There will be no salvaging the relationship between Germany and Russia for a long time unless Putin gets replaced, even during winter. The absolute worst case scenario (the only one I see where Germany could have gone to Russia for gas) where people die from cold in their homes is never going to happen. Only yesterday BloombergNEF published a report saying Europe was ready for a complete cut off from Russian gas from October 1, and that includes commercial uses too which take up a big chunk and would obviously be redirected should there be any threat of people dying of cold.
> Russia almost certainly sabotaged a LNG terminal in Texas a few months ago
What evidence is there for this?
> It drives the wedge further between EU and Russia
On the contrary, should the EU find that the US was behind the explosions it would cause an absolute rift between the US-EU relationship, and in particular with Germany.
Have you genuinely attempted to understand the Russian perspective in all this? Like listened to what Moscow has been saying for the last decade? Have you ever read a single one of Putin's speeches, for example?
Reading Anne Applebaum screeds in The Atlantic is not seeking understanding, by the way.
How can you understand something if you don't attempt to understand it?
> What evidence is there for this?
No smoking gun, just cui bono + timing + no other plausible explanation has been put forth
> On the contrary, should the EU find that the US was behind the explosions it would cause an absolute rift between the US-EU relationship, and in particular with Germany.
If Europe had strong leadership. Even Merkel didn't really stand up to the spying revelations.
The nuclear brinkmanship is textbook deterrence. Whenever Russia escalates, expect nuclear threats to deter a full-blown NATO entry.
All the energy related decisions in the past 20 years seems to have been made with the purpose to make Germany dependent on Russia (Nuclear, lack of LPG terminals, etc), and to make sure that countries included in the imperialistic ambitions of Moscow (like Ukraine) could affect influence this relationship (NS1, NS2)
He's a compulsive liar.
2. We did not invade Ukraine.
3. We are not at war with Ukraine.
It takes a special kind of stupid to take Putin’s words seriously at this point.
You know what, I’m actually disappointed you only asked for three. There’s a mountain of knee-slappers even just from this year.
“We’ve lost nothing” after 50,000 of his soldiers died.
It’s like the guy is a fucking five year old.
Do you have any examples that don't require clear technical misinterpretations?
Alright, you dismiss my first three examples. Care to explain the fourth example I provided?
What I'm really after is if you have any evidence of Putin (or Lavrov, now that you mention him) lying on the scale of "Saddam is gonna nuke the West" or "NATO will not expand one inch eastward". Or has Putin ever openly boasted about his lying prowess, as fmr Secretary Pompeo and fmr Ambassador McFaul did recently? These would be convincing examples.
Good day sir.
Come on, propagandist. We can do this all day.
However, taking just from his recent speech announcing the mobilization (I don't speak Russian and am relying on a translation from the Kremlin's transcript, but at least two independent translations are similar enough):
- Repeated claims that the purpose of the "special military operation" is to liberate Donbas from the "neo-Nazi regime" holding power in Ukraine
The Ukrainian government is not neo-Nazi. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish. (It might be common rhetoric in Russia since the Soviet Union and WWII days to claim opponents as "Nazis", but that's not what the word means to anybody else.) Repeatedly claiming that a country is being ruled by neo-Nazis with no reason or evidence, especially when there's reason not to believe that, is a lie. The claim of Ukraine being ruled by neo-Nazis is repeated enough in just that single speech that this claim alone would more than suffice.
- Claims of genocide in eastern Ukraine, and of a government in Ukraine being the result of a coup
There has been no evidence of a genocide (which is a rather strong term and claim to make in the first place), and there has been no coup. There have, of course, been governments unfavourable to and disliked by the current Russian regime. But that doesn't make their election a coup.
- Reference to the "Kyiv occupation regime"
An occupation regime is one that's occupying a country other than their own, or acting as a puppet of an occupying country, or possibly (at a stretch) a military regime holding power over their own country with force against the will of the people's majority. An elected government in their own country is none of these. Even if some parts of a population in a part of a country would prefer a differently aligned government, that doesn't make the government an occupation regime.
- The claim that the "Kyiv regime" announced a desire for obtaining nuclear weapons
An individual member of the parliament in Ukraine apparently expressed regret that Ukraine had given up Soviet-era nuclear armaments, or that (in his view) Ukraine might need to pursue them again. An individual member of a parliament (who AFAIK was not part of the government) expressing a view does not by any stretch mean the same as a government announcing that view. The difference is obvious to anybody who understands how democracy works.
I don't know how common it is in Ukraine nowadays to wish the country had nuclear weapons, although I wouldn't be surprised if that had increased as a result of Russian aggression and war. Either way, claiming a government has announced something when they haven't said anything to that effect is a lie.
--
There also lots of other claims in the speech, intended to gain the support of its audience, that amount to dishonesty or lying regardless of technical nitpicking. I'm not going to list them all here, as there are too many and there's no point, but an example would be the claim that western governments have resorted to "nuclear blackmail". Putin refers to "statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using [nuclear weapons] against Russia". While it's hard to track down every statement made by every representative of a NATO country and prove that none of them ever said anything in that direction, the essence of claiming that western governments or countries are making nuclear threats against Russia is blatantly and obviously false.
Watching things from Europe, the only references to nuclear threat I have seen are concerns that Putin's regime is making them, even if vaguely, and concerns of the safety of nuclear power plants amidst the war. Absolutely zero governments are making any suggestions towards threatening Russia with anything nuclear. Nobody's also crazy or stupid enough to do so, and if an individual representative or politician actually did that, it would obviously get condemned immediately, because none of those governments would be crazy or stupid enough not to condemn it.
There are lots of statements and claims like that in the mobilization speech alone. And all of this is just from a single speech. Every speech Putin has given this year that I've seen or read about has been filled with untruths of varying degrees.
