Russia cutting off gaa supplies.. How worried should Europeans be?

[Ewetoo]

Russia switched off the gas to Germany on Wednesday, they said it was for maintenance & for 2 days only . Russia announced this morning due to more maintenance needed they won't be switching it on as planned & gave no date for it to be switched on... I find this very scary & the winter is already predicted to be bitterly cold (can't find link to weather prediction)

You think Putin isn’t going to use this advantage as leverage against the sanctions? He will be relishing the potentially devastating social and economic consequences of higher energy prices across Europe.

Winter was always a risk if the war lasted as long as it has.

Very worried, we should all be very worried. Life is going to be very very different whilst this goes on.

Too many 'verys' in there but it's indicative of the current situation

Yes. The govt and us need to start treating this a war time plan now and stop pissing about.

We need to cut right back and maybe even look at rationing.

The amount of utilities companies waste for example is shocking.

Doors left wide open in winter. Lights on all night Huge wasteful neon signage etc Shops heated to 100 degreees

From what I read it was a reaction against the G7 ‘s latest sanctions.

Rught now I’d prefer ur leaders to just tell us we’re at war with Russia. We all know it and I’m sick of the ‘business as usual ’ rhetoric that’s going on when we all know that tikes are becoming very fucking grim.

China and Russia have planned to destabilise the West for a long time