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"Why the West is reluctant to deny Russian banks access to SWIFT" Because Europe is dependent on Russian gas (thanks to an ill thought out denuclearization dri
by yyyk 5y ago
"Why the West is reluctant to deny Russian banks access to SWIFT"
Because Europe is dependent on Russian gas (thanks to an ill thought out denuclearization drive), and both Europe and US governments prefer their economic and electoral interests over Ukraine or the international order. The rest of the article are really silly excuses (Russia is a relatively small economy and can't meaningfully hurt the dollar etc.).
- dillondoyle 5y agoJust another reason green energy & climate change can't be ignored. I'm more of a hawk on CCP and Russia But I'm a mega super hawk when it comes to spending painfully NOW to stand a chance against the worst of the worst of climate change.
- yrgulation 5y agoNot the whole of europe tho. Its mainly germany.
- riskneutral 5y agoIt is the whole of Europe: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/16/business/eu-gas-russia/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/16/business/eu-gas-russia/ind...
- yrgulation 5y agoYes and the largest is germany, hence “mainly”.
- number6 5y agoJust fill the tanks and then cut off swift: oh we would habe paid if only we could...
- Scarblac 5y agoThere has been less gas flowing from Russia to Europe for months now, leading to large price spikes. In hindsight that was clearly preparation for this war - the tanks are the opposite of filled.
- thg 5y agoGazprom fulfilled their contractual obligations. Putin being responsible for our MBAs gambling on falling prices and not making long-term contracts just so he has an easier time invading Ukraine? That's stretching it so thin that it's utter non-sense.
- phatfish 5y agoExcept they were happy to send gas above the "contractual obligations" previous to the ramp up to invading Ukraine. This was clearly planned as a way to exert more pressure on NATO allies. It's like falling out with IT support. Suddenly your ticket to fix a printer takes 2 days, rather than 5 minutes because that is the "SLA".
- krisoft 5y agoAnd then? Countries exist on a larger timescale than the average dine and dasher. How big of a tank this should be in your opinion to work?
- number6 5y agoI guess we can work something out with the president that follows Putin. Maybe the oligarchs overthrow Putin after losing their assets. Or the gas ships from the US will be there in the next month. Russia is not the only one who sells gas. Just the lowest bidder
- cdiddy2 5y agoItaly is also dependent and didn't want to sanction russia in this way
- yrgulation 5y agoWell there will be some damage to eu countries. East europe accounts for 15% of all german exports, being the largest market, should they start playing the sanctions game as the eu seems to enjoy whenever someone is out of line? Basically buying russia’s gas means financing a potential war against nato member states.
- Al-Khwarizmi 5y agoWe are all connected. In Spain we get no gas from Russia (it comes mainly from Algeria), but there are already news that we will send gas up north to help Northern European countries that may experience outages.
- iso1631 5y agoGreece gets half its gas from Russia Any shutdown would increase gas prices worldwide. Just because the UK doesn't use Russian gas direct, it does buy gas on the open market, when Germany can't buy it for €1 per unit from Russia, they'll pay €1.20 from the UK (which has 50% domestic production, Norway having most of the rest), pushing prices up for the UK and other countries despite not using Russian gas direct. The failure here was the inability to boost nuclear and renewable sources in Europe over the last 8 years to reduce reliance on Russia.
- sgc 5y agoThe anti-nuclear push in the last few years in Europe has been extremely short-sighted, and undoubtedly helped make Russia's decision to attack Ukraine easier.
- croes 5y agoThe opposite is true, nuclear energy has lits of problems in the long run. Many french reactors are shut down because of damages and the US ones have a problem with fake parts. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/counterfeit-parts-present-many-us-nuclear-power-plants-inspector-general-2022-02-10/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/counterfeit-parts-pr...
- atlantas 5y agoGermany shutting down their most reliable source of clean energy, nuclear energy, is an incredible self own. Hopefully now they will reverse that and quickly for all our sake.
- SiempreViernes 5y agoIn the vain hope that it'll prevent at least _some_ of the bullshit on this issue, here's actual data on the import dependency of European countries from Eurostat: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=File:Energy_imports_dependency,_2010_and_2020_(%25).png https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
- arcbyte 5y agoIt's this 75%. Europe needs gas because it's still winter and therefore needs the ability to pay Russia for it. The next biggest reason is probably just keeping arrows in the quiver. Why exhaust all sanction options up front and then be unable to influence in the future? Keeping the SWIFT sanction option keeps the ability to influence Russia in the future. Lastly, a minor component is all of the CIPS and other reasons people bring up.
- lazide 5y agoAlso, politically most of Europe seems to have worked itself into a corner where the only politically tenable power source that works well regardless of the weather (which is also when most of Europe has peak power demands) is unbuildable and very expensive (nuclear) or puts them at the mercy of Russia and very expensive (nat gas/fossil fuels)
- colechristensen 5y agoInstead of sanctions, Germany could break ground on fifty nuclear power plants tomorrow. That seems like it might actually give Russia pause.
- elzbardico 5y ago50 nuclear plants are neither cheap or fast to be built. I don't even know if we have the supply chain in the whole world and the technical man power to build 50 nuclear plants at the same time.
