A few days ago, I wrote a piece highlighting the energy embargo that Russia had placed on Poland and Bulgaria. Russia made clear weeks ago that they would not sell oil and gas to ‘unfriendly’ countries if they weren’t prepared to pay in roubles (which Poland and Bulgaria said they weren’t). As I noted at the time, the Russian move was clever and likely to work.
Some commentators responded to my piece that I did not understand the situation properly. In fact, they said, the embargo would not threaten Poland and Bulgaria because it only hit their gas supplies. Both countries have extensive coal-powered electricity grids and although Poland relies for almost a fifth of its electricity generation from gas, Poland is in the process of weaning itself off of Russian gas and onto alternatives, especially from Norway.
There are a few points that can be made against this argument.
- If Poland was going to wean itself off Russian gas anyway and Bulgaria does not rely on it for much of its energy generation, then what was the point of the histrionics? Since it has spooked energy markets and caused European gas markets to spike 20% – as firms price in the possibility of a broader energy embargo – it will give rise to inflated prices in Europe and worsen the already bad inflation.
- Poland and Bulgaria may not need the gas, but they do need petroleum. Most cars and trucks do not run on electricity and a new gas pipeline to Norway or additional coal power generation will not help motorists if Russia turns off the taps. If the two countries are willing to pay for the petroleum imports but not for the gas then, again, what was the point? They’ll still be sending Russia money.
These two points raise a much broader one. It appears to me that Poland and Bulgaria’s refusal to pay for Russian gas in roubles has one purpose in mind: to increasingly normalise a European boycott of Russian energy. If Russia does something in Ukraine that’s seen to merit a response from Europe, people will point to Poland and Bulgaria’s refusal, and we’ll be told that a boycott wouldn’t be that bad. This could have a cascade effect where Europe unwittingly commits itself to a catastrophically bad policy.
The people who push for a boycott of Russian energy are not economists. They tend to be foreign policy specialists. They view the economy as they view the theatre of battle: as a simple conflict. They hit us, we hit them – and we keep hitting each other until one of us wins. That is how foreign policy experts think. But this is simply not how the economy works. The economy is a highly complex, interconnected system. Major interventions can have unexpected consequences.
What the foreign policy people fail to understand is that if they actually convinced European leaders to boycott Russian energy, this would completely destabilise Europe. Very high inflation and even possibly hyperinflation would set in quickly as the factories and farms were plagued by rolling blackouts and the supermarket shelves emptied. People would go hungry. Hungry people would riot. Governments could fall. Unexpected forces could rise to power.
Now ask yourself: who would that situation benefit? Europe or Russia? The answer is obvious. The Russians understand this because their foreign policy establishment and their economists regularly talk. They do so because Russia has been preparing for economic warfare for almost a decade. We do not understand this, because our foreign policy experts and our economists do not talk – much like the way our epidemiologists and our economists did not talk prior to the lockdowns. And so, we are forced to try to have this debate in the public square. Let us hope that our policymakers listen and listen carefully. Otherwise, we could be facing a catastrophe.
Philip Pilkington is a macroeconomist and investment professional. You can subscribe to his Substack newsletter here.
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The provoked Ukraine war is a mess- in fact it is a total disaster thanks to Biden and Nato!
For eight years, much of the world chose to ignore what was going on in the Donbass: the systematic and often brutal persecution of people on the grounds of their ethnicity. There’s a precedent for this, though many people won’t like to hear it.
In 1933, the German state began the systematic persecution of Jews. For years – at least until Kristallnacht (9 November 1938) and even after – this was regarded by many as an internal affair.
Distinguished political figures (in Britain and elsewhere) saw no problems at all. Germany was allowed to build up its armaments because it was believed by many that those armaments would be used against the Russians.
The only effect blatantly ridicolous statements like this one have is that one can’t help starting to question how true these neverchanging stories were when they were being told for the first time.
What has been going on in Donbass is that so-called pro-Russian separatists declared that two eastern provinces of Ukraine would now be independent states. Maybe, they also persecured Ukrainians there – at least this wouldn’t surprise me – but the Ukrainian government most certainly didn’t because it didn’t have any power over the people living in this area since 2014. Similar to Syria, there was a relatively low volume civil war going on there the world mostly ignored until Putin saw it fit to stir the pot once more.
