Russia and the EU will manage the latest phase of their US-instigated divorce without much difficulty, but the US might offer to bring them back together by authorizing its vassals’ import of Russian pipeline gas in exchange for some concessions from the Kremlin in the energy sector and Ukraine.
I don't think the cited compromises are good for Russia. My core concept is that Russia is near complete autarky and has only a small need for foreign currency. Pipelines to China can be negotiated and there is no point for Russia to be soft there. After all, there is already a pipeline to China. If China is not happy about the pricing, they can buy less. NG staying underground will not expire just because there is a shortage of buyers for a while. Gas export to Europe by pipeline can be forgotten for a while, but there is no real need to blow up these pipelines in Ukraine so far.
Europe is in far worse shape than CNN had acknowledged. For example, https://www.furnituretoday.com/markets-amp-tradeshows/imm-cologne-2025-canceled/ I heard this is the number one furniture trade show in Europe, and this is not a WEF kind of gathering of the rich and famous but rather a furniture show targeting the middle class. Instead of waiting to see if Trump would become easier to negotiate, it is better to wait through this winter to see how Europeans can hold up. Even a devil is easier to handle if its minions are badly whipped.
As for Transnistria, I don't have any workable ideas. It is very difficult to resupply unless Russians have firm control around the City of Odesa. People there are far from being soft, but the geography there is difficult to defend and it is impossible to be self-sufficient. A few commando-raid style of resupply missions might work, but fuels and ammos are difficult cargos for this kind of shipping. I would not change existing strategic planning for Transnistria, but the people there should be exonerated from any potential backlash or finger-pointing. If I could, I would grant them the title of Heroes of Russia when Russian forces reach them and give them priority for reconstruction.
Russian leadership would have to be totally incompetent to agree with any of the author's proposals. "Run your economy in our interest or we'll keep the money we stole from you". That said, they were stupid enough to keep their money with the West, so who knows what they might agree to.
Putin’s invasion was from a position of weakness…but not because of anything the West did. The reality is Putin’s “golden goose” was Gazprom’s pipelines to Europe. So Europe was happy sending money to Russia but Putin wanted more. The invasion is really about the MC-21 which Putin wants as a halo product like the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320. And the MC-21 program was started when America was at its weakest after 8 years of Bush/Cheney. So nobody could have predicted how strong America would grow in such a short time thanks to leadership by Obama/Trump/Biden and the innovation of American frackers.
Putin believes Russia is entitled to export value added goods to Europe and Europe doesn’t want their crap. So Europe buys military equipment from America and Europe has its own aircraft industry and Europeans buy cars from Europe and smart phones from America and South Korea.
A big problem I see was Russia having too much legacy manufacturing from the Soviet Empire in which they forced their satellites to buy those goods while propping up their economies with oil profits. So that was an asinine business model and Russia like Japan and Germany and South Korea needed to focus on a few sectors instead of every sector.
Anyway, America did super dumb things under Bush/Cheney but even if we haven’t necessarily owned up to our mistakes we paid for them and we just keep looking ahead.
What a particularly stupid collection of sentences. The EU 3rd Energy Package made it clear that Europe was FAR from "happy" sending Russia massive amounts of cash. The MC21 has nothing to do with it. Read more, post less until your understanding improves.
Biden was outmaneuvered and NS2 was completed despite his best efforts to stop it. The SMO gave him the necessary extra leverage to greenlight a direct terrorist attack on Germanys infrastructure to ensure their energy relationship was set back, to the US advantage. Ironically the US demolition of NS2 should have activated NATO Article 5....against the US.
No, Germany wanted NS2 completed and so Biden didn’t stand in the way…and that’s why Germany now imports LNG from America because Biden didn’t force it on them like Trump was attempting to do. Biden made us energy dominant with a huge assist from Putin achieving an important Trump goal.
How is a commercial aircraft company successful?? You sell it to more than just Russian airlines!! China is developing their own 737 competitor so that market isn’t happening. Putin has always wanted to expand beyond Gazprom and Lukoil and Rosneft by exporting value added products. You don’t think this war is about crappy territory, do you?? It’s about spheres of influence…and if Ukraine is in the Russian sphere of influence they will buy Russian value added exports. Btw, Ukraine will never be in the Russian sphere of influence which means Putin has already lost this war!
