Not "everybody", those who has an interest in doing so, number one being the USA (including commercial interests).

Gas is still a hot commodity in the world and Russia will sell it, anyway, and maybe still to Germany as they've announced they were restoring normal gas flow through Poland to Germany.

Now, the good general point that one would have hoped all countries understood by now is: Don't become too dependent on a single supplier for anything, especially energy.

Poland in particular knew exactly what would happen. And it did. They were disregarded as Russophobes with legacy baggage. Turns out they had valid reasons all along, the west just thought that they can trade around those issues, but they failed to understand that Putin does not think like a trader. He thinks like a dictator.

to clarify, "thinking like a trader" means Putin ought to tolerate continued NATO expansion, with American missiles placed on Russia's front porch, just because the west is a buyer of Russian gas?

The western politicians and the public acting surprised after ignoring all the warning signs all these years is truly amazing to watch.

Russia is literally surrounded by NATO in Kaliningrad and I’ve only seen it mentioned once somewhere on Twitter, and not by Russians. This is Russian propaganda to make westerners feel guilty and blame their politicians.

Even Russia itself is "surrounded" only because they threaten the countries around them and NATO is a defensive force to protect those adjoining countries. The only reason not to join NATO is the possible and totally inappropriate Kremlin response.

Saying "look at the map, NATO surrounds Russia" is sort of akin to looking at a map of city lights on the earth and calling it a heat map of murders. Not the greatest analogy, but hopefully gets the point across.

Interestingly, Kaliningrad is also brought up every single time in order to dismiss the argument raised in the parent comment. I wouldn't call your comment US propaganda because it's such a throw-around these days that one could automatically use it to dismiss people that don't share your view.

The crucial difference, in case is not clear, is that a missile placed in Ukraine would hit Moscow, the capital of Russia, in minutes. This is much more threatening to core Russia interests and Putin would not live with it.

Before rushing to putting all the blame on Russia just because "Putin-bad": I would strongly encourage people who are interested to know more to watch the following talks, from ages ago, given at reputable US universities because let's be honest, none of us is geopolitical historian two weeks ago on this topic so why don't we all do a bit more research.

[1] A good overview of the history, 7 years ago from a talk @ U Chicago. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4)

[2] Another one from a talk @ Yale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ

Kaliningrad has also been 'purged' of its German population. There are no Germans in Kaliningrad today.

In Crimea and in some parts of Donbas the inhabitants identify as Russian.

> The crucial difference, in case is not clear, is that a missile placed in Ukraine would hit Moscow, the capital of Russia, in minutes. This is much more threatening to core Russia interests and Putin would not live with it.

So what? So could one from Latvia or Estonia. (Not to mention Leningrad.) So you're saying that justifies him invading and subjugating those countries too, aren't you?

Somehow this Russian propaganda has been parroted by every Western expert to the left of Hitler for the last couple of decades. Putin is clearly playing the long game.

I heard many of these arguments along the lines of "NATO is responsible for the war in Ukraine because they shouldn't expand" - like prof. John Mearsheimer's famous video.

The point is, these experts may understand geopolitics, but they don't understand people. These countries don't join NATO because the USA pushes them or because "NATO wants" to expand. They do it because they're afraid of an aggressive state with a history of offensive wars. They don't want to became Putin's vassals like Belarussians who recently tried to decide about themselves and met with violent terror. So yes, in the mind of Putin it's the fault of NATO, but it is a very sick point of view.

in bulgaria there is a saying: only nato can save you from nato

you are in misunderstanding why countries join the alliance

I don't know about bulgaria, but this is absolutely, categorically not true in the Baltics and in Poland. The primary motivation is to not become a russian puppet state... again.

> These countries don't join NATO because the USA pushes them or because "NATO wants" to expand.

Of course smaller countries with less security guarantees want to join NATO! It's the most powerful military pact and once you are in you can go around punching up against much larger countries! Who wouldn't want to?

Even Russia wanted to join NATO, an idea floated after WWII when the Russians fought against the Nazis alongside the allied forces. Of course that was dismissed as a pipe-dream because the existence of NATO was to contain Russia to the east.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations#...

> Of course that was dismissed as a pipe-dream because the existence of NATO was to contain Russia to the east.

Ironically, you have just confirmed what Russia believes justifies its actions in Ukraine.

not trying to "confirm" anything here... if you actually look at any of Putin's interview this is basically the only thing he kept on blabbering about... of course nobody in the west should or care to listen to the "madman" but the warning sign has been flashing all along.

