Russia is increasing pressure against Europe by cutting Gazprom's Nordstream pipeline output to 20%. Politico. The Russia to Germany pipeline was already running at 40% capacity and these new cuts will half that to 33 cubic meters a day of natural gas. Germany and the rest of Europe is extremely dependent on natural gas and have not been able to source new supplies. Russia blames the reduction on the delayed return of a major turbine that was repaired in Canada. However, Russia could send more gas through pipelines that run through Ukraine.
My Comment:
Russia is really ratcheting up the pressure now. Germany and the rest of Europe are going to be in serious trouble if these gas deliveries continue to drop. Winter is rapidly approaching and there is no sign that Germany and the rest of Europe will have built up their supplies by then. And that is going to cripple them.
I don't really buy Putin's excuse that it's all that turbine's fault. Russia has other ways to deliver gas to Europe and they are not doing so. And why would they? Russia is still under major sanctions and they know that they have Europe by the throat here. The turbine is just an excuse, Russia is doing this because they want to and they know that it will hurt Europe.
I don't know what Europe is going to do about this. Russia has all the cards. Most of the solutions would be long term ones. They could have kept nuclear power or sourced their gas from some other country. But they haven't and now they have little choice but to hope that Russia is merciful. And under the current situation they have no real choice.
The sane thing would be to lift sanctions and leave Ukraine out to dry. That could still happen, but the problem is that it would infuriate the Biden regime. Biden has already proven that he is willing to fight Russia in Ukraine down to the last Ukrainian, so why would he care if German grandmas freeze to death this winter? The governments of Europe are under extreme pressure from the United States to not make sperate peace with Russia.
This means that there is no easy solution for European countries dependent on Russian gas. They can't get new sources but they also can't back off from Russia without infuriating the United States. There is no easy solution.
I think there are two ways this ends. First, the war in Ukraine could end in a peace deal, allowing Europe to end sanctions and Russia will increase production. I think that is very possible. The Ukrainian military is taking horrendous casualties and is probably close to breaking. And Zelenskyy seems to be in trouble since he is firing people left and right. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the government and/or military collapses, leading to a victory for Russia.
The other solution is Europe finally telling Biden off and lifting sanctions. Given how little power Biden has and how much he is despised I could see that happening. At some point Europe will have to stand up for their people, or their people will kick them out for someone that will. It's already happening as many governments in Europe have dissolved recently.
But all of that is in the future. For right now things are going to get worse before they get better. Putin has all the cards here and things will get worse before they get better. And he has little to no reason to back off now...
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