Originally Posted by
jon1959
Is that your best effort? Poor even by your standards.
You can argue that Germany and other (mainly European but not only) states should not have made past decisions that left them so dependent on Russian gas, and to a lesser extent oil. But they did.
Most of those states are working to reduce or eliminate their dependence on Russia - but it is not an overnight fix to find alternatives.
German homes are 50% dependent on gas for their energy supplies, and one third of that gas comes from Russia.
Russia itself is using the threat of turning off the gas as an economic weapon in the war against states supporting Ukraine (the majority of their customers) - because they know (if you don't) that flicking a switch is not an option. I don't know how far the EU, Germany itself or other states are in sourcing alternative gas supplies, but I do understand that they will not bring extreme hardship and probably early death for their vulnerable citizens by taking unilateral action to stop Russian gas before they have got that alternative in place.
Sure the revenue Russia gets from selling gas and oil (prices up a lot since the invasion started) helps to maintain the Russian war economy, and as part of that the Russian military. It offsets the effect of some of the sanctions in place. But it was never a quick fix. It takes time for those types of actions to work their way through the system. Stopping the flow of gas to Germany - even if that was viable - would not immediately slow down the military actions in eastern Ukraine. Over time it would degrade Russia's ability to resupply, but only over time.
So your crass equation of that keeping German pensioners warm leads to death and rape in the Donbas is both wrong and sick.
The part of your post that most grates is where you throw around words like 'gutless' and 'not brave enough' in relation to European states and set it against an estimate of UK (and US) military support. No surprises given your posting history, but the implied message is that Boris Johnson and his gang are the brave ones, the ones with guts - even though the UK has very little dependence on Russian gas/oil so can ramp up the sanctions with little negative consequence, and even though the UK and especially the Tories have been cozying up to Putin and his oligarch circle for decades, turning Londongrad into a money laundering capital and rewarding the Russian ruling caste with honours and political cover. Very brave!