- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
- world@lemmy.world
- globalnews@lemmy.zip
- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
- world@lemmy.world
- globalnews@lemmy.zip
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Imagine how fast Russia would surrender, if the EU could just stop buying their fucking oil and gas for a minute?
The EU from April banned Russian LNG imports under short-term contracts, but imports under long-term contracts can continue until January 1, 2027.
Let’s see
It’s really interesting that all the official declarations coming out of the EU about this…going all the way back to the beginning of the war…have all stated that they are phasing out or cancelling their dependency on Russian oil. But then, six months later, all the independent reports seem to indicate the exact opposite is actually happening.
It’s a broken record, just repeating the same line over and over, but never actually getting past that point.
You understand the EU is a humongous entity with a load of moving parts and actually a democracy without a dictator Donny? It takes time to coordinate you know?
Wanna do something? Join solar punk, get a few panels and some storage. Buy and electric bike, reduce power usage. Plant a few trees Every bit helps.
This isn’t a matter of “getting all the parts moving”…it’s a matter of even starting to move in the direction they say they are.
It’s like watching an alcoholic saying they’re going to quit this time, for real…and then watching them drink even more the next day.
You know your example works very well. An alcoholic will die if he quits cold turkey is he is really addicted. The EU member states are quite addicted to Russian energy and finding alternatives will take some pain. Its a multi step process like quitting addiction is.
You understand the EU is a humongous entity
Unless it is about chat control, then they quickly find solutions.
According to fightchatcontrol.eu they first proposed chat control in 2022.
It was temporary, and they quickly found a solution to continue it. That mental agility could be applied to energy supplies, too.
https://feddit.org/post/32613173
EU parliament lets Meta and Google keep scanning users’ messages, in a win for ‘Chat Control’ backers. What it means – and why it matters
That has been backdoored, which happens in the US daily. Its angering a lot of people and I hope it won’t stand. This has some Donny qualities and the responsible CSU politician will hopefully get a beating for that.
Imagine how fast Russia would surrender, if the EU could just stop buying their fucking oil and gas for a minute?
China has said that they cannot allow Russia to lose. It could be for a reason:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_History
China had a trillion trade surplus. They can finance Russia longer than the EU can finance Ukraine.
Would Russia accept that, though? China would literally own them.
Besides, China doesn’t have the capacity to process or even store that much oil and gas. As much as they’re buying right now, they would have to double it to cover the loss of the EU market…and they are nowhere near capable of accepting that much. Long before they managed to scale up their capacity to meet that supply, Russia would either have to withdraw from Ukraine or go bankrupt.
Would Russia accept that, though? China would literally own them.
That’s imperialist thinking. We ascribe it to Russia, but let’s not forget that Putin was KGB. They could do a communist revival, this time with China as the more powerful partner.
But:
Besides, China doesn’t have the capacity to process or even store that much oil and gas.
China doesn’t have to buy gas. They can finance Russia directly. If Russia is beaten and shifts to the West, China has a serious security problem. So maybe China just hands over money.
That’s a lot of very bad economics you’re talking about. Right now, Russia has been dumping money into a deepening hole, and getting nothing back…and their economy is starting to collapse.
What you’re suggesting is that China starts dumping money into that exact same hole, and getting the exact same nothing back. China will soon find its own economy in the same situation that Russia is in. Backing Russia unconditionally like that, will eventually become an anchor dragging them down. It is not sustainable, even for a country like China.
The West is equally dumping money. Whoever wins will control Asia and its resources, according to the above linked strategy.
That’s true. The difference is, the West is also making money from it.
In which way? Right now money is shifted from the EU to the US and Ukraine is accumulating dept. The West, in total, doesn’t make money, only the weapon manufacturers
Last month the EU made up 11% of Russia fossil fuel purchases. The honest answer is that Russia is not going to surrender, if those purchases stop.
Except, they’re already hemorrhaging funds right now. The entire economy is already running on debt, and now their oil and gas production has been almost cut in half. Losing another 11% would be devastating.
