The desire for punishing Europe certainly stems from Europe's similarly uncompromising economic warfare against Russia, but let's at least try to focus on the ground truths and not get caught up in a bunch of transparent lies.
I don't need peer-reviewed double-blinded study. I need something that has at least a bit more substance than "well known", "obvious" or other argumentum ad populum
> The desire for punishing Europe certainly stems from Europe's similarly uncompromising economic warfare against Russia, but let's at least try to focus on the ground truths and not get caught up in a bunch of transparent lies.
The ground truth is that the US and Europe (for however justified reason) had declared an economic war against Russia (sanctions), which has no means or strength to wage a real economic war of its own. And another ground truth is that they were not properly thought through as 2/4 pipelines are sanctioned and cannot be used, financial operations are sanctioned and cannot normally be performed, technology export and maintenance is sanctioned. All this to disrupt Russia's operations, while Europe STILL depends on it.
Replace Russia with any random variable and you would still get the same effect if you don't mind where you shoot and nuke half your own energy market. It doesn't even have any real means to "punish poor Europeans with all it's economic might", otherwise there wouldn't be ANY gas flowing to Europe for months now. Instead Russia simply does absolutely nothing to mitigate Europe's own risks of continuing running operations restricted and sanctioned all around by itself, while still profiting from it.
Please stop defending incompetence and labeling every uncomfortable piece of reality as "Russian propaganda".
But to no-one's big surprise, Russia has declined. So the conclusion is obvious.
It would of course be interesting to do a 40 page research essay in the style of WaitButWhy every time Russia makes a statement that fails to pass the smell test -- reeeeeeally document in detail why the statement is lower probability than a lie. The problem is, Russian authorities routinely lie, so often that following this strategy would lead to spending all one's time authoring (and then communicating) these explanations. Such a course of action is nothing but playing right along with the intentions of the propaganda.
If Russia one day wakes up and makes a true but surprising statement and no one believes them, they will only have themselves to thank for it.
That German energy politics since March 11 2011 has been a shitshow of incompetence is something we can both agree on, but Russia's present-day capitalization on this mistake is anything but.
What "problems" are you referring to specifically? It would be nice to read some source, cuz to my knowledge there are quite a lot of warranty nuances - it would be curious to see something substiantial on the matter, coming from official sources, that are not Russian, even if confirmed by Siemens engineers on-site.
> Russian state energy giant Gazprom cut all deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline on Wednesday in what it said was a planned shutdown until Saturday for maintenance work.
> In recent months, Gazprom has slashed flows through Nord Stream 1 to just 20% of capacity, citing maintenance issues and blaming Western sanctions on exports of technology imposed in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
> Russia has also cut off supplies to several “unfriendly” European countries and energy companies over their refusal to pay for gas in rubles, as the Kremlin insists, rather than the euros or dollars stated in contracts. European leaders say Russia is trying to blackmail countries over their support for Ukraine.
> France’s Engie (EGIEY) is the latest casualty. On Tuesday, Gazprom said it would completely suspend deliveries to Engie (EGIEY) from Thursday, claiming that it had not received full payment from the company for the gas it supplied in July.
Someone can probably look up Gazprom's own PR response and see how it matches up (or doesn't) with the statement by Engie, as well as what differs. Most of the time it's good to look up what various sources say, if you're interested in it, and come to your own conclusions.
From my perspective, reliance on another country, the relations with which have historically been troubled (and are now further strained, given the geopolitical events), does not seem like the best of ideas - alternative means of securing the resources that are needed for providing electricity/heat are more than welcome.
Add to that the NS2 pipeline, that could have been started, but never was. And Yamal-Europe pipeline that was shutdown by due to sanctions.
Diversification of supply is a good thing, sure, but how would it affect the competitiveness of European industry is a curious matter.
Well known? Is it? Could you please give some reference then?
No one would be surprised to see a "work-to-rule" action, but how is it "russian propaganda" that Europe had sanctioned Russian energy industry and it "somehow" had consequences?