AFAIK Chechnya did not aspire to NATO and still Grozny got leveled.

> Who wouldn't want to?

Nobody sane.

Perhaps if Russia's neighbours didn't feel threatened by Russia they wouldn't want to join NATO?

It's not so easily to transport gas from western russia to china though. Russia can't just build a pipeline overnight to china.

Putin financed German green party, that also shut down nuclear reactors. He is not stupid.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/german-green-group-brande...

This is not about the green party, but a separate foundatation, which creating a lot of embarrassment now, though: (Sorry, is in german)

https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/umstrittener-einsatz-fue...

The article doesn't talk about the Green party, but rather of a (supposedly) environmental group related to the SPD, the centrist party of Scholz and Schröder. Though Merkel had ample time to stop North Stream 2, and didn't.

The Green party was founded in the 80s, and being anti nuclear is part of its founding axioms. It's also a majority position in Germany. The Greens were also opposed to NS2 from the start.

This is correct.

First, some background. The Green party in Germany has traditionally been anti-Russia:

Germany’s new political alignments paved the way for this revolution. Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) governs with the values-driven Greens and the liberal Free Democrats, both of which advocate a tougher line toward Moscow.

The Centralist SPD has in the past been pro-Russia, in particular under Gerhard Schröder:

Faced with indefensible Russian actions, the “dialogue” wing of the SPD has seen its arguments crumble. The most visible advocate for pro-Russian positions, ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the SPD, has come under fire from the entire party leadership for his positions on the boards of Russian energy corporations such as Nord Stream AG, Rosneft, and just recently Gazprom (although that is still pending). Schröder has in a matter of weeks gone from being one of Russia’s most valuable assets in Germany to a political liability.

From https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/02/27/putin-war-ukraine-germa... which has a lot of useful background.

It's green groups within the SPD that were funded by Russia, not the Green Party. From the originally linked article:

It is the creation of Manuela Schwesig, the state’s Social Democratic premier, who is an ally of Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s former chancellor and chairman of Nord Stream II.

Schröder has been attacked by political opponents for his close relationship with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president

ex-chancellor of Germany as well as many high-ranking German (ex-)politicians are getting sweet spots in Russian oil/gas businesses

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/ex-kanzler-gerha...

And they also lobbied to get gas into EU taxonomy as renewable (and succeeded!).

This article doesn’t say anything about The German Green Party or the shutdown of the nuclear power plants.

This is false information.

1. When first decisions were made for exit from nuclear, Greens were indeed the partner in the coalition government, but back then Putin was just elected as a president of Russia and could not possibly influence that decision in any way.

2. It was Angela Merkel (CDU) in coalition with FDP, who signed off the current plan to shut down all nuclear plants by 2022. By the moment this comment is written, not all of them are completely shut down yet, and Robert Habeck, the minister of economic development from Greens, is not excluding the possibility of expanding their life time.

3. Putin has never financed Greens or any other major party in Germany, as this is directly forbidden by German law.

> This is false information.

> 1. When first decisions were made for exit from nuclear, Greens were indeed the partner in the coalition government, but back then Putin was just elected as a president of Russia and could not possibly influence that decision in any way.

Wait, wasn't that decision taken in 2012, after Fukushima -- is that what you are talking about?!?

Because in that case, talk about "false information"! I mean, sure, it's technically correct -- the best kind of false information -- but misleading AF: Back then Putlin was just elected as President of Russia after a four-year stint as Prime Minister to circumvent (then-)constitutional term limits, following his previous two terms as President. You know, those weird years 2008-2012 when suddenly the Prime Minister of Russia turned out to be a much more important and powerful position than President? (Weird how that suddenly ended after Putler's re-ascension to the Presidency in 2012.)

> He is not stupid. He's seemingly angered / disgusted the entire earth: that's stupid.

China seems to be content for now

Why wouldn't they? China and Russia are not natural allies and they both have an interest in maintaining influence over energy-rich Central Asia.

Russia invading Ukraine gives China license to further deepen its relations with its neighbours, without worrying too much about Russian blowback.

It's the same situation as when the US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. China got a get out of jail free card in terms of ramping up military and establishing territorial claims in the South China Sea. No kerfuffle with the US, who were simply too deep into a quagmire to care.

WTF. German Green Party is more pro USA and pro NATO than Biden.

They are literally more interested in USA than German interests.