As to German rearmament in the 1930s, nobody allowed anything here. The German government just started to violate all military limitations of the Versaille treaty openly step-by-step and nobody really wanted to start a major war just because of this. There was an Anglo-German naval treaty which caused Germany to become part of the Washington naval treaty but that didn’t mean much as the Japanese unilaterally withdrew from that which basically caused it to collapse. And your displaced comparion obviously wasn’t about naval rearmament, anyway.
I had to laugh when I saw the BBC quoting Zelensky complaining the Russians were “weaponising energy” – but it’s OK for us to sanction them, seize assets, ban their sports teams etc etc.
How dare they not just lie there and take the beating we want to dish out to them?
These uppity Russkies just don’t know their place!
Yet what proportion of the British population would, if asked, bleat their agreement that it’s “the Russians who weaponised energy”, that the Germans et al were stupid to become dependent on Russian oil and gas imports and are now paying the price, when Russia has never given the slightest suggestion of an intention to cut off supplies to any EU country willing to pay?
Just another indication of the way we in “the west” have become culturally part of the Empire of Lies.
The catastrophic descent of our public discourse into a cesspool of lies was the necessary precursor of this nightmare.
When lying is the norm, anything is possible – including the absurd propositions you’ve outlined.
It’s not only the British population which is already living in the dark. Perhaps the Anglosphere is particularly affected – i don’t know.
But it’s becoming increasingly difficult to have a reasonable discussion about a situation that is complex, but not impenetrable.
People do indeed believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast. The moment they access their “news”, they will believe more.
Great comment!
What about all the Russian restaurants in London / UK / Europe? All boycotted?
Russian drinks have been taken off the shelves in the state-run alcohol shops in Finland.
Just childish. I completely understand if we have formally declared war. The cancelling of Russian culture is the most ridiculous thing.
I quite agree. However Russian vodka is not really so much about culture as money is it? And vodka is not uniquely Russian – Poland has a better claim to its origin. And Finland and Sweden have their own brands, so don’t need to import from Russia.
Poland thinks it has a better claim to everything that comes from ‘the East”( Including of course Lvov).
Anyone seeking an understanding of what is going on in the Ukraine really ought to read two books. ( Big print copies for Truss please!)
‘”Iron Curtain” the crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56 ‘ by Anne Applebaum ( explains “Russia hate” and inter ethnic conflicts)
“Russia against the Rest” – the post cold-war crisis of world order Richard Sakwa – brilliantly gives us the full 20 year back story to the US Deep State engineered conflict in Ukraine .
Did Russia fall into the trap or has the CIA underestimated Russia?
Thank you for the recommendations.
Why exclude Russia ? We are allowing the Wokist Crazies to cancel our own culture by the minute!
There is no “culture” in Schwabland, just vaccinations, digital statistics and internment camps
Double think and Double talk BBC in action!
“Nation shall speak lies unto Nation” ( But then the BBC no longer believe in nations do they?)
I’m going to live in a cabin in the forest with a couple of rifles and some bullets to hunt for my food. Perhaps Romania. Who’s joining me?
Romanian Gypsies will steal your teeth whilst you’re sleeping.
So will Western politicians
Add a couple of big dogs to the rifles. Get in (bribe) with the local police too.
Most of them are in London begging so he might get to keep his teeth.
It’s looking attractive!
There’s a spare bunk in my cabin (off-grid) if you need it….
That short essay did not make it clear – are Poland and Bulgaria paying for their petrol/diesel for their cars, buses, trucks & railway engines in Roubles? If Yes, why not pay also for gas in Roubles?
And if No, then why is Russia giving them liquid fossil fuels?
Details are missing – as always!
And what about all the other countries? Romania, Hungary, Germany, Italy, all the former Yugoslavian countries, Austria, Greece, etc? Oh yeah, Finland too! Is Finland paying for it’s transport fuel in Roubles?
Russia has every justification and right to demand payment in Roubles as the West gas set out to destroy its economy and currency.
Smart insight
If no one interfered with Russia in Ukraine less people would have died.