- native_samples 5y agoDefinitely do not. There are only two companies in the world with the ability to forge the steel needed for reactor hulls, iirc. One is in Japan and has a massive backlog of orders. The other? It's Russian.
- thrashh 5y agoNot to mention Germany had just decided to shut down all of their reactors, following Fukushima.
- croes 5y agoIll thought denuclearization? They are expensive and unsafe especially if you think about sabotage, not to mention the most recent problem with reactors. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/counterfeit-parts-present-many-us-nuclear-power-plants-inspector-general-2022-02-10/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/counterfeit-parts-pr...
- WithinReason 5y agoI actually wonder if the anti-nuclear sentiment in the EU might have been partly Russia's doing, we know how much they like to influence other countries' public opinion. Getting Germany to turn off its nuclear reactors to rely more heavily on Russian gas before an invasion of Ukraine would make a lot of tactical sense.
- deutschewelle 5y agoHere in Germany many small independent journalists were able to discover the industrial figures regularly interacting/receiving gifts, trips, stock certificates from Rosneft executives and oligarchs who are essentially actors for Russian government. but still people seem genuinely shocked and continue to fall back on their myopic cold war view of the geopolitical european landscape by their mainstream media (without any suspicion or question of the narrative) it seems largely the result of being separated by the Atlantic ocean and a bulk of European countries that the average American cannot name. Already I can see people from Poland and EU countries furiously downvoting and flagging my comments as "Russian Propaganda" None of this is a surprise to us here in Germany, our relationship with Russia might be shocking to someone sitting in front of FOX or ABC news. Even more shocking might be how the German elite and the working class view the Ukraine situation. To them, Ukraine was a source of worry due to its cheap labor wages and proximity to Russia would create a competing industrial center. Even more outrageous might be how many in Germany are actually in favor of Russia's actions to take Ukraine away from EU/NATO. It's funny to me how people still think EU can last like this.
- hope693 5y agoHey, i too am a german and can confirm, that ur comment about our politic view is completly wrong. Even former kanzlerin Angela Merkel said, that we need to stoo putin now. So please stop activly missinforming people
- deutschewelle 5y agoI see you just created another nick just to pretend to be german. Oh this is quite hilarious
- LatteLazy 5y agoDenuclearization might not have helped, but we've been reliant on Russian gas a lot longer than the post Fukushima changes...
- rr808 5y agoUSA meanwhile 10% of oil imports are from Russia - more than from Saudi. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_m.htm https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0...
- chasd00 5y agonow that oil is so expensive shouldn't all the fracking wells come back online? i thought for sure there was a price ceiling on a barrel of oil at around $75. Maybe it happened too fast to bring that capacity back online?
- graphpercolator 5y agoFor sure. $100 dollar oil makes a ton of supply profitable. It just won't be here tomorrow though.
- dghughes 5y agoAnd 20% from Canada, it's dirty oil but I bet it could be bumped to 30%.
- oh_sigh 5y agoThat's a bit different though. Germany is mostly importing finished products (natgas) from Russia. This is like Russia sending bread to Germany and Germany is eating the bread. Whereas Russia is sending the US unfinished products (crude). The US is then refining the crude and selling it to someone else. This is like Russia sending wheat to the US, the US making bread out of it, and then selling the bread. It's much easier to stop baking and selling bread than it is to stop eating bread (if that is all you're eating).
- marcosdumay 5y agoI really hope all of Europe gets serious about reducing their fossil fuel consumption now that it's a short term existential threat.
- munificent 5y ago> both Europe and US governments prefer their economic and electoral interests over Ukraine or the international order. This is a natural consequence of democracy. By design, leaders of a country can't do something their voters don't agree with.
- useFAR 5y ago>This is a natural consequence of democracy. By design, leaders of a country can't do something their voters don't agree with. LOL. That is not how bureaucracy works. Most of the key positions, that have power are not voted in. Most democraties does not vote president into his position, like it is done in US. So, it has nothing to do with democracy, but bureaucracy. And bureaucracy does not have allegiance to voters, but only to their own survival. And as long as democratic society is no threat to bureaucracy, it has no reasons to stick out and do something on their own initiative.
- cottager2 5y agoIt wasn’t I’ll-thought out. It was an intention decision by the chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Immediately after leaving the chancellorship, he went to work for Gazprom and oversees Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schröder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schröder
- audunw 5y ago> thanks to an ill thought out denuclearization drive It has nothing to do with this. Keeping nuclear power around would help a bit when it comes to electricity in particular, but natural gas is also used for heating and industry, where nuclear power just isn't a direct replacement. Since most reactors are old, and would need expensive refurbishment to continue using them. It wasn't so much a choice between not denuclearizing and using gas. It was between a huge and expensive investment in mostly new nuclear capacity, vs a combination of new renewable energy and inexpensive natural gas. Since natural gas is easier to combine with renewables, and easier to gradually phase out as renewables became more mature, there was some rationality behind the decision. Maximizing investments in renewables is probably the most important thing to do, because it's easier and faster to scale, and easier to get started with in developing countries which will be so important to avoiding increased emissions, so getting the costs down on those has huge benefits. That said, yes, it was dumb making Europe dependent on Russian gas. I guess there was some hope that this would keep Russia in check through economic ties, but this has now obviously been proven wrong.