Nobody cares about the midle classes or the poors, certainly not in europe. As long as the elites are doing very well, thank you, as long as the security services are on-side and will shoot when ordered to do so, then that is all that matters.
Although he certainly is opposed to the proxy war, I wouldn't characterize Slovakia's Robert Fico as a "conservative-nationalist". Although his views on Ukraine align quite well with those of Viktor Orban, Fico is decidedly left-wing.
Piece on the possible acquisition of the Nordstream 2 pipeline by American Marc Lynch.
"'Nord Stream-2' may go to the Americans. What does this mean for Russia?"
Russian analyst Marat Bashirov: "Trump's plan for gas control of the European economy is simple: maximum ownership of all gas transmission corridors from Russia to the EU countries. This will give a huge competitive leverage to the United States. Gas Transit System of Ukraine without gas transit from Russia is falling significantly in price. As well as the Nordstream pipelines. We're not stupid, we understand everything. The main questions are: (1) Are we [Russia] in a share [involved in the deal]? (2) And how will the price of gas be determined?"
Russian analyst Maxim Zharov: "The deal of the century on the sale of Nord Streams to an American investor will serve in the near future as an attempt to "pull together" the interests of the United States, Russia and China. But this project already has too many opponents, so its prospects are very vague."
"Energy expert Boris Martsinkevich recalls that under Swiss law, Russia can bid more at an auction and retain the right to the gas pipeline, but it is not going to do so. The gas pipeline has paid for itself several times over due to panic-high gas prices in Europe in 2021-2022. In addition, Nord Stream 2 AG is burdened with debts to five European investors who invested in the construction of Nord Stream 2 (For that reason, the bankruptcy procedure was postponed twice). "Absolutely nothing will change for Russia. We don't care who buys gas and for what purpose. If you have rubles, you will get a certain amount. No rubles – no gas. If Lynch buys NS2, fine. Currently, the volume of deliveries via NS2 is zero. If it increases above zero, Russia will benefit. If it remains zero, it doesn't lose anything. That is, it is simply impossible to lose in this situation."
"He believes that the sale of the blown-up pipe to Lynch will provide Gazprom with a temporary solution to the problem of selling the 110 billion cubic meters of gas flowing to the Baltic Sea from Yamal. If Gazprom is ultimately able to carry out the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation and creates a cluster of gas processing enterprises, then there will be no need to export to Europe. Then the American will just be left with a pipe."
Good luck to countries, and their leaders, having to "strike deals" with a power that can issue unlimited invalid currency, and have a cowering, afraid whole planet pretend it is valid.
All will have but to obey, for ever and ever more, insofar as that isn't opposed and successfully so.
>>"In exchange for the US returning some of Russia’s seized assets and authorizing the EU’s resumption of some Russia gas pipeline imports, Russia might have to informally commit to not building any new pipelines to China while scaling back some of its demilitarization and denazification demands of Ukraine."
In other words, Russia might need to capitulate. Because that's more or less what you are talking about here.
Wow--frankly if that's what you are assessing, a lot more supporting analysis is required.
How can a piece that proffers a supposedly plausible (or even supposedly likely) conflict-termination scenario make no reference at all to the situation on the ground in Ukraine? Is that no longer a significant factor in how this war will end?
The only way the scenario proposed here could be taken seriously is if one thinks it is based on access to information on Russian intentions that is not widely available. Hmmmm.
The Ukrainian Army is clearly in bad shape. Here's a recent article on the rapid disintegration of the Ukrainian 155th Mech Brigade (in Ukrainian--use auto-translate.)
Is it your view that the Russians simply can't convert their current military advantage into an authentic strategic victory? Because that's sure what it sounds like.