“If” we actually cared about people and peace it would be better to let Eastern Ukraine go to Russia. Most of them would be happy with that. Bolster the other East European countries and increase defence spending. Military-Defence complex happy, fewer dead.
Oh forgot the WEF – that would never work. Can’t have Russia independent with all those commodities.
Unfortunately, Russia will control all of the resources of Ukraine, and there would be ongoing insurgence for years. How many EU borders are up against Ukraine?
Russia would re-instate the Iron Curtain – that’s after all what the West wants isn’t it?
This time not to keep the people in, as with the Berlin Wall, but to keep CIA agents, political agents provocateurs, western mercenaries and arms dealers out.
This is Schwab’s war by proxy as much as Victoria Nuland’s .
Nice to see he got his “man” back in France.
“if they weren’t prepared to pay in roubles (which Poland and Bulgaria said they weren’t)“
Seems the Poles have found an even better solution: pay someone else more for the gas and let them get their hands dirty actually paying Russia for it in rubles:
Poland is still getting Russian gas via reverse flows from Germany along the Yamal-Europe pipeline.
It’s such a perfect modern US sphere Blairite solution: all the really important governmental objectives are achieved (virtue signalling), while the cost is born by Polish energy users.
Empire of Lies.
You know what they say. Government causes the problem, then steps up to solve the problem they caused in the first place.
The left are masters at this.
So are the pharmaceutical companies…
“Empire of Lies’ the New World Order of Deception and Chaos
This could have a cascade effect where Europe unwittingly commits itself to a catastrophically bad policy.
The HS2 policy was a mess.
The Covid policy was worse
Green zero CO2 policies will disintegrate our technological society
Current Woke policies will collapse our culture
So trying to force a nuclear-armed power down by removing the source of raw materials for our industry simply matches all the other policies we have seen from Government* so far…
European states have abolished themselves and handed over their Governments and people to UN power grabbing Globalist Extremists , Marxist lunatics and deluded Climate Fanatics, Big Corporation, Banks, Health Tyrants and megalomaniac Billionaires.
Johnson? – first in the queue to sign up!
For some inexplicable reason, Russia chooses not to be an inmate of this asylum, which strangely has such a great appeal to the Woke !
Happy Times ahead!
Although I agree with the gist of the article, it fails to deal with two elephants in the room:
1) There are experts who hold counterviews to the mainstream narrative but they’ve been censored or smeared as a consequence
2) Economists have deliberately been sidelined in relation to Covid and Ukraine because an objective cost/benefit analysis would absolutely destroy the case for both policies
It’s not all about money, so cost/benefit analysis is of limited use.
Everything has a cost/benefit equation.
Points well made!
“The people who push for a boycott of Russian energy are not economists. They tend to be foreign policy specialists.”
That’s way too generous.
They are just idiots, usually with a government or quasi government salary and/pension or an inherited estate.
Nothing else.
“Specilaists”? Cretins more like!
This is what happens when power is deliberately handed over to the anointed idiots..Boris, Biden, the canadian dunce el al…The lunatics really have been allowed to take over the asylum..but out of arranged chaos comes order, apparently, at some point, maybe..
The idea that there is a group of people out there to take charge who are extraordinarily competent and at the same time benevolent even when endowed with huge power is a very foolish fantasy.
Ordinary, decent, reasonably moral, human beings with some Common Sense would do for starters!
Schwab has chosen them all for his special purpose – cloned, ‘altered’ Globalists… who strangely never seem to lose elections!
These so-called sanctions against Russia have failed to have any effect since 2014. They’re essentially theatre politicians play for their electorate[*] and they ought to be stopped immediately.
[*] At best. In the area of fossil fuels, a not unlikely conjecture would be that drastic energy price rises are what a lot of influential people actually want – that’s part of their holy Save the average global temperature! mission – and that the war in Ukraine is just a convenient opportunity to get the public used to them.
Absolutely spot on comment!
Great comment, Philip.
The author, like almost everyone, grossly overestimates the competence of people in authority making big decisions. As if the problem is always that the wrong people are making critical decisions.
