You do remember the bit about Putin controlling the media? Right?

Telegram is massively popular amongst the youth. Russian-speakers in Ukraine have family in Russia, etc

NS2 was always an unnecessary construct designed to move gas without Russia being beholden to Ukraine and other newly-independent states where Soviet-era pipelines run
NS2 was pushed through by German leaders against the wishes of the EU, USA and other NATO allies who didn’t agree that Europe should be so reliant on an expansionist Russia with the power to damage the economies of those newly-independent states
The additional volumes should have been unnecessary in times of moving towards renewables, etc. You only have to look at Europe managing for months solely on a reduced NS1 to demonstrate that

I don’t disagree, but the point is that it wasn’t Putin who cancelled it. The Europeans decided they didn’t want NS2 gas, or indeed any Russian gas if they can help it. Unfortunately for us there are some places where we can’t easily replace it, hence Russia is still sending LNG to Greece.

NS1 was switched off by Russia. They gradually turned volumes down before stopping it completely, while blaming sanctions for not having a necessary turbine.
Siemens were returning the turbine that was in Canada for servicing, but Russia wouldn’t make the necessary arrangements to collect it despite it being internationally exempt from sanctions

So obviously I dreamed that the EU plan to reduce Russian gas imports, and articles like e.g. https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/the-eu-plan-to-reduce-russian-gas-imports-by-two-thirds-by-the-end-of-2022-practical-realities-and-implications/

are just part of a wild fantasy. Yes, it’s all coming back to me now…

Putin’s a secret environmentalist and his plan all along was to reduce EU dependence on natural gas and spur heavy investment in renewables.

Putin master genius strikes again.

Putin’s a secret environmentalist and his plan all along was to reduce EU dependence on natural gas and spur heavy investment in renewables.

Putin master genius strikes again.

Luckily he was no match for the super intellect of Jacob Rees Mogg, who realised that the perfect way to reduce our dependence on gas is to …. Licence more gas drilling and kill off renewables.

Another revealing video. Scene inside a mustering station in Russia where an officer yells at angry, resentful men who have been mobilized.
“That’s it- playtime’s over. You’re soldiers now!”
pic.twitter.com/oTfomvgsUf

— Patrick Reevell (@Reevellp) September 23, 2022

Unbelievable

Poor sods. 😔

So obviously I dreamed that the EU plan to reduce Russian gas imports, and articles like e.g….snip

Are we at cross-purposes here? The article you link to is about not funding Russia’s armed forces in the light of their illegal invasion of Ukraine. The plan was agreed a fortnight after the invasion…
Link me to the post that outlines the point that you’re making, I’m sorry but I think I missed it (both the point and the post 🙂 )
It doesn’t alter the fact that Russia switched NS1 off

Telegram is massively popular amongst the youth. Russian-speakers in Ukraine have family in Russia, etc

Whilst true that doesn’t negate my point. There were plenty accounts of folk telling their relatives what was really going on and being told they were being lied to because their relatives are in the thrall of the carefully propogated Kremlin narrative. Remember all those newscasters that chose to speak out and immediately go into hiding? The channels that shut down because they wouldn’t play the game? Putin is all about the information war and thus far he’s seemingly been right on top of it.

Bloody hell.

https://mobile.twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1573346176396664833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1573346176396664833%7Ctwgr%5E78affa4449663e8316cea8f2faeb3a7cb618f6a8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2Feurope%2Flive-news%2Frussia-ukraine-war-news-09-23-22%2Findex.html

There were plenty accounts of folk telling their relatives what was really going on and being told they were being lied to because their relatives are in the thrall of the carefully propogated Kremlin narrative. Remember all those newscasters that chose to speak out and immediately go into hiding? The channels that shut down because they wouldn’t play the game? Putin is all about the information war and thus far he’s seemingly been right on top of it

If (insert popular news reporter/anchor of choice) had displayed “NO WAR. Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They are lying to you here.” in their Live TV News studios before being arrested and taken to a capital city Police Station, might you have thought that someone who has access to foreign newsfeeds and is a clear-thinker has a point. Might you at least look online?
If you did look, you’d find that they’d posted a video online earlier where they explained that they were ashamed to have worked for years spreading propaganda.
You’d have found the tweets and videos from the team of a 10x jailed and once-poisoned imprisoned opposition leader and, of course, the message from the President of the invaded country.
You might also have wondered why the law was changed a fortnight before to make “public dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of (insert country name here)” illegal, just after the “Special Operation” was announced.
Then when appearing in Court the news anchor said,”What’s going on here is absurd. War is horror, blood and shame.”, before being found guilty and fined.
Might that one example on State TV make you think? Or maybe the dozens of resignations, some very high profile, including former chief editor of RT, Maria Baronova.
Or do you think this “special operation” doesn’t affect me, “just” Ukrainians and Russian minorities?
You only have to look at the Crimean beach scene six weeks ago with all of the lovely fabric sun shelters to realise what Russians thought, just before UKR forces bombard a RF base there and thousands of holiday makers flee in panic. Why not do something then?