It's true, at the same time, that we have an obvious ongoing escalation of NATO/GoU efforts to gain leverage over Russia and force it into a negotiations that are on the West's terms. The Moscow assassination, the employment of Ukrainians drones to elicit the shootdown of the Azerbaijani jetliner, the US/Turkey/Israel undermining of the Russian position in Syria, the sinking of the Russian cargo ship (with Russian military equipment, as I understand) near the Strait of Gibraltar, and, most importantly, the opening of a campaign against the Russian shadow tanker fleet in the Baltic with the seizure of the Eagle S. and what appears likely to be the suborning of some of its crew to fabricate an attack on the Est-2 comms cable under the Gulf of Finland. The West and/or Ukraine seem to be starting an all-out campaign against Russian shipping and the non-Russian-flagged/managed shadow tanker fleet.
The shadow tanker fleet seems very much like Russia's Achilles' Heel, as Russia needs the revenues and can't really protect these ships on the high seas. And the concept of a shadow fleet means depending on foreign shippers, crews and officers, all of whom can be intimidated/bribed to create problems. That seems to be what is happening now.
On that subject, here is a piece from Russian Military Review headlined "The Sinking of the Russian Cargo Ship Ursa Major as a Prelude to Peace Talks."
And certainly the economic costs of the war for Russia are gradually building. Here's another piece from the Russian Military Review headlined "Military-industrial complex-2024: personnel shortage becomes threatening."
So what are Putin's goals at this point? And how does he see the overall strategic situation? What would be the reaction in Russia to the kind of conflict termination you are positing? I would think that "extreme disappointment" would be an understatement. Is the Russian domestic media issuing pieces similar to this one to "prepare" the Russian people, if this is really where things are headed?
Would Putin really agree to screw China by limiting energy sales per US diktat, knowing that the US has no interest in accepting Russian strategic autonomy of any kind in the long run? Sounds like a pig in a poke for him. Would Putin really end up agreeing to the one thing he started this war to avoid--NATOization of Ukraine? Why would he agree to those things unless the overall situation for Russia is so bad that he has no choice? And yet you are not painting that sort of picture at all.
You're not giving us anything like an integrated understanding of what is going on here. This is just happy talk that looks like it's meant to airbrush an impending Russian capitulation and sell the "alt media community"on what is, if it actually comes to pass, a disastrous outcome of this war for Russia.
I understand they initiated the invasion on some faulty premises about lack of Ukrainian resistance. But at the same time, it seems Putin put off a war for years after it was clear to objective observers what Mink 2 really was and was reluctant to take on the risks of war. That doesn't suggest to me that Putin thought a war and all its consequences would be a stroll in the park even if they hoped that the Ukrainian military would perhaps stand aside. If he thought it was going to be easy, why didn't he start it in 2014-2015?
My pure SWAG was that Putin didn't want to make war on those he still sees as gravely misguided brethren, just as he didn't want to admit that Minsk and Minsk-2 were shams frlm the beginning (which was obvious to everyone), just as he doesn't want to destroy the West but to join it, just as he does not want to admit that the West seeks, not accommodation with Russia but its destruction.
I don't want to make too many assumptions, however, we can't rule out that the incoming Administration would try to concede favorable terms in Ukraine and Europe in exchange for Russia disengaging from Iran. I hope the Russians refuse to ever discuss such terms.
This is what I came to substack for.
Right? Check out Mercouris's analysis of the 3rd Energy Package today on the Duran - top shelf, as well.
I don't think the cited compromises are good for Russia. My core concept is that Russia is near complete autarky and has only a small need for foreign currency. Pipelines to China can be negotiated and there is no point for Russia to be soft there. After all, there is already a pipeline to China. If China is not happy about the pricing, they can buy less. NG staying underground will not expire just because there is a shortage of buyers for a while. Gas export to Europe by pipeline can be forgotten for a while, but there is no real need to blow up these pipelines in Ukraine so far.
Europe is in far worse shape than CNN had acknowledged. For example, https://www.furnituretoday.com/markets-amp-tradeshows/imm-cologne-2025-canceled/ I heard this is the number one furniture trade show in Europe, and this is not a WEF kind of gathering of the rich and famous but rather a furniture show targeting the middle class. Instead of waiting to see if Trump would become easier to negotiate, it is better to wait through this winter to see how Europeans can hold up. Even a devil is easier to handle if its minions are badly whipped.