All of those people are completely out of their depth when making big decisions. Not because they are particularly stupid. In fact, in many ways they are probably bright.
The main problem is that the world is just too damned complicated for anyone to really be able to understand all the implications of even seemingly simple ideas, like sanctioning oil imports, let alone work out how it’s all going to play out.
As a result, when these people make big decision with big implications, you know a whole bunch of stuff is going go tits up and more importantly, a bunch of people are going to be screwed in some way.
It aggravates me to be part of a species that is taken in so easily by the cheap and obvious bullshit of the shysters that are good at climbing into positions of authority,
When are we going to learn that we are constantly being shafted, over and over again, by people whose main skill is climbing over each other to get to the top? When are we going to learn that it doesn’t matter who is in authority because the scale and complexity of what they claim to manage is literally unmanageable?
These government idiots are beguiled and overwhelmed with data. There is so much of it around now thanks to modern communications no one, and I include all of us here as well, has a clue what to rely on.
But its not important. I was employed by a guy in the early 90’s who owned a massive global interiors business. Specialised in hotel groups like Hilton and Intercontinental, but the recession sent it almost bust and he was in deep financial and legal doodoo.
Long story short, he couldn’t afford his high flying accountancy firm that was doing nothing for him because, yep, they were data mad. Every meeting with them cost him a fortune and had presentations from half a dozen different analysts etc. who just spouted a constant stream of numbers but no solutions.
He met with his old accountant one day. A modest guy with a family business my boss was forced to ditch because investors and such like thought they presented the wrong image for his business. The boss of the accountancy firm was only a Certified accountant, not Chartered, and rather than understanding data this guy understood the laws of finance.
I was present at a few meeting with this guy and he was amazing. The first day my boss walked in with piles of accounts and information, data and spreadsheets etc. He literally staggered in under the weight of the documents, and the accountant picked the whole lot up, dropped it into/over the bin and said “that’s for office juniors to deal with, you shouldn’t even see that crap”.
He sat down with an A4 sheet of paper, asked half a dozen questions, and said “you’ll be in court within the next 6 months”. And he was.
Fortunately the accountant was wheeled into court and my boss walked out with the shirt on his back, but that was about all. He was facing far more time than Boris Becker and, whilst I’m the first to say he was ultimately responsible, it was established he was ripped off badly by directors of the company and endured bad advice from a well recognised accountancy firm.
The point being, his old accountant relied on common sense and not data to solve the problems. He had a sound understanding of the laws of finance but was by no means a legal specialist. Other than looking at a few topline numbers the data was useless to him.
Sorry, boring story.
Interesting and insightful. I know exactly what you experienced, seen it a few times myself.
I think your story is a wonderful illustration of how utterly futile it is to try to manage a country.
Anyone who has a managed a company of any scale can tell you how complicated and hard it is. And a company like the one you describe is infinitely simpler than a country. It produces a comparatively narrow set of products, it has a very clear measure of success or failure (profit) and is led by someone who is completely aligned with the companies objectives.
The centralised state functions of a country, in contrast, are incredible diverse, all of them at a massive scale, what constitutes success or failure is constantly under debate because there are different constituents with different objectives and to top it all, the people in charge are more for themselves than anything else,
A modern state is an ungovernable monster and the only sensible thing to do is to scale it back massively, stop directing every aspect of people’s lives, stop trying to control people and just let people solve their own problems and get in with it.
Anything else and we will end up being devoured by the black hole that is the state apparatus.
When are we going to learn that it doesn’t matter who is in authority because the scale and complexity of what they claim to manage is literally unmanageable?
I agree with you in principle, but there are degrees.
For Floridians, having Ron DeSantis as Governor has made a difference (in a way I regard as positive). This was not dependent on his being a Republican – there were other Republican governors who seemed just as inept and appalling as so many of the Democrat governors.
For Victorians (of the Australian variety) having Dan Andrews as Premier has made a difference (in a way that has been significantly worse than in the neighbouring state of New South Wales – though there were plenty of blunders and/or crimes there, too).
Absolutely. What I really mean is that no one is capable of managing in that state directed, centralised decision making way that so many people clamour for.