Are we at cross-purposes here?

Possibly, but my point has not changed since I made it on the last page: Russia has not stopped gas exports to Europe. Europe have done what they can to stop importing gas from Russia. Hence Putin’s reported claim that “Russia has not stopped gas exports, it is Europe that doesn’t want them” is not without some merit.

The article you link to is about not funding Russia’s armed forces in the light of their illegal invasion of Ukraine. The plan was agreed a fortnight after the invasion…

That article was pretty much the first that appeared when I Googled “EU limiting gas imports from Russia”. The point of linking to it was just to show that the EU have been very active in reducing gas imports, even without Putin’s intervention, and well before the closure of NS1.

Link me to the post that outlines the point that you’re making, I’m sorry but I think I missed it (both the point and the post 🙂 )
It doesn’t alter the fact that Russia switched NS1 off

No it doesn’t, but that is a side issue. NS1 is not the only export route for Russian gas.

“Russia has not stopped gas exports, it is Europe that doesn’t want them” is not without some merit.

Russia shut off the pipeline. Putin is lying about that. Pretty much everything coming out of the Kremlin is misinformation, it’s amazing you haven’t spotted that by now.

Well I guess we know the referendum result.

Europe have done what they can to stop importing gas from Russia

Yes, because Russia is using that income to finance an illegal war, raze cities, torture, rape, murder, etc, not to mention the death and destruction to Russians.

Hence Putin’s reported claim that “Russia has not stopped gas exports, it is Europe that doesn’t want them” is not without some merit

It’s a partial-truth.
Russia stopped NS1. NS2 was never certified to pump gas.
Russia was represented at the United Nations COP26 conference (Cornwall) where climate change, renewables, fossil fuel’s bad, etc were all discussed.
Russia has 20% of the world’s forests and signed a global pledge to stop deforestation by 2030. Was that the fault of Europe for not wanting their trees?
Russia didn’t present their climate change strategy as required at COP21 (Paris), didn’t commit to renewables, will increase coal production, etc, etc.
Will nobody wanting Russia’s increased coal production also be blamed on Europe?
Russia is out of step with the world everywhere that you look

Yes, because Russia is using that income to finance an illegal war, raze cities, torture, rape, murder, etc, not to mention the death and destruction to Russians.

Of course. What makes you think I’m not aware of that?

Russia stopped NS1. NS2 was never certified to pump gas.

Why was that?

Russia was represented at the United Nations COP26 conference (Cornwall) where climate change, renewables, fossil fuel’s bad, etc were all discussed.
Russia has 20% of the world’s forests and signed a global pledge to stop deforestation by 2030. Was that the fault of Europe for not wanting their trees?
Russia didn’t present their climate change strategy as required at COP21 (Paris), didn’t commit to renewables, will increase coal production, etc, etc.
Will nobody wanting Russia’s increased coal production also be blamed on Europe?
Russia is out of step with the world everywhere that you look

What on earth is the point you are trying to make with this little shopping list?

Silvio Berlusconi is winding up even before the Italian Elections next week, “ROME, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin was “pushed” into invading Ukraine and wanted to put “decent people” in charge of Kyiv” and,
“Centrist leader Carlo Calenda, another election contender, said on Radio24 said Berlusconi had spoken “like a Putin general””
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-was-pushed-into-ukraine-war-says-italys-berlusconi-2022-09-23/

We’ll see if other EU leaders who maintain close links with Russia fall into step should Italy’s right-wing coalition win next week

What on earth is the point you are trying to make with this little shopping list?

Russia is out of step with the world everywhere that you look. It was in the same post
I don’t like to shut down a debate, but I’m going to on this occasion

Russia is out of step with the world everywhere that you look. It was in the same post
I don’t like to shut down a debate, but I’m going to on this occasion

Thank heavens for that! It was getting tiring reading your responses to arguments that nobody ever made.

I don’t really understand why this is such a bone of contention. Essentially Europeans said “ooh crikey, we don’t want to be so reliant on Russian gas as a long-term strategy, and we should probably try not to be pumping too much money Russia’s way in the short term.”