As for Transnistria, I don't have any workable ideas. It is very difficult to resupply unless Russians have firm control around the City of Odesa. People there are far from being soft, but the geography there is difficult to defend and it is impossible to be self-sufficient. A few commando-raid style of resupply missions might work, but fuels and ammos are difficult cargos for this kind of shipping. I would not change existing strategic planning for Transnistria, but the people there should be exonerated from any potential backlash or finger-pointing. If I could, I would grant them the title of Heroes of Russia when Russian forces reach them and give them priority for reconstruction.
Russian leadership would have to be totally incompetent to agree with any of the author's proposals. "Run your economy in our interest or we'll keep the money we stole from you". That said, they were stupid enough to keep their money with the West, so who knows what they might agree to.
I agree. The analytical case has not been made.
Putin’s invasion was from a position of weakness…but not because of anything the West did. The reality is Putin’s “golden goose” was Gazprom’s pipelines to Europe. So Europe was happy sending money to Russia but Putin wanted more. The invasion is really about the MC-21 which Putin wants as a halo product like the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320. And the MC-21 program was started when America was at its weakest after 8 years of Bush/Cheney. So nobody could have predicted how strong America would grow in such a short time thanks to leadership by Obama/Trump/Biden and the innovation of American frackers.
Putin believes Russia is entitled to export value added goods to Europe and Europe doesn’t want their crap. So Europe buys military equipment from America and Europe has its own aircraft industry and Europeans buy cars from Europe and smart phones from America and South Korea.
A big problem I see was Russia having too much legacy manufacturing from the Soviet Empire in which they forced their satellites to buy those goods while propping up their economies with oil profits. So that was an asinine business model and Russia like Japan and Germany and South Korea needed to focus on a few sectors instead of every sector.
Anyway, America did super dumb things under Bush/Cheney but even if we haven’t necessarily owned up to our mistakes we paid for them and we just keep looking ahead.
What a particularly stupid collection of sentences. The EU 3rd Energy Package made it clear that Europe was FAR from "happy" sending Russia massive amounts of cash. The MC21 has nothing to do with it. Read more, post less until your understanding improves.
Biden allowed NS2 to be completed…the reason gas has never flowed through it is because Putin invaded Ukraine.
Biden was outmaneuvered and NS2 was completed despite his best efforts to stop it. The SMO gave him the necessary extra leverage to greenlight a direct terrorist attack on Germanys infrastructure to ensure their energy relationship was set back, to the US advantage. Ironically the US demolition of NS2 should have activated NATO Article 5....against the US.
No, Germany wanted NS2 completed and so Biden didn’t stand in the way…and that’s why Germany now imports LNG from America because Biden didn’t force it on them like Trump was attempting to do. Biden made us energy dominant with a huge assist from Putin achieving an important Trump goal.
The idea that Russia invaded because Putin wanted an MC-21 aircraft to be successful is non-sequitur and asinine.
How is a commercial aircraft company successful?? You sell it to more than just Russian airlines!! China is developing their own 737 competitor so that market isn’t happening. Putin has always wanted to expand beyond Gazprom and Lukoil and Rosneft by exporting value added products. You don’t think this war is about crappy territory, do you?? It’s about spheres of influence…and if Ukraine is in the Russian sphere of influence they will buy Russian value added exports. Btw, Ukraine will never be in the Russian sphere of influence which means Putin has already lost this war!
Is this what AI trolling looks like these days? Did deliver some good morning laughs, so there's that...
Nobody cares about the midle classes or the poors, certainly not in europe. As long as the elites are doing very well, thank you, as long as the security services are on-side and will shoot when ordered to do so, then that is all that matters.
Although he certainly is opposed to the proxy war, I wouldn't characterize Slovakia's Robert Fico as a "conservative-nationalist". Although his views on Ukraine align quite well with those of Viktor Orban, Fico is decidedly left-wing.