But, I agree they are not going to surrender. Putin will drive the country into bankruptcy before he admits defeat. The same stubborn pride led to the fall of the Soviet Union. Then it was Afghanistan, and this time Ukraine.
https://www.russiafossiltracker.com/
That are Russian oil exports. So the volume has not changed much over the years and production certainly has not halved. They just get paid less for the oil. However as you can clearly see a 11% drop in sales to the EU, would probably just be replaced by some other customer. They pay less, but Russia will not have a 11% drop in fossil fuel profits.
This is not to say sanctions do not work. However right now, the key is keeping up sanctions and supporting Ukraines long range drone campaign. Not getting spare parts for refineries makes those much more effective.
Maybe it’s time for some more Ukrainian sanctions on Russian exports?
I was curious about this article so I did some digging. I learned a lot about gas imports and I’d like to share it with you.
First, this article and its numbers are factually correct. However, it lacks context ant thus paints a picture that’s different from reality.
About gas imports in general:
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Natural gas is imported in two ways: in its natural gaseous form by gas pipelines and in liquid form (LNG = liquified natural gas) by LNG ships.
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LNG is much denser than the gas in its natural state, but also much more difficult to make. The natural gas needs to be chilled to below -161 °C (-258 °F) to become liquid. It is then transported by LNG ships. At its destination, it needs to be regasified to become natural gas again.
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As import of natural gas via pipelines is much easier, import contracts tend to be short(er)-term. The much more complicated process of making and transporting LNG leads to long(er)-term import contracts to allow economic viability and stability for all involved parties.
About gas imports into the EU from Russia:
- Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2022, the total amount of EU gas imports (natural gas via pipelines + LNG transported via ships and then regassified) from Russia has decreased significantly. Here are the imported amounts from Russia per year (in billion cubic meters = bcm):
- 2019: 203 bcm (186 bcm pipeline gas, 17 bcm LNG)
- 2020: 162 bcm (148 bcm pipeline gas, 14 bcm LNG)
- 2021: 157 bcm (144 bcm pipeline gas, 13 bcm LNG)
- 2022: 83 bcm (65 bcm pipeline gas, 18 bcm LNG)
- 2023: 46 bcm (27 bcm pipeline gas, 19 bcm LNG)
- 2024: 54 bcm (33 bcm pipeline gas, 21 bcm LNG)
- 2025: 38 bcm (18 bcm pipeline gas, 20 bcm LNG)
- 2026 (first half): 22 bcm (9 bcm pipeline gas, 13 bcm LNG)
- The Yamal facility in Russia is owned by different parties, thus financial interests are diverse:
- 50.1% belong to the Russian natural gas producer Novatek
- 20% belong to the French company Total Energies
- 20% belong to the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC)
- 9.9% belong to the Chinese ‘Silk Road’ fund.
- The EU put sanctions on importing gas from Russia. However, contracts for gas imports are legal agreements with repercussions if contracts are breached. Thus, abrupt total stop of importing gas in whichever form would lead to enormous penalty payments for breach of contract. Therefore, the EU put transitional periods in place so long-term contracts can be fulfilled while other sources for gas can be established.
- Before 2022, out of 100% of imported Russian gas more than 90% came in its natural form via pipelines, so less than 10% came as LNG. As pipeline gas contracts are short(er)-term and also made up the majority of imports, the EU went to cut those first. In fact, out of 4 natural gas pipelines from Russia to the EU (Nordstream, Turkstream, Ukraine Transit and Yamal natural gas), only Turkstream still delivers to Europe. The long(er)-term LNG contracts are still in place, thus LNG imports remained stable over the years, yet ending on January 1, 2027 as per the article.
So yes, the article states facts. That said, the total amount of gas imports from Russia has gone down by roughly 75% when comparing the pre-war to the post-war period, and it will decline further when the LNG import ban becomes effective on Jan 1, 2027. As per the article, pipeline imports from Russia are banned from September 2027. So it’s not like the EU keeps happily buying Russian gas in droves as if nothing happened. Imports have already been reduced massively and will seize in 2027. Is this ideal? No. But this is the economic reality.
