The thing here is that the pain is very asymmetric. Yes, Germany will suffer, but Russia will suffer way more. Germany has other options. Russia doesn't really have anything besides gas, oil and grains. The pain for Germany will be short-lived and by next winter they will have re-balanced.

That is very optimistic, to put it mildly. We will come out of the winter with storage close to record lows. The global market is very tight and Asia is buying and paying a lot. In that environment, it will be very difficult to even refill storage, let alone replacing any Russian supplies that might fall away.

Lavrov looks to me - puffy face, skinny legs - as if he might like the sauce.

Whilst you're correct this doesn't really help solve today's crisis, it is important to understand how we got here.

Also, Shale Gas (from fracking), isn't scraping the barrel, it's a resource just waiting to be exploited. For example there's 40 trillion cm3 of it sitting below Bowland in Lancashire. Just 10% of that amount would keep the UK self sufficient for gas for 50 years.

The problem goes far deeper than that. 20 years of failed green energy policy, taking seriously the ramblings of 16 year old activist, Germany switching off her nuclear power stations because of a freak accident on the other side of the world, the list just goes on and on. All of which has left Europe is so tragically ill prepared to handle Russia.

Europe has already been ramping up LNG imports from the US for the simple reason that the US fracked and Europe didn't.

According to this article on Nord Stream 2, the EU already cut Russian gas imports in January from 40% to 17%.
Russian gas flows through Ukraine fell to historic lows in January—50 million cubic meters per day. That’s less than half the levels of a year ago and is not good for the Ukraine economy.

Edit: Nord Stream 2 cost Russia $11 billion which they can ill afford to simply throw away.

OK, NS2 is closed. What about the rest of the Russian gas which is coming to Europe? If the gas prices go up, Russia will gain more money on delivering less gas. The real losers here will be the EU customers.

Medvedev has twitted:
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has issued an order to halt the process of certifying the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Well. Welcome to the brave new world where Europeans are very soon going to pay €2.000 for 1.000 cubic meters of natural gas!

Bingo!

Russia is still delivering its contractual obligations. It is simply not sending more, selling into the spot market like Europe has gotten used to so much. It is a similar point as for LNG: If you do not have firm deliveries, you cannot really blame anyone if you are short.

Yes, reduced gas flows through Ukraine are not good for the Ukrainian economy. However it is Russian gas sold to EU customers, and Ukraine has no right to be the transit route for this gas.

And to the point of power generation: Yes, shutting down nuclear means more demand for gas (although currently its is actually more coal) - but less than 20% of Germany's gas demand comes from power gen, and most is heating and industrial processes.

Demonstrates how much this is hurting Russia.

Half of the investment comes from Western shareholders like Shell, OMV etc.

I recommend that everyone here who is forecasting much higher gas prices invest in gas futures which are quite low at the moment, you will make a fortune

Low at the moment?

I wonder if you could call that: "War Profiteering?"
Or, where can I invest my 150Euros?

That's like the annual costs for a single home unit in Germany, not exactly the worst. Anyway, people living in single homes are not poor. Annual costs are even lower in apartments.

So, a few hundreds Euros more per year is Brave New World?

2000 Euro per 1000 cubic meter is roughly 10 times the historic average wholesale gas price in Europe.

2k EUR per 1k cubic meter is an increase vs. prior year, BUT:
1. It's not 10 times because of Ukraine, it was already very high even towards the end of last year mainly due to surging demand as economies recover post Covid and supply scrambling to meet demand.
2. around 1/3 of the gas in Europe comes from Russia, no small amount undoubtedly, but this will not mean in any way there will be no gas in Europe. There will be. It will be more expensive, but again, it will be more expensive anyway

True, but if I had to choose l would prefers more expensive over waaaaaaaay more expensive.

The price had increased over the course of LAST YEAR by a few hundred percent which has nothing to do with Ukraine, so it was already "waaaaaay more expensive".

Equally important, we would all prefer cheap gas, friendly Russia, everlasting spring and huge salaries. Live ain't perfect though.

...and unicorns farting pixiedust. I think that the energy change, the transition from fossil fuel, is going to make today’s energy prices look like the good old days.
Our civilization will end when there is no cheap energy. So is this the beginning of the end...?

No, because oil and gas are actually plentiful but as a civilization we're making the slow, tough and conscious choice to move away from fossil fuel. We'll manage