Piece on the possible acquisition of the Nordstream 2 pipeline by American Marc Lynch.
"'Nord Stream-2' may go to the Americans. What does this mean for Russia?"
Russian analyst Marat Bashirov: "Trump's plan for gas control of the European economy is simple: maximum ownership of all gas transmission corridors from Russia to the EU countries. This will give a huge competitive leverage to the United States. Gas Transit System of Ukraine without gas transit from Russia is falling significantly in price. As well as the Nordstream pipelines. We're not stupid, we understand everything. The main questions are: (1) Are we [Russia] in a share [involved in the deal]? (2) And how will the price of gas be determined?"
Russian analyst Maxim Zharov: "The deal of the century on the sale of Nord Streams to an American investor will serve in the near future as an attempt to "pull together" the interests of the United States, Russia and China. But this project already has too many opponents, so its prospects are very vague."
"Energy expert Boris Martsinkevich recalls that under Swiss law, Russia can bid more at an auction and retain the right to the gas pipeline, but it is not going to do so. The gas pipeline has paid for itself several times over due to panic-high gas prices in Europe in 2021-2022. In addition, Nord Stream 2 AG is burdened with debts to five European investors who invested in the construction of Nord Stream 2 (For that reason, the bankruptcy procedure was postponed twice). "Absolutely nothing will change for Russia. We don't care who buys gas and for what purpose. If you have rubles, you will get a certain amount. No rubles – no gas. If Lynch buys NS2, fine. Currently, the volume of deliveries via NS2 is zero. If it increases above zero, Russia will benefit. If it remains zero, it doesn't lose anything. That is, it is simply impossible to lose in this situation."
"He believes that the sale of the blown-up pipe to Lynch will provide Gazprom with a temporary solution to the problem of selling the 110 billion cubic meters of gas flowing to the Baltic Sea from Yamal. If Gazprom is ultimately able to carry out the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation and creates a cluster of gas processing enterprises, then there will be no need to export to Europe. Then the American will just be left with a pipe."
https://translated.turbopages.org/proxy_u/ru-en.en.18886479-6777588d-525c1c4f-74722d776562/https/www.politnavigator.news/severnyjj-potok-2-mozhet-dostatsya-amerikancam-chto-ehto-oznachaet-dlya-rossii.html?utm_source=finobzor.ru
Thanks for posting.
Good luck to countries, and their leaders, having to "strike deals" with a power that can issue unlimited invalid currency, and have a cowering, afraid whole planet pretend it is valid.
All will have but to obey, for ever and ever more, insofar as that isn't opposed and successfully so.
>>"In exchange for the US returning some of Russia’s seized assets and authorizing the EU’s resumption of some Russia gas pipeline imports, Russia might have to informally commit to not building any new pipelines to China while scaling back some of its demilitarization and denazification demands of Ukraine."
In other words, Russia might need to capitulate. Because that's more or less what you are talking about here.
Wow--frankly if that's what you are assessing, a lot more supporting analysis is required.
How can a piece that proffers a supposedly plausible (or even supposedly likely) conflict-termination scenario make no reference at all to the situation on the ground in Ukraine? Is that no longer a significant factor in how this war will end?
The only way the scenario proposed here could be taken seriously is if one thinks it is based on access to information on Russian intentions that is not widely available. Hmmmm.
The Ukrainian Army is clearly in bad shape. Here's a recent article on the rapid disintegration of the Ukrainian 155th Mech Brigade (in Ukrainian--use auto-translate.)
https://novynarnia.com/2024/12/31/spravzhnya-istoriya-anny-kyyivskoyi-dbr-porushylo-spravu-shhodo-155-yi-brygady-ozbroyenoyi-u-francziyi-ta-kynutoyi-pid-pokrovsk-nepidgotovlenoyu-iz-1700-szch/
Is it your view that the Russians simply can't convert their current military advantage into an authentic strategic victory? Because that's sure what it sounds like.