Russia then essentially said “well screw you then, you can’t have any at all”, in an attempt to persuade Europeans that being so hostile to Russia would cost.

I don’t really blame Russia for that play – it kind of makes sense. *That’s* not my issue with what Russia have been doing…

Both parties have consciously and deliberately played a part in the whole turning off of the taps. So what? The root cause of it all is greed and paranoid fuckwittery from one direction. (And no, that doesn’t imply that there isn’t also an abundance of those characteristics in the West too, but right now, the blame for the invasion and killy stuff is pretty one-sided.)

Both parties have consciously and deliberately played a part in the whole turning off of the taps. So what?

The point is that Kremlin propaganda keeps blaming other countries for provoking Russia when the blame for all of this comes back to Putin, and Putin’s apologists in the West keep repeating the Russian propaganda without caring that it’s misinformation. As far as the gas supply thing goes, Russia thought it could blackmail Europe into allowing it to invade Ukraine, then it threw a tantrum when that didn’t work so it turned off the pipeline, and now it’s lying about turning off the pipeline.

I don’t really understand why this is such a bone of contention.

Nor me, but apparently if you don’t want to be labelled a “Putin apologist”, if he says grass is green you have to insist that it’s red.

While good practice, where this is taking place seems to lean on Russia…
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-frigate-and-aircraft-obliterate-former-us-warship/

Gulp

Newly mobilized Russian men are showing the rusted AK's they were given. pic.twitter.com/bRvVmdJC5b

— Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) September 24, 2022

Shocked Pikachu face….

Lambs to the ……………

I hope there is a special place reserved in hell for Putin and Lavrov.

Part of me isn’t surprised, part of me is telling myself that it’s propaganda to lull the Ukrainians into a false sense of security, as a country swimming in AKs must have better ones than that. Then I remember the crowdfunding for radios and missing body armour…

Are these videos of rusty AK47s for real? Here’s another one:

pic.twitter.com/pWm70D2atQ

— Sander (@SanderRegter) September 24, 2022

a country swimming in AKs must have better ones than that.

According to Google, decent condition used AK47s sell for several hundred dollars. The good ones have probably been stolen and sold on the black market.

I expect the better AK’s have been sold off to the many tin pot dictators in Africa.

Interesting opinion.

Declaring mobilization was a risky gamble that may lead to Putin’s demise. But not because it is unpopular with the public.

— Professor Olga Chyzh (@olga_chyzh) September 23, 2022

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63021117

Vladimir Putin has fired the general charged with managing the Russian military’s faltering logistics operations in Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has fired the general charged with managing the Russian military’s faltering logistics operations in Ukraine

The general better not go near any stairs for a while…

China’s foreign minister tells his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, that China respects Ukraine’s sovereignty & territorial integrity & rejects force. This on the day when referendums begin in Russian-held areas of Ukraine on whether to link up with Russia. Watch out, Putin!

— John Simpson (@JohnSimpsonNews) September 23, 2022

It’s <possible> that the rusty weapons there are just for basic training- drilling, marching, that sort of thing. Given that there’ll be a bunch of unwilling “recruits” there that have never held a gun or that might be a bit keen to shoot people they shouldn’t.

(though the second vid wsa clearly someone that knew how to operate it)

Those rifles (AKMs not AK-47s – sorry, spotter alert) will probably still work fine. The AK series of rifles are notoriously tolerant of of abuse and neglect, by design.  A lot of that rust is on the stamped metal top cover which isn’t essential for functioning, though not ideal, they would still work without it in place. Elsewhere it is cosmetic and unlikely to affect function.  Internally loose tolerances, chrome lined barrels, chamber, gas cylinder and over engineered parts everywhere all mean they will likely still shoot. Mikhail Kalashnikov designed the very definition of the ‘squaddie proof’ rifle.

It’s still evidence of extremely poor maintenance and logistics planning mind, not to mention being extremely bad for morale!  It’s also worth noting that they are a different calibre to the more modern rifles issued to regulars, exacerbating logistic supply issues (7.62x39mm as opposed to 5.45x39mm).

@Northwind – I thought the same. ‘Dads army’ style recruits were often given wooden guns for this reason, but propaganda probably dictates that they need ‘real’ guns in case they are videoed/photographed and become a laughing stock

The mobilisation is of reservists who have military experience so will not doubt be able to give them a bit of a clean up

The mobilisation is of reservists who have military experience so will not doubt be able to give them a bit of a clean up

Indeed. A bit of Scotchbrite or wire wool and 3-in-1 oil (or the Russian equivalent) and they’ll be reet.  Unfortunately.