This is good news. EU should put forth some legislation preventing NS1/2 from being turned on ever again and move on with financing new sources of gas.

If they could they would, but its highly impractical in a short enough period of time.

This is a long term solution that should have been worked towards years ago.

The only other easy option was ukraine who also has good gas stores.

Russia already lost half of their armed forces (eg thousand visually confirmed tanks, https://twitter.com/oryxspioenkop/status/1566090567280463872), and their losses are shooting up again. Gas will get expensive for couple of months, but might become essentially free afterwards - Europe will pay by allowing Russia to persist in its current shape.

Watching the (cold, for now) start of a conflict between NATO & BRICS is terrifying.

NATO is a defensive military alliance between North America and some European countries and BRICS are a collection of emerging economies that host an annual summit. They're not really comparable

Also three big players among the BRICS are sort of on opposite sides: Brazil has some ties to the US and India and China aren't exactly on the best of terms.

Then call it US + EU vs Russia + China. The point is that it's getting serious.

democracy vs dictatorship

Except BRICS won’t fight for Russia. China is very explicitly not an ally, and Kazakhstan is openly mocking Putin.

Thus, it’s NATO vs “Nigeria with nukes” alone.

Using a country as an epithet is something that I haven't seen since high school. Nigeria is a beautiful place which has historically been incredibly rich with resources during a phase of history where pillaging, and the its subsequent suppression of rights, is rife, whether it's done by foreign nations or, currently, multinational corporations.

> China is very explicitly not an ally

The very public announcement at the Olympics says, very explicitly, otherwise.

> due to equipment issues

Cut to a scene with a Russian guy who’s just turned a huge red wheel shut and puts a post it on it with “broken until Putin says it’s fixed”

probably what happened, its a war afterall and they need to fire back due to sanctions.

They need the money, sure, but they also need europe to ease sanctions and this is their trump card.

Its been played, if it fails I doubt russia will be able to sustain the war by next spring.

If they don't cave by december either I assume they pull out or do something crazy like use small yield nukes.

Most Germans understand English perfectly fine. So, feel free to scam, I guess.

It's not as simple as you think. Twenty years ago, Putin wanted to diversify his gas pipelines to get around the Ukraine's power. After many intrigues, he built two pipelines to Germany and a sort of drinking straw to China. This wasn't exactly a victory for Putin.

And now the Germans disagree about they how they should sabotage Putin, while agreeing that they should do it, and Germany's the third biggest arms donor to Ukraine after the UK and US.