It's true, at the same time, that we have an obvious ongoing escalation of NATO/GoU efforts to gain leverage over Russia and force it into a negotiations that are on the West's terms. The Moscow assassination, the employment of Ukrainians drones to elicit the shootdown of the Azerbaijani jetliner, the US/Turkey/Israel undermining of the Russian position in Syria, the sinking of the Russian cargo ship (with Russian military equipment, as I understand) near the Strait of Gibraltar, and, most importantly, the opening of a campaign against the Russian shadow tanker fleet in the Baltic with the seizure of the Eagle S. and what appears likely to be the suborning of some of its crew to fabricate an attack on the Est-2 comms cable under the Gulf of Finland. The West and/or Ukraine seem to be starting an all-out campaign against Russian shipping and the non-Russian-flagged/managed shadow tanker fleet.
The shadow tanker fleet seems very much like Russia's Achilles' Heel, as Russia needs the revenues and can't really protect these ships on the high seas. And the concept of a shadow fleet means depending on foreign shippers, crews and officers, all of whom can be intimidated/bribed to create problems. That seems to be what is happening now.
On that subject, here is a piece from Russian Military Review headlined "The Sinking of the Russian Cargo Ship Ursa Major as a Prelude to Peace Talks."
https://en.topwar.ru/256511-utopshaja-bolshaja-medvedica-kak-preljudija-k-mirnym-peregovoram.html
And certainly the economic costs of the war for Russia are gradually building. Here's another piece from the Russian Military Review headlined "Military-industrial complex-2024: personnel shortage becomes threatening."
https://en.topwar.ru/256550-vpk-2024-deficit-kadrov-stanovitsja-ugrozhajuschim.html
So what are Putin's goals at this point? And how does he see the overall strategic situation? What would be the reaction in Russia to the kind of conflict termination you are positing? I would think that "extreme disappointment" would be an understatement. Is the Russian domestic media issuing pieces similar to this one to "prepare" the Russian people, if this is really where things are headed?
Would Putin really agree to screw China by limiting energy sales per US diktat, knowing that the US has no interest in accepting Russian strategic autonomy of any kind in the long run? Sounds like a pig in a poke for him. Would Putin really end up agreeing to the one thing he started this war to avoid--NATOization of Ukraine? Why would he agree to those things unless the overall situation for Russia is so bad that he has no choice? And yet you are not painting that sort of picture at all.
You're not giving us anything like an integrated understanding of what is going on here. This is just happy talk that looks like it's meant to airbrush an impending Russian capitulation and sell the "alt media community"on what is, if it actually comes to pass, a disastrous outcome of this war for Russia.
I don't believe It would be so easy... Not that the US is known nor trusted for keeping its agreements.
Of course it won't. Still Russia has been seeking a Minsk-3 since the beginning of this war.
Would have been a lot easier just to throw in the towel and accept the outcome of Minsk 2.
Russia basically thought that this war would be a cakewalk, but three year later, here we are.
I understand they initiated the invasion on some faulty premises about lack of Ukrainian resistance. But at the same time, it seems Putin put off a war for years after it was clear to objective observers what Mink 2 really was and was reluctant to take on the risks of war. That doesn't suggest to me that Putin thought a war and all its consequences would be a stroll in the park even if they hoped that the Ukrainian military would perhaps stand aside. If he thought it was going to be easy, why didn't he start it in 2014-2015?
My pure SWAG was that Putin didn't want to make war on those he still sees as gravely misguided brethren, just as he didn't want to admit that Minsk and Minsk-2 were shams frlm the beginning (which was obvious to everyone), just as he doesn't want to destroy the West but to join it, just as he does not want to admit that the West seeks, not accommodation with Russia but its destruction.
Yeap, that's true indeed.
Excellent post - the comments are engaging as well. Thanks
I don't want to make too many assumptions, however, we can't rule out that the incoming Administration would try to concede favorable terms in Ukraine and Europe in exchange for Russia disengaging from Iran. I hope the Russians refuse to ever discuss such terms.
"...that’s all that ultimately matters."
No, that's not ALL the matters, neither in the short-term nor ultimately.
Excellent writing Andrew - makes sense! Happy New Year!
Russia should bomb gas infrastructure in west Ukraine immediately