Many of his claims are either somewhat vague or otherwise difficult to absolutely verify as lies with mathematical precision. Some of them might not be lies from Putin's perspective. For example, he might well feel that his conservative regime is being threatened by a liberal opposition encouraged by western influence or western countries. The claims that Russia (as he understands it) is being threatened by the west may be true from his perspective.
However, many of the claims he makes in support of that view or to justify the war are simply dishonest, such as the allusions to nuclear threat from the west. There's no way those could be considered anything but either delusions or lies.
Generally, so many of Putin's claims are some kind of a combination of simply not true, baseless, and obviously motivated, that the whole definitely amounts to him lying or twisting the truth whenever it suits his purposes.
What is it that makes him seem more truthful to you?
I have also lived in Russia. It can be awkward when the Ukrainians see my old Russian visa in my passport when I cross the border.
Where do you live? Ukraine? Russia? How close are you to this issue personally? Got any skin in the game? How many blatant lies are you going to ignore so your Nazi-apologist worldview isn’t compromised?
How would you like to see this notification near enough every day, sometimes several times a day?
В ОДЕССЕ И ОБЛАСТИ ОБЪЯВЛЕНА ВОЗДУШНАЯ ТРЕВОГА, ВСЕ В УКРЫТИЕ
ЧИТАТЕЛИ СООБЩАЮТ, О ВЗРЫВАХ В ОДЕССЕ И ПРИГОРОДЕ. Уточняем информацию
ПРЕДВАРИТЕЛЬНО ЕСТЬ СБИТИЕ 2-х РАКЕТ
The Russian perspective is basically, "we had an awesome empire, now we want it back". All the rhetoric about teh evil NATO etc is just dressing that up.
Blowing up their own gas line makes no sense as it destroys any possible leverage. The only ones that have anything to gain is the US or other associated allies.
Any analysis predicated on "the enemy is perfectly irrational and will not act according their interests" is not analysis. It's untethered from reality, which is convenient, because you can support any conclusion you desire.
Robert McNamara's #1 life lesson was "empathize with your enemy" (he dealt with the Cuban Missile Crisis). Sun Tzu said "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." This timeless wisdom has basis in reality.
Unfortunately, realism in Washington has been replaced with insane, petulant ideologues like Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland" and Michael "Of course we lied" McFaul.
Yeah, let's just forget all about Occam's' razor.
>If you read Twitter trends you already see an army of Russian bots pushing the theory that the US has done this.
Because it makes sense? US social media is 100% pro-Ukrainian propaganda and any slight dissent, criticisms or questioning is met seemingly instantly from multiple accounts alleging Russian propaganda. Meanwhile the biggest impact on American social media is American propaganda. Including about our alleged ally, Ukraine. And like Israel, they seem to be more trouble than they're worth as far as the interests of the average American citizen are concerned.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ODELL/status/1574758411392131078?...
There is no "salvaging the relationship" for the current regime. No gas will flow in these pipelines while Putin is in power, and the EU has already prepared alternatives:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/europe-is...
Thus these pipelines are worthless to the current regime, except as means to cause damage to the hated Europeans who are enforcing sanctions against them and arming Ukraine against their invasion.
You may argue that the relationship might be salvaged with the next regime, but Putin doesn't care. He will be dead or imprisoned for life whenever such next regime takes power.
The notion that NS2 would enter operation is absurd. NS2 has been dead in the water for months, and the prospect of entering service have been dubious for some time before the Russians invaded Ukraine.
"NS2 shouldn't exist" is a narrative manufactured in Washington (and delivered to Germany by Baerbock), that goes against basic economics and the interests of both Germans and Russians.
[1] - https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/biden-says-nord-stream-2-won...
As I understand it, most of the gas that would be delivered via NS2 would be the gas that wouldn't be delivered through Belarus/Ukraine (depriving them of transit revenue and providing more options for Russia to employ gas politics on its western flank). It rather seems to me that, far from being natural in a world without geopolitical drama, much of its purpose is actually to enable geopolitical drama.
And, of course, the main thrust of the argumentation against NS2 was that it was causing Germany to pursue an economic dependency on Russia that was unwise, given Russia's already-demonstrated penchant for using that economic dependency as a lever in global affairs. NS2 died when Russia's invasion of Ukraine demonstrated the lack of wisdom in pursuing economic dependency on Russia (compounded by Russia withholding gas flows to make Europe came back begging to Mother Russia).
So should Russia be obliged to pay for transit and provide gas to Ukraine? Why wouldn't Ukraine pursue gas supplies from other sources? It had at least 8 years for that, but all the time was spent on opposing NS2.
"that was unwise" is a simplification, not a proper explanation. Russia is a cheap resource supplier, so it was beneficial for European countries to leverage it for their economy to be more competitive with US at least.
Saudi Arabia has its own bunch of issues with democracy (there is none, imagine), human rights (surprise), a war with neighbouring Yemen (sounds familiar?), but for some magical reason no one cares and alienates Saudi Arabia, and everyone is very forgetful and blind about their issues and doesn't interfere.
People's thoughts are literally tunnelled.
For comparison, consider Iraq's attempt to annex Kuwait in the 90s. The world absolutely considered it a five-alarm fire, with the West immediately planning for war and even China and the Soviet Union authorizing a retaliatory blockade. Most people genuinely and strongly feel that the return of territorial conquest as a common practice would be a disaster for the world.
That's frankly absurd.
Russia almost certainly sabotaged a LNG terminal in Texas a few months ago (industrial cyberattack). This act was almost certainly done by Washington or their proxies. It drives the wedge further between EU and Russia and makes the EU further dependent on Washington. The cui bono is pretty clear.