What Ron DeSantis intelligently did was precisely accept that the situation was not for him to manage and let Floridians get on with their own lives and make their own decisions.
So I agree it matters who is in charge if the person in charge makes the decision to get out of the public’s way, get the state out of their lives and let them get on with it.
What I really mean is that no one is capable of managing in that state directed, centralised decision making way that so many people clamour for.
Yes. State-directed, centralised decision-making is resulting – more and more calamitously – in over-simplifications of complex situations.
We are creating a breed of “strong men” (and “strong” women) who are simply bullies riding roughshod; more like bulls in a china shop than leaders. They don’t deal with complexities because they can’t handle the vast numbers of them, and so they cut through with dangerous decisions.
We need to find a way of protecting ourselves by removing areas from their control. To take a simple example: if mask mandates could only be imposed locally (in a particular enterprise, for example), the market/popular opinion would be able to have a quick effect.
“Equality” and “diversity” BS now means that the very worst individual possible – psychologically, mentally and intellectually – totally unqualified – is always appointed to do the job they are totally unsuited and unqualified to do – we see the results al around us!
But then again actually doing the job doesn’t matter – only status and money!
Take a look at recent Biden appointments in the US – the full “Melt Down Team” in place!
Johnson appears to be working with the same cracked algorithm – Truss as “Foreign Secretary”, Dorries in charge of Censorship, little Gove in charge of confiscating Woodburners, the Sunak Billionaire Jamboree Party in charge of “taxes” ( for plebs only!)
The people in charge may be dumb about predicting the consequences of their decisions, but they are usually smart about one thing: outsourcing risk and shifting blame. That’s how they are able to obtain and retain their positions in the first place. It’s really as simple as that – once a fraudster has sufficiently mastered the art of covering her/his ass, the road to higher power is wide open.
Very sadly for the Polish people, this confected dispute with Russia is a personal issue has been stoked up by the surviving Kaczyński twin who will never accept that his brother’s messiah complex lead him to kill himself and a plane full of compatriots by compelling the pilot to ignore ground control in appalling weather conditions leading to the crash.
Unable to accept what his brother did he has.become fixated on the idea that Putin engineered the plane’s crash.
I have heard that. Can you recommend a good source?
Good reminder of what really happened- but then blaming the Russians for every disaster is a Polish national habit based on hard experience.
In fact of course, they also have many historical “difficulties” with the Ukrainians too – especially in the Lvov area!
“What the foreign policy people fail to understand is that if they actually convinced European leaders to boycott Russian energy, this would completely destabilise Europe”
I think you’ll find they understand it very well indeed!
There could be a policy of encouraging car sharing.
This happened during the early 1970s “oil crisis” in Britain.
Nowadays it’s much easier to enforce because the state knows where every car is and how many passengers are in each one. And people are more compliant now too.
“Russia has been preparing for economic warfare for almost a decade.”
What changed almost a decade ago?
If the international situation weren’t so dire, it would be amusing that the US is still importing Russian uranium.
Much of that ‘uranium’ comes from the nuclear non proliferation treaty when Russian nuclear weapons were dismantled and the warheads shipped to the US for reprocessing and inclusion in the US nuclear energy program.
Most, if not all, American nuclear power stations are running with a substantial proportion of former Russian weapons material fuelling their reactors.
Hardly something to be sneered at.
No great suprise that they chose Poland and Bulgaria: these are entry points into the EU of major gas pipelines from Russia.
Remember what happened some years back: Russia shut off Ukraine because they refused to pay higher gas prices. Then they accused Ukraine of bleeding off gas that was in transit to Europe. And then, ostensibly to stop the bleeding off, they stopped the flow of gas altogether, seriously inconveniencing Europe.
When they shut off Poland and Bulgaria recently they warned them of dire consequences if they tried to bleed off gas. They can use that as a pretext for justifying cutting off most of Europe.
So the choice of Poland and Bulgaria is just tactics.
“Accused” them? – justifiably so!
Why is stealing Russian gas a ‘pretext’ rather than a reason to cut it off to stop the stealing?
Just a hint of the old built-in anti-Russia “bias” perhaps?
“As I noted at the time, the Russian move was clever and likely to work.”
The west had to fall some time.
