Russia-Ukraine week 7A: Give gas a chance

So much Russia-Ukraine news, including one bigly item from last night, I split the update into two.

Let's jump in.

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Guess we may have to talk about Polish and Bulgarian tankies as well as the ones I mention below. And, tankies in any MSM that claim Russia actually cut off gas supplies to those two countries. It did no such thing. It merely stood by its ruble-denominated payments demand and they won't pay. And, it's said that if Poland and Bulgaria try to "siphon" gas out of the pipelines, it will cut the pumping back to the rest of Europe. The EU and President von der Leyen is already throwing a hissy fit, calling it "blackmail." And, sanctions aren't? No, you brought this on yourselves. Good luck during the three years or whatever it will take to build new LNG terminals. Re-elected French President Macron is lucky this didn't happen a week earlier.

I don’t want EU citizens to suffer any more than average Ukrainian citizens to suffer from the invasion or average Russian citizens to suffer from punitive sanctions, but … if the shoe fits just well enough to pinch, to mix metaphors, pinch it shall. And pinch it needs to.

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Ukrainian tankies (you are) hate Jacobin, interestingly. Here's why? Editor Branko Marcetic first wrote about how weapon sales to Ukraine are going into an untraceable maw. That came after he told the truth about the Euromaidan.

And, it's these tankies that kept Minsk Agreements (starting with autonomy for the Donbas) from ever being implemented within Ukraine. That's going to be a hurdle for peace talks. The tankies will blather about these parties only getting 2-3 percent of the vote. That's not so significant if you take into account how much they have influenced rightist but not ultra-rightist parties in Ukraine.

This indirectly connects with gas pipelines and Ukrainian development, too. 

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Counterpunch is right on something else. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may be well over his head on international geopolitics, with his abandonment of all earlier statements about openness to Ukrainian neutrality, etc., being replaced by his willingness to fully line up with what the US puppetmaster says.