With alternative sources in place, Putin’s attempt at blackmailing Europe on energy has failed.
foreignpolicy.com
With alternative sources in place, Putin’s attempt at blackmailing Europe on energy has failed.
For much of the past year, and since his invasion of Ukraine last February, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been riding high on his supposed energy
omnipotence, holding the global economy hostage to his whims. Since last summer, Putin has choked off natural gas supplies to Europe,
hoping that Europeans, shivering and without heat during the winter, would
turn on their leaders and make it politically infeasible to continue support for Ukraine.
The threat was potent: In 2021, a whopping
83 percent of Russian gas was exported to Europe. Russia’s total global exports of 7 million barrels of oil a day and 200 billion cubic meters (bcm) of piped gas a year accounted for about half of its federal revenue. Even more importantly, Russia’s commodities exports played a crucial role in global supply chains: Europe was reliant on Russia for 46 percent of its total gas supply, with comparable levels of dependence on other Russian products including metals and fertilizer.
Pretty much. Not sure if I'd say "the world" instead of "Europe", but at least when it comes to the Old Continent, this definitely seems to be true.
It's a bit surreal to be honest, especially when you've been watching it from a country
especially dependent on Russia's oil and gas, like I've been doing. Just a couple of months ago, literally just months, it seemed like we were facing the possibility of legit state collapse whenever Russian deliveries were threatened, and now, nobody cares about Russians possibly stopping their deliveries. It's legit like somebody just flipped a switch and suddenly, the entire Europe just doesn't need Russia anymore.
If anything, this turn of events now brutally exposed, if there were any doubts about it by "anti-colonialist" copers, who
really holds the power in the relationship between backwards, energy-rich countries exporting raw materials and the complex, advanced economies importing those materials to create sophisticated goods.
en.wikipedia.org
Sure, the countries you are exporting your oil and gas to might let you get away with a lot of shit, which is why people are already saying that the EU is bound to be softer on Azerbaijan in the future given that they are about to become one of the larger suppliers of oil into Europe soon, but when you truly piss them off, they'll simply discard you and find someone else selling the same thing you are.
Its costing Europe substantial money like maybe $250 billion a year for the increased natural gas costs currently. But Europe has a $20 trillion economy, so they can pay it, its just costly.
Exactly. That was always going to be the result of this, when you look at the raw numbers. In the end, Europe's economy is simply massively larger than the Russian one and they simply
can afford massive projects like this.
China is increasing its economic control of Russia.
Indeed and not just of Russia. I don't know how much you watch/read Russian propagandists, but lately, just about all they've been talking about are: some new Chinese initiative investing 100 billion dollars or so into developing Siberia (of course
), and the progressively continuing integration of the
Eurasian Economic Union with the Belt and Road Initiative. It's not just about Russia, the Chinese are clearly aiming to economically dominate the entire EEU.
And that's really the most interesting part of this. There's no doubt anymore what camp Russia is going to be in for the foreseeable future. The
real question is, where are the other post-Soviet countries going to stand? There are already some commentators who believe that Russia's failure in Ukraine is going to lead to Central Asia becoming more intertwined with the West, but I highly doubt that either China or, as much as it will be able to act against it, Russia, would tolerate those countries allying with the West.
If the Chinese
do manage to get them on board they they wil just need to somehow do the same pacification and integration into BRI with ASEAN, and then they would have a nearly certain chance of building an economic empire comprising, except for the very notable exception of their sort-of rival India, every single country bordering them.
EU is thinking of integrating albania btw
And not just them. The entire Western Balkans, actually.
Though, there was never any other way that was going to go. The non-EU Balkan countries are a backwater region with tiny population and similarly tiny economy,
completely encircled by a large empire. In the end, they were always going to be in the EU, one way or another.
And it's not just them. With Russia currently losing its influence there, the EU and the West in general even seem to be preparing to expand their influence into the Caucasus. Georgia wants to be granted an official status as an EU candidate country, Armenia has all but fallen out with Russia and
the EU is currently moving in, and Azerbaijan, as I've already mentioned, is set to become a notable supplier of oil into Europe.