But this analysis doesn’t explain the war.
And I wouldn’t say ending dependency on the US dollar is a “clever move”. Eventually it was inevitable…unless of course the US bombs most of the world to smithereens without Russia and China managing to draw…which is obviously not going to happen.
It doesn’t explain what about the war?
Philip Pilkington sure does love to have arguments against the Philip Pilkington that Philip Pilkington has invented to criticise Philip Pilkington.
I reckon Philip Pilkington just wants to date Philip Pilkington.
I’m currently reading Economics in One Lesson. And I’m finding again and again that Hazlitt’s one lesson for economics applies just about everywhere.
“The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”
So many of these arseclowns who fancy themselves as experts can’t see beyond the end of their own noses.
“The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”
And the arts of public health and foreign policy?
I don’t mind so much that people don’t necessarily have answers. I mind that they aren’t asked the questions, by those who should be holding them to account.
Speaking as one with an Economics degree ( I wish I had done French) I humbly suggest your time might be better spent doing somenting else.
Economic is the most blatant wise-after-the-event, fortune-telling pseudo science of them all
I agree… you should have done French, you clearly learned very little.
Obviously you are clairvoyant in knowing what I know and don’t know but then, I suppose that as an “Economist”, that is your “stock in trade”.
Happily, I have degrees other than Economics!
Spit on. Considering the unseen.
Er, spit or spot?
‘What the foreign policy people fail to understand is that if they actually convinced European leaders to boycott Russian energy, this would completely destabilise Europe.’
Or not really:
‘No Russian imports: Even record high non-Russian imports would not be enough to sufficiently refill storage ahead of next winter. Europe would need to reduce demand by at minimum 400 TWh (or 10%-15% of annual demand). This is possible. A portfolio of exceptional options could abate at least 800 TWh.’
Bruegel 05 Apr 22
‘Assuming very low short-run substitution elasticities, an 8% energy adjustment to oil, gas, and coal consumption leads to a 1.4% of GDP loss, or costs of €500- 700. In a last scenario where we model a more extreme 30% adjustment in gas usage, the economic losses rise to 2.2% of GDP (2.3% of GNE), equivalent to up to €1,000 per year per German citizen’
ECONtribute Policy Brief 028 Mar 22
Germany will, therefore, move, is moving, towards a complete embargo of Russian gas.
Germany is moving towards a complete abolition of Germany altogether!
National Self Sacrifice as Wokist atonement for past sins….. and of course to ‘Save th Planet’!
The error which is so frequently made is that demand can be controlled by diktat and by controlling supply. A good example of how well that works is the multi-billion dollar, international illegal drug trade.
When supply falls, prices go up. This price increase sends two signals, one to consumers, consume less to save money, one to suppliers supply more to increase earnings.
If supply cannot be increased, prices will continue to rise, or enforced rationing will be required.
Increased energy costs are compounded throughout the economy in manufacturing, distribution, transportation and retail with devastating effect to consumers. Consumers consume less = producers produce less = job losses = economic recessions depression, collapse.
Germany moving away from Russian imports to what? LPG – from where, in what ships, landing at which German ports, offloaded into which German storage tanks?
If European Countries are sourcing fossil fuels elsewhere, they are in competition with the USA which has throttled its domestic production in favour of international supply.
Any idea what that is going to do to prices?
Talk about weaning off Russian imports is just that -like phasing out nuke and fossil fuel and replacing with wind. Looks great on paper, sounds marvellous then impact with that thick, reinforced concrete wall called reality.
Poland and Bulgaria understand that the US’ new whores are in Eastern Europe and they can earn brownie points doing everything they are told by the USA.
There’s nothing more complicated about this than realising that Poland and Bulgaria are now merely puppet regimes for US interests.
True – but Poland especially always has its own special ‘Russia Hate’ agenda.
‘What the foreign policy people fail to understand is that if they actually convinced European leaders to boycott Russian energy, this would completely destabilise Europe.’
Unless they know exactly what would happen but call for it regardless because destroying the Western world as we know it is part of the great reset.
Exactly!
