>The topic originally was whether Russia could realistically become the main trading partner for Scandinavian countries and how unpredictability is the number o

>The topic originally was whether Russia could realistically become the main trading partner for Scandinavian countries and how unpredictability is the number one reason why it won't happen. Russia is a predictable Germany trading partner since Soviet times unless third countries get involved. You will not hear from German business that Russian side was unpredictable or irresponsible. You only hear it from third countries and politicians who actively interfere with "market forces". Russia has a fine relationship with Finland and luckily there are no middle-man between them. And as the Hanhikivi plant shows Finland is not paranoid about Russia either. >This is just Russian whataboutism, this is not about the US. No, it's a clear demonstration that Russian behavior is not unique, only the tool set is different. You don't hear much about US, EU, India, or China "unpredictability" when they apply pressure on other countries using their tool set, do you? >not long ago gas prices in neighbouring countries could differ 2-3x because of political decisions and artifical contractual limits, not any market forces Did Russia somehow prevented buying gas from other sources? But the problem was that alternatives were 5-10x more expensive. So you had either pay in cash the "fair" 3x price or pay 1x in cash and rest in non-monetary forms. Looks like a fine market to me with agents playing the cards they've got. >To this day, Russia can manipulate gas prices by reducing their throughput, since they're still the single largest provider. EU pushed for "market forces", it got them. Why are you not happy? Why are you act surprised that after you forced long term contracts to be tied to spot prices Russia does not want to supply more than it contractually obliged? It's a perfectly rational behavior for a market agent in current conditions. Especially so, when result of significant investments literally lies on the sea floor unused enduring politically motivated delays. >Literally the first search result, https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-bullying-undersea-baltic-cabl https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-bullying-undersea-baltic-cabl... And where exactly does it mention "unannounced military drills"? Even if we are to fully trust the source (Latvian minister) a Russian ship was somewhere in the region and asked over radio some nonsense, after that it simply left. But, personally, I am quite sure that this story got significantly overblown by the Latvian side since I couldn't find an independent confirmation. All coverage gets back to Latvian ministers (either foreign or energy), which are quite known for being light with Russo-phobic declarations. Now compare it to Polish boat literally ramming one of ships building Nord Stream 2 [0], Polish Navy "patrolling" [1] the same vessels, and Danish Navy "visiting" the area of the pipeline construction [2]. You may say that those claims are exaggerated or even lies, but at the very least they have photo and video confirmations, which can not be said about the Latvian story. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSJnIdbsywQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSJnIdbsywQ [1]: https://forsided.com/2021/04/01/foreign-warships-planes-submarines-in-the-area-of-nord-stream-2-gas-pipeline/ https://forsided.com/2021/04/01/foreign-warships-planes-subm... [2]: https://en.news-front.info/2021/06/30/danish-navy-monitors-completion-of-nord-stream-2/ https://en.news-front.info/2021/06/30/danish-navy-monitors-c...