...”Winter is just around the corner”....
It’s going to be a brutal one, and early. Heck last night I had to put some heat on here...49 degrees...and this in July Summer!!!
The little nations are going to suffer...I think he’ll keep the big boys supplied, at least for leverage.
The voice of the Kremlin speaks through tcrlaf --
It's going to be colder in Moscow though -- it always is.
.......”It didn’t have to come to this,” Obama says. “This is a choice that Russia and President Putin has made.”.....
He quickly forgets it’s his pen and phone making things happen.....and he’s alienating every national leader by his inability to handle the situation he’s got US in.
Obama said...”It is about Russia recognizing Ukraine can chart its own path [the one WE have laid out for Ukraine].
“Winter drawing near” is indeed likely a factor behind Ukraine pressing the separatists hard now. However, like most any chart that’s also shown up in the NYT, that one is, well, superficial. That chart shows only imports, and does not take into account each country’s domestic energy production (or lack of.) It also does not differentiate heating imports from general energy usage.
Take Poland for example. The Poles derive most of their heating from coal, Russian coal, in fact, despite having had a long time large coal mining industry of their own. What’s happened is that Polish coal production has been undercut by Russian imports, in recent years. However, much of the decline in Polish production has been so recent that I suspect at least some production could be resurrected in an emergency. How much, I do not know.
Another factor is ability to cut back and get by. For example, last winter when we got our 1st big heating (electricity) bill, I said “yikes!” and impressed upon my wife and daughter that though we were not being silly-wasteful, we must conserve electricity. I similarly took measures in my shop. The result was that without any drastic change in our lives, we were able to cut usage in the next month by over 20%, even though average temperatures actually ran slightly colder in that next billing period. My guess is that in most countries, usage could be cut by as much as 30%, and after that is when it starts getting really uncomfortable.
All in all, countries like Germany would get by, I believe, even if Putin cut off exports, but the real question could be whether Germany, France, etc., would sacrifice to bail out, say, Slovakia.
Barring a truly major war, it probably will not come to that, at least for Europe. Obviously, even 30% cuts of energy imports would have serious economic consequences, but the consequences to Russia’s economy **at present** would be just as severe.