes.