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2.24.22
If you walk the streets of Moscow, you will eventually smell the faint odor of gasoline. It’s as ever-present in the air around Russia’s capital as it is central to the country’s economy, infrastructure and geopolitical posture. Russian President Vladimir Putin has spelled out a nationalist rationale for his country’s military incursion into Ukraine, but it is primarily about protecting Moscow’s energy interests. To understand the Kremlin’s motivations in regard to its smaller, and relatively impoverished, neighbor, the key fact to know is that Russia supplies 40% of Europe’s heating-fuel supplies — namely, natural gas. To get it there, Russia relies mostly on two aging pipeline networks, one of which runs through Belarus and the other through Ukraine. For this, Russia pays Ukraine around $2 billion a year in transit fees. Russia is a petrostate and relies on oil and natural-gas sales for about 60% of its export revenue and 40% of its total budget expenditures. Any crimp on Russia’s ability to access the European market is a threat to its economic security. In my three years covering Russia, I watched as the country slowly withdrew into itself after Putin returned to office for what was then his third term as president.Gone were prior efforts to intertwine Russia’s economy and the global system and encourage foreign investment.
Domestically, Putin has sold the invasion of Ukraine on purely nationalistic grounds — even going so far this weekend as to dismiss Ukraine’s history as an independent country as a falsehood. While Ukrainians and Russians share religions and ethnicities, they speak different, albeit similar, languages, even as there are pockets of native Russian speakers in some Ukrainian regions, as there are in other former Soviet republics. And while Russians have seen their quality of life improve awash in petro-rubles in the decades under Putin’s rule, Ukrainians have been mired in poverty and bogged down by misrule. While it is no wonder many Ukrainians yearn to be unmoored from their bigger, imperialist neighbor, for Putin and his cohort of oligarchs Ukrainian self-determination is not really on the table. Not when it puts at risk the flow of money that has kept them in power.
I enjoyed you analysis. I want to add that even before Putin grabbed power "Russia has long expressed warnings that NATO’s expansionism could trigger war;I’m a former Moscow correspondent. Don’t let Vladimir Putin fool you: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is only about one thing.
I respecfully disagree on energy transit being the main reason Putin is invading Ukraine. Although there is a gas transit deal in place that runs from 2020-2024 and pays Ukraine ~7.2 billion, Russia's Nordstream-2 pipeline is already connected to Germany and only awaited German certification to begin operations (at most another two months). The entire purpose of NS-2 was to loop around Ukraine so it could be avoided altogether after the current gas transit contract expires in 2024. With Putin's invasion of Ukraine however, the German government has now said NS-2 will not come online. Perhaps never. If I was in Ukraine, I might make a it a point to destroy as much of the gas transit infrastructure as possible, severely putting a crimp in Russia's future gas profits.
Th greater truth is that Russia is a petro-state ruled by something akin to a mafia family (the oligarchs and the siloviki). Only a decade earlier Ukrainians had looked across the border at neighboring Poland and were amazed at the progress they saw since their neighbor had joined the European Union and NATO aliance. Ukrainians from the far west of the country could actually cross the border in the morning, work in Poland, and then return at night to their homes in Ukraine. The pay was much better. Poland was much better. Free and well-off comparatively speaking. In 2013 when former president Viktor Yanukovych broke a campaign promise to apply for European Union membership, that was the final straw and it birthed the Euromaidan revolution. Putin is terrified that the Russian people will begin looking across the border and see a neighbor with free and fair elections, a neighbor combatting corruption, and a neighbor with increasing ties to the EU and NATO. In the minds of Putin and his criminal cabal, such a Ukraine would be an existential threat, not to Russia per se, but to the criminal mafia that rules Russia. A Euromaidan revolution across Russia would be the undoing of the Putin dictatorship. This is the main reason why Putin ordered the Russian military over the Ukraine border ... self-preservation. The Russian people must not even get a whiff of true democracy and freedom.
We must not listen to Putin when he says genocide.I’m a former Moscow correspondent. Don’t let Vladimir Putin fool you: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is only about one thing.
I respecfully disagree on energy transit being the main reason Putin is invading Ukraine. Although there is a gas transit deal in place that runs from 2020-2024 and pays Ukraine ~7.2 billion, Russia's Nordstream-2 pipeline is already connected to Germany and only awaited German certification to begin operations (at most another two months). The entire purpose of NS-2 was to loop around Ukraine so it could be avoided altogether after the current gas transit contract expires in 2024. With Putin's invasion of Ukraine however, the German government has now said NS-2 will not come online. Perhaps never. If I was in Ukraine, I might make a it a point to destroy as much of the gas transit infrastructure as possible, severely putting a crimp in Russia's future gas profits.
Th greater truth is that Russia is a petro-state ruled by something akin to a mafia family (the oligarchs and the siloviki). Only a decade earlier Ukrainians had looked across the border at neighboring Poland and were amazed at the progress they saw since their neighbor had joined the European Union and NATO aliance. Ukrainians from the far west of the country could actually cross the border in the morning, work in Poland, and then return at night to their homes in Ukraine. The pay was much better. Poland was much better. Free and well-off comparatively speaking. In 2013 when former president Viktor Yanukovych broke a campaign promise to apply for European Union membership, that was the final straw and it birthed the Euromaidan revolution. Putin is terrified that the Russian people will begin looking across the border and see a neighbor with free and fair elections, a neighbor combatting corruption, and a neighbor with increasing ties to the EU and NATO. In the minds of Putin and his criminal cabal, such a Ukraine would be an existential threat, not to Russia per se, but to the criminal mafia that rules Russia. A Euromaidan revolution across Russia would be the undoing of the Putin dictatorship. This is the main reason why Putin ordered the Russian military over the Ukraine border ... self-preservation. The Russian people must not even get a whiff of true democracy and freedom.