The article:
While factually correct, I find the article misleading when it states that “(…) Russian pipeline gas [imports] increased 7% year-on-year in January to May 2026, while Russian LNG imports rose by 11%, (…)”. Yes, this is factually true as far as I can confirm it with the data I have. In Q1+Q2 2025, 8.3 bcm of pipeline gas were imported, in Q1+Q2 2026, 8.7 bcm were imported via pipeline. In in the same quarters of 2024 it was 15.8 bcm, 2023 it was 11.3 bcm, 2022 it was 48.4 bcm and so on. Before the war it was between 71 bcm and 94 bcm. In my opinion, picking these specific periods in 2025 and 2026 and stating percentages instead of total amounts is, while factually correct, questionable.
In a similar fashion, yes, LNG imports also have risen, even by more than 11% according to my data. The gas storage is quite low in the EU right now (lower than in the last 4 years at this time of year) and LNG shipments from the middle east are questionable right now due to the situation at the Strait of Hormuz. With LNG imports from Russia being banned by the end of this year, the EU countries will naturally ramp up their LNG imports, also from Russia, and not only because contracts still need to be fulfilled. Thus, yes, current LNG import from Russia is at a “record level”, but pipeline gas import has decreased massively in the last years, thus overall gas imports from Russia are down. Since LNG imports always only made up less than 10% of the total gas imports from Russia, a “record level of LNG” is still a low overall amount of gas.
I recommend to read this article, it was my data source. It has interactive diagrams, also all data can be downloaded as XLSX/CSV files for further analysis. Very interesting insight.
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The Ukraine war would have played our diffetently had Europe reduced its reliance on fossiel fuels decades ago. The continent is paying for its short-sightedness.
Why would Russia react differently knowing that the majority of Europeans are brain-washed idiots easily manipulated by bots.
Russia sells <10% of their (already deminished, too) exports to Europe, yet an idiotic article without any actual references makes you believe that Europe is failing and has to be blamed. Sanctions totally demolished Russian imports, yet for years we get articles hallucinating how the import increases in neighbouring countries obviously circumvent those sanctions - even when in reality those increases make up less than 1% in total of what Russia lost, so the actual story should have been that they are 99%+ effective.
It’s always the same pattern: “Look, big number! Be angry!! Europe bad!!!” And it works -as can be seen by all the comments here- every single time. Or did you actually stop one second to check those numbers in relation to former imports? Or in relation to Russia’s output? Or did you even notice that the article very much avoids to give any reference for their numbers in the first place?
Being obviously unable to annex Ukraine, not even in the planned few days but at all, did not stop them from continuing. But losing about 5% of their already failing economy that is now basically tailored to producing weapons for the war exclusively would totally have made them stop. Sure…
You seem to be putting words in my mouth, ie I don’t think sanctions failed, so I’m going to ignore the conclusions you make from that.
A breakdown of my comment :
The war would have played differently if dedaces ago, ie BEFORE the start of the war, european countries had reduced their reliance on fossiel fuel.
In 2020, the EU was Russia’s biggest trading partners, and fossil fuels were a large chunk of EU import. It took years of sanctions, of setting up alternative energy import deals, and of electrification efforts, to get a points where Russia-EU trades are a small parts of today’s total trades.
During those 4 years, Ukraine severely suffered from Russian’s invasion, and Russia was cashing in on energy export to the EU. Less export and less revenue from exports would have it more difficult for Russia to finance war, and easier for the EU to quickly sanctions Russia.
So yes, the EU’s energy policy was bad for some time, because of its members’ reliance on fossil fuel, and overreliance on Russia as energy provider. It’s definitely improving, better late than never. It’s clearly not as simple as “EU bad”, the union is doing a great deal to sanction Russia and support Ukraine.
On the one hand I hope for a smoking accident. On the other it could upset a lot of people in Europe.
On second thought: Let’s go with the smoking accident.
