Margrethe Vestager, vice president of the European Commission, further urged EU citizens to take shorter showers.
"When you turn off the water, say 'Take that, Putin!'”
what a strategy

i guess russia better start building power of siberia 2 quickly so that they can sell the gas to china.

while i have severe doubts as to the scale and speed that europe can ween itself off russian resources, it seems that for now, there is the political will to move in that direction.

War time propaganda makes people feel involved in the effort. Aluminum during WW2 was really scarce due to Japan occupations of other countries add disruption of shipping.



These days taking a shorter shower may not as useful as aluminum scrap collection, it may only reduce 0.005% natural gas imports, but as propaganda it sets ideas in people's minds. Small and slow changes, we'll be surprised by the end of the year when we look back. I'm already surprised at how the special operation has lasted 40+ days.

Or be like the French and don't take them at all!

It is a big challenge for both Europe and Russia. Europe imports something like 150 bcm from Russia in a normal year. The vague US promise is to deliver 15 bcm this year as emergency support, just to give you a scale. On thw other hand, Power of Siberia 2 is designed to carry 50 bcm, so by no means would be a full substitute either.

50 > 15

Mathematically correct, but otherwise makes no sense.

I do have to ask this question...
Where did Russia go bad?
If you look at history Russia has always been the antagonist in Europe.
This war, Cold war, Soviet Russia, the Polish wars of the twenties, Tsarist Russia. Go back to 1814 and the Russians fighting with the Germans against France with Russian troops in Paris.
By the way that is where the French Bistro came from, when Russian troops wanted to be served fast in bars they called out "bystro" or "faster."
So when did we "the west" start to go loggerheads with Russia?

Germans are in Europe, France is in Europe, somehow Russia has always been an antagonist of "Europe".

Just as reminder, Austria, Britain and Russia formed an alliance between 1798-1802 to exterminate the French Republic and restore the monarchy. Austria and Britain are in Europe.

A century later and Russia started a long-lived alliance with France that lasted until the collapse of Russian Empire. France, Britain and Russia formed an alliance for WW1. France and Britain are in Europe.

Also look at the last Czars that found wives in West/Central Europe. One of them was even a grand-daughter of a famous British Queen.

So, there's no trend. When it was convenient they exterminated the army of Napoleon/France, and it also was convenient to be an ally of France in WW1. In a very antagonistic manner, Stalin and Hitler divided Poland. At some point this was also convenient:

"ancient Turkmen did not know about the existence of Jews, so all adversity was attributed to the dark forces of nature" (C)



Russia doesn't need to go anywhere to be bad. It's bad by definition.

Sometimes people can punish it for that, sometimes can't.

I'm afraid it all starts with how Russia's leaders treat their own average citizen.
Now you can dig deep in the history and tell me when they actually gave a fu** about that average citizen.

Don't fail to mention the 1939 non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR - Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. It was always left out from the USSR history books. I found out about it during my first year at the University.

Never, the only thing I am digging for is a cigarette. Very windy today.

Interesting dataset on current Russian and other gas imports to Europe and gas storage.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he was “very specific” in his requests to NATO today, and said he was “cautiously optimistic about the outcomes of our discussions.” saying the deal Ukraine is proposing to NATO is simple: “You provide us with everything we need and we will fight for our security and your security so that President Putin has no chance to test Article V.”
Good proposal for the East Europe countries but the Ukrainians will not have much of a country left after this.

This is a picture of the Barnaul-T, an advanced Russian air defense system, according to the oryx site the Ukrainians have captured five of these.

I suppose you could turn that question round and ask when any country gave a fornicate about the average citizen.
The Magna Carta in the 13th century was probably the first to set certain rules governing the relationship between royalty and the plebs but it only really kicked off from the declaration of human rights in 1947.
I would give it a 7 out of 10 for the west since the 19th century, a 4 out of 10 if you add the pervious centuries into the mix.
Russia however seems to never have had a concept of human rights, even now. Is this why we perceive Russia as the bad guys?

__________________
Back in Bavaria, god´s own belly button.

Sure, Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia

That's the epitome of antagonism.

A very interesting time indeed, with the Russians giving the Poles a dubbing because they were still smarting from the wars of the twenties and the Germans wanting Lebensraum there was no buffer between the two major powers in Europe when it came to the German invasion in 1941.
The question I ask is did Germany invade Russia in a pre-emptive strike? At some point the two dictators must have begun fighting each other.

Look up Operation Barbarossa, a classic example of a dictator overruling the military and turning success into a disaster.
Consolidating his successes in Western Europe instead of turning East so soon would have been a better strategy, coincidentally, like Putin, Hitler believed it would be a short campaign and was interested in capturing the valuable Ukraine resources.

Just to be clear, which of these Putin's is on your bedroom wall? The gay icon?

Or the sad reality?


I refrain from the images showing him bloody to the elbows of course.

You can smell an embargo? Fun fact: natural gas is odorless, but usually odorized in the distribution grid in order to make peopke detect leaks.