We must not listen to Putin when he says genocide.
Putin and his thugs can't have Democracy and Freedom next door?
Sanction the ****er belly up.
With the benefit of hindsight, tell us exactly what should’ve been done insteadBelly-up sanctioning is something that should have started long ago. Maybe Obama couldn't get enough support from the world back when Russia invaded and took control of Ukraine's Crimea. Or when Putin slapped Georgia around. Or when Hitler did what he did. That these idiots can't understand history repeating itself is beyond the beyond. They let Putin get away with so much, Europe and the US allowed Putin to put everything in motion with no obstruction of any consequence to Putin.
With the benefit of hindsight, tell us exactly what should’ve been done instead
Well at this point, people know that Russia has been up to nothing but oppression and bloodshed, and that Putin is only trying to preserve his culture of oppression and checkbook.Belly-up sanctioning is something that should have started long ago. Maybe Obama couldn't get enough support from the world back when Russia invaded and took control of Ukraine's Crimea. Or when Putin slapped Georgia around. Or when Hitler did what he did. That these idiots can't understand history repeating itself is beyond the beyond. They let Putin get away with so much, Europe and the US allowed Putin to put everything in motion with no obstruction of any consequence to Putin.
and done what, specifically, in response?Seeing who Putin really was (one needed only to see how he came to power), Europe/NATO should have taken the Putin regime far more seriously.
maybe i am slow, but i have not seen anyone identify the actions the NATO partners should have taken other than the ones that were taken: increasing/defining the contribution of each NATO partner and remaining vigilant to the compact to defend a threat to any other NATO partnerThe troubling signs were all there, Russia modernizing its military, Georgia, Crimea, Russia building up its hard currency reserves, his assassinations on foreign soil, the historical revisionisms of Putin, and his increasingly bellicose statements/demands. The Europeans ignored all of this (and also their increasing energy dependence on Moscow) and four years of Trrump almost destroyed NATO.
And here we are.
With the benefit of hindsight, tell us exactly what should’ve been done instead
Well at this point, people know that Russia has been up to nothing but oppression and bloodshed, and that Putin is only trying to preserve his culture of oppression and checkbook.
ok, i'll play alongWhat we should have been done is what we're doing now. It doesn't require hindsight to see that, when it started to happen under Putin, we already had the previous hindsight of Hitler in Europe, and that Putin was repeating it. Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, though it lasted only for some number of days. It gave Putin a template of using separatists, et al, breaking all agreements and lying to justify invasion. Putin did the same thing when invading Ukraine/Crimea in 2014 and is using the same template invading the whole of Ukraine now. One doesn't need great vision to see that.
I respecfully disagree on energy transit being the main reason Putin is invading Ukraine.
ok, i'll play along
what is it that we are doing now that we should have known to do before?
If you're really a former Moscow correspondent, I have a request.Seeing who Putin really was (one needed only to see how he came to power), Europe/NATO should have taken the Putin regime far more seriously. The troubling signs were all there, Russia modernizing its military, Georgia, Crimea, Russia building up its hard currency reserves, his assassinations on foreign soil, the historical revisionisms of Putin, and his increasingly bellicose statements/demands. The Europeans ignored all of this (and also their increasing energy dependence on Moscow) and four years of Trrump almost destroyed NATO.
And here we are.
If you're really a former Moscow correspondent, I have a request.
... a whiff of true democracy and freedom.
Interesting.
Elections in Russia are highly rigged.
Sure, but the USG isn't an example of "true democracy and freedom" and has a horrible 'foreign policy' record along those lines.
was the claim of self determination a valid one of the people of crimea? let's look at poll results after the annexation by russia:The major sanctions against Russia, incl against the oligarchs, should have been started after Russia took Crimea.
A comprehensive poll released on 8 May 2014 by the Pew Research Centre surveyed local opinions on the annexation.[294] Despite international criticism of 16 March referendum on Crimean status, 91% of those Crimeans polled thought that the vote was free and fair, and 88% said that the Ukrainian government should recognise the results.[294]
exactly when was it obvious putin was going to invade?Sending more armament and supplies to Ukraine when it became obvious Putin was going to invade, though we could have started a trickle soon after the Russian annexation of Crimea.
it absolutely IS hindsightNow, we're scrambling like the Keystone Cops because we didn't get them the arms, and supplies, they needed sooner. What I don't know is if there was enough Euro and world backing to make that happen. This isn't "hindsight".
you are so prescient about the failed actions in world affairs, tell us where the next hot spot is going to be and what actions should be undertaken NOW in that location - and whyThis is recognizing the continuance of an established pattern that reflects history repeating itself. You're the one that is "playing along", not me. If you still can't see the obvious or are not interested in a respective debate of the points I've made, you don't have to "play along" any longer.
As far as Europe is concerned? Secured energy supplies which were not dependent on cheap Russian exports. We're facing huge hikes in domestic energy costs; 50% next month with further increases anticipated later in the year. This will leave many elderly, poor and vulnerable people with a stark choice; heat or eat.ok, i'll play along
what is it that we are doing now that we should have known to do before?
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