Sabotage or Russian "Maintenance" is often impossible to tell apart.
Bottom line is the pipes to ship Russian gas to Europe across the sea bottom, are broken. Won't be fixed, probably ever.
Pipes across Ukraine on land, are shut off to punish Europe and the Ukrainians.
That won't be fixed until Europe agrees to be annexed by Putin, or he drops dead of Natural Causes, like so many that have evidence to convict Hillary Clinton.
You are nothing but a doubleplusgoodquackthinker and a quite tiresome one at that. If you were on a Buell ride, I suspect Buellers would "vote" to annex your Buell if you spouted your nonsense on a ride. There is no thing as a 98% vote except for tyrannical governments and you know that. Your ecstasy of the possible advent of World War III shows what a good little Seattle Communist you are. I normally don't use personal epithets but you are an exception.
As a History student, I can point out that Moscow is a territory of Ukraine. That did indeed get a grant of independence long before there was a Russia, and centuries before the Czar was murdered by the Communists.
Of course, it wasn't Ukraine, then, nor was there a Russia. The grant was given by the Mongols that had invaded and ruled.
But Kiev was a major city when Moscow was a log fort under construction, so if it's precedent you want... Ukraine is First.
Of course, there were other treaties and broken promises since. like...
And of course the relatively recent Holodomor, which lying about got the New York Times a Pulitzer Prize. Even in the 1930's Leftists Always Lie.
A close examination of Russian History since the Revolution shows they have Never kept promises, and Always Lie about wars they start or encourage. Like WW2. Where they allied with Germany to take a lot of Poland. ( another nation far older than Russia ) The Soviets planned to betray their ally, but like a LOT of WW2, plans were made for later than circumstances forced them, since Adolph was more impatient than expected.
Back when Khrushchev was Premiere, he promised to bury me.
But promising not to invade countries they subsequently invaded is a string from 1945 on.
To be fair, neither Uncle Joe Stalin nor Creepy Joe Biden* actually promised not to use police to imprison and murder their political Enemies. So technically that's not a broken promise. Both called for their Evil Rivals to be destroyed and complained about fascists.
Uncle Joe signed a treaty with them, Just Joe* has them on his staff, so that's different.
So you are saying to Russia do not invade the bordered country where the government kills Russians because of Russia promised not to invade that country. What is wrong with you? Do not try to trick Russia and use the promises to cover your dirty actions against Russia and Russian people.
nope just answering a question. There's no debate.
Here's some mildly interesting "news"... and, again, don't take ANYONE'S word on this stuff unless you trust them.
Trusting a Putin or an Iranian Mullah, with a track record of deceit s foolish.
"Moscow, 30.09.22. You'd think there would be enough locals to create that picture of thousands of people celebrating "annexation", but seems like they needed to bring the majority by a few bus parks worth of buses. Turned a whole ass bridge into a parking lot for those."
"The actual crowd response to Okhlobystin speech, total silence. Versus the edited excitement on state TV. No wonder the crowd was so bleak when putin tried to "hoorah"."
That a Hong Kong based meme site gives better information than the New York Times or CNN is a sign of how "some people" get really wrong answers stuck in their heads.
Every Russian tank has an external heavy machine gun for anti aircraft use. In U.S. tanks and APCs they are mostly used for opening doors, stopping suicide cars, urban window cleaning, etc. Mostly because American forces are seldom attacked by Migs.
You aren't even really expected to shoot down a plane with one. Just send enough tracers in the general direction to make an attacking plane dodge, & miss you. Defense victory is more important than killing planes, that hasn't changed since WW1.
On some vehicles you can shoot the machine gun from inside, but from inside you can't see diddle, especially up. So if you want to shoot drones or anything really, you need to have an exposed crewman on the gun, where he's vulnerable to small arms fire.
And "modern" armies have lots of telescopic sight rifles. Not to be confused with snipers, in a U.S. Infantry platoon, there's been a quiet revolution in organization, the Designated Marksman. Give the best shot a better scope and more training. That's made running into the street with a RPG to shoot at Americans a lot more hazardous.
That also means you don't open the hatch and look around as much as you should if you're in an armored vehicle, because there might be a guy with a rifle waiting to shoot you.
It's been a competition between armor and weapons since the armor was woven sticks and a sharpened rock on a stick was state of the art.
And the phrase, "nobody looks up!" has been used in military training & analysis since planting thorn bushes around the village was SOP.
So how does it all end, and Russian, Ukrainian, European and U.S. agendas become compatible? It doesn’t, and they won’t.
The solution is to defeat Putin and conquer Russia. That's not going to happen. We aren't. NATO can't. Germany might want to, but can't, not without a massive increase in military power that the rest of Europe shouldn't be comfortable with, Again.
The only possible way involves a few coups and a willingness to disrupt the world economy with the disruption of Iranian and Russian oil deliveries to China, and India.
I could argue that a few million dead now saves billions later, but it's not a pleasant thought and morally indefensible. I'm just not ruthless, enough.
And there's the Question never considered, enough. Assume Putin ( or Xi, or... ) is deposed by his own minions. Who rules next? These are countries where murdering your opposition is SOP. A Good Guy can't rise to power AND KEEP IT, without purging the Establishment power structure. See also Trump.
“I have found from many observations that our liberals are incapable of allowing anyone to have his own convictions and immediately answer their opponent with abuse or something worse.”
Putin's annexation of sovereign Ukrainian territories is no different than Hitler's annexation of Austria. If history is a guide, Putin will not stop in Ukraine and will likely target the Baltic States next. World War III will be on the horizon unless Ukraine wins and kicks these barbarian Russians out of sovereign territory.
Regarding the phony and illegal elections, 98% vote in any direction only occurs with coercion. I was a Teamster, Local 278, when there was a election for Frank Fitzsimmons for Teamster President. We had to vote at the Union Hall which was ringed with very large, scary union goons guarding the doors. We knew which way to vote. Virtually 100% for Fitzsimmons. So goes the illegal vote forced down the throats of Ukrainians by Putin.
America also gets the benefits of testing our weapon systems without getting directly involved. Ukraine will grease the treads of their tanks with the guts of Russian soldiers (attributed to General Patton). The Russian people need to oust and execute Putin for his unspeakable crimes against humanity.
Thanks for the reminder. Putin's day of whimpering for mercy before his successor puts a bullet through the back of his head is coming. He is pure evil and so is the Russian government.
Laurie and I visited St. Petersburg in 2018 and it was a paranoid event going the entry inspection unlike the other eight countries we visited. Ordinary Russians are good people but they are cowed by their authoritarian, corrupt, and repressive government. Similar to the goals of the Maggot Democrat Party striving for permanent single Party control of America.