If you insist:
https://www.ft.com/content/fb79c2bd-...3-508d4df865e5
Btw, when guy like Putin boasts like that, things are pretty sure far much worse.
Everyone is going to take hits - economic wars in modern globalized markets are not going to be one-sided. And EU so far is doing much worse then projected.
Worst-case for EU is:
- people freeze (even reduction of "allowed temperatures" can bring hits to health)
- getting all "alternative" suppliers lined up and building local LNG hubs will take at least several years, and actually replacing entire Russian production (rather then shifting flows around) would need trillions in investments
- industries collapse (some already do due to prices; more will with actual physical shortages)
- competitiveness of European goods that were buoyed by cheap Russian energy is lost forever (LNG will forever have higher price then pipe gas, and alternative pipe options are rather limited), making Europe inferior option to Asian - or American - producers.
vs
Russia has to:
- find new buyers of oil and gas that is going to be in short supply for next decade - doesn't seem to be a real problem; volumes drop, but price increases easily make up for it so far... could change if production would increase, but previous underinvestment all around the world makes that very unlikely, and "green/renewable future" beliefs are still strong
- find new suppliers of consumer and industrial electronics - or learn to produce them themselves
- industries that relied on imports will have to use lower-volume 'grey' schemes
There is enough money brought in to actually fuel internal investments in next decade, and all "basic needs" - food and energy - are not in danger of not being met (it isn't ever going to be "food for oil" like with late USSR).
To clarify: worse than projected for EU means a small GDP growth of perhaps 2.7% instead of 4% ( https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-e...ic-forecast_en ) , Russia predicts their GDP will decline by perhaps 8% instead of the previously projected modest growth - https://www.russia-briefing.com/news...forecast.html/
Its obvious that democracy and dictatorships cant live on planet earth together. Death to all dictators and their supporters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I0srEaIcfQ
Very interesting video. It is in French but I think you can understand it with the youtube subtitle.
“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
Words to live by.
You claim that all of these replacement suppliers will be unfindable for Europe, and that pivoting their energy or building new infrastructure will take far, far too long... but that Russia can make up for its dearth of, what was it... oh, yeah the lack of replacement equipment for the war it's currently fighting, like it's no problem despite the financial collapse occurring, drain of both qualified individuals and wealthy individuals as they flee Russia, alienation by the rest of the world, and their lack of infrastructure to create necessary things like microchips and communications equipment that they've effectively been shut out of... but no, Russia will take its shrinking economy and rally and build these things like it's nothing, in no time, despite the growing lack of every type of capitol required to do so- financial, resource, and human, while the 27 countries in the EU will simply founder and be utterly unable to do anything.
You like tossing around the word "hopium." Perhaps you should look in the mirror about who's using it the most, here. Every single thing you claim is a "deathblow" for Europe is actively happening in Russia, it's just that Europe 1) isn't fighting a war and 2) isn't sealed off from the rest of the world. And yet you look at that situation... exclusively, it seems, because China and a few other countries are... buying your oil, because you're the cheap, exploitable source of it?
“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow
Words to live by.