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2022/04/28/western-media-today-28-april-2022/
Trouble in the British Virgin Islands, one of the British criminal dictatorship’s main banking centres, suggests the sound of financial pillars cracking may soon rend the air.
Will the Filthy Rich lose any money? Let us hope so!
We are at the beginning of the self-inflicted catastrophe.
‘Destabilising Europe’ seems to be the real objective of “Foreign Policy people’ – who are clearly simply Wokist morons with extremist axes to grind
‘Foreign Policy’ as we used to understand it has been killed by Extreme Globalist Elites, driven by eccentric dystopian fantasies of power and control and politicised Social Media .
When we had Nation States we had ‘national interests’ and diplomacy now we have Ursula Von der Leyen and senile Biden …and Truss – no wonder the Western world is in free-fall chaos.
Refusing to accept and treat Russia as Nation State with interests and concerns has been a deliberate attempt to drive Russia out of the “World” {less than half of it) ‘community’ ( hardly a community) devised by the crazed Wokist extremists who now dominate all our Global and National Institutions. Snubbed by the West,Russia has been gravitating east since before the 2014 Coup in Ukraine – now the direction has been firmly decided for them by the US Neo Cons and the CIA.
The real tragedy is the total absence of Germany as a Nation from the European political scene – the country seems to have abolished itself after 70 years of terminal guilt and a permanent “identity crisis”. .
Those now in charge are not fit to run a Zero Carbon “Save the Woodlice/ Goats Lives Matter/ White Rabbits are Racist” ‘combination pseudo- charity’ never mind decide policy for Europe and the West.
The Russians are well off out of it.
Politicians have, as we all know, always lied – but the “New Oder West” seems to have taken ‘lying ‘to a whole new level – a devised “Newspeak” of deliberate contradiction of and denial of the facts, designed to create psychic disorder in the subjected populations! This is an established brainwashing technique of course – and it is now being applied to us!
’Both countries have extensive coal-powered electricity grids and although Poland relies for almost a fifth of its electricity generation from gas,’
This actually is a good example of the widespread ignorance of electricity supply – its Physics!
It is not a matter of aggregate supply or demand. Supply has to be continuous and balanced. If a grid loses a fifth of its electricity input, or there is a shortfall in one sector or oversupply in another, it breaks down. No lights!
This is the misunderstanding about wind, when we hear it can supply 50% of power, that has to happen all the time and be adjusted as and when required or the grid will fail.
To Whom It May Concern
The curious use of the English language and overlong, aggressive, pro Putin bluster of many comments on here have an explanation.
Russian internet trolls based in an old arms factory in St Petersburg are targeting world leaders online and spreading support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Online operatives were found to be ordering followers to target western media outlets and politicians, according to research funded by the UK government, which plans to share it with major online platforms and other governments.
Many of these followers, ‘fellow travellers’, belong to fringe political organisations in Europe and elsewhere in receipt of funding from Putin’s Russian political agencies.
The headquarters of the ‘internet research agency’ is allegedly located in rented space in St Petersburg’s Arsenal Machine-building Factory, a company that manufactures military equipment and technology.
The ‘internet research agency’ belongs to Yevgheny Prigozhin
Prigozhin’s activities on behalf of the state have made him notorious……Prigozhin, senior employees and his company are all under US indictment.
Rumbled
Traces of the operation have been detected across eight social media platforms including Telegram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok.
Key tactical innovations of the operational methodology include the use of commenting behaviours, use of VPNs and deliberate amplification of ‘organic’ content supporting the Kremlin’s position. All of these methods help to avoid detection and interception by social media platforms.
Hallmarks:
Calling on subscribers to target the social media profiles of opponents and Kremlin critics, including prominent politicians and world leaders, and spam them with pro-Kremlin comments.
Asking them to turn on VPNs and spam the comments sections of specific links to Instagram, YouTube, and Telegram.
Focusing activity on posting comments, rather than authoring original content – a tactic likely to decrease the risks of being detected by social media platforms for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour and/or harmful content.
Searching for ‘organic content’ posted by genuine users coherent with the lines they want to push, and then working to amplify these messages, in order that such views are distorted as the norm. This means that, provided the content they post is not too offensive, they are unlikely to be subject to de-platforming interventions.