Quote from: BADecker on Today at 04:14:19 PM

Quote from: suchmoon on Today at 01:06:59 PM

Quote from: DaRude on Today at 01:27:16 AM

Yep just because you claim that all blackmail potential has been exhausted (during the third lowest demand month) we don't have any critical thinking and just totally believe you!
(26 September 2022) Germans call for Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline opening now that there's nothing to open tell me again how that's a benefit to Russia? I'm not even talking about hundreds of millions of m^2 of gas Russia lost there

NS2 was dead already. "Germans call for [...] opening" is bullshit, a few people protesting won't make that happen.

Let's say Putin decided to shut NS1 off in January. Would that change Germany's policies towards Ukraine or Russia? There is no indication that it would. That's what I mean by exhausted blackmail potential.

As for lost gas and whatnot... you're assuming that Putin is a rational actor, which he clearly is not. If he cared about Russia's economy he wouldn't have invaded Ukraine, or would have retreated when the crushing sanctions became evident. He will happily run the country into the ground to feed his imperial ego. Blowing up a pipeline, or like Russian propagandists now propose - blowing up gas tankers, underwater fiber cables, etc - to harm the "enemy" is small potatoes compared to the overall destructiveness of the regime, so your feigned outrage as to why we would even think that Russia could do this makes no sense.

So far Putin doesn't have to be much of a rational actor. Everything that has happened since the US/Ukraine puppet takeover has only made it easier for Russia to advance and become richer... starting with the sanctions, of course. And it all is pushing towards a Russia-China alliance, by accident(?), of course.

Just think what a Russia-China alliance would do... the country with the largest landmass getting together with the country with the biggest population... and all of them in the same basic neighborhood of the world, already.

Cool

Putin lost a lot of valuable time trying to appease West...alliance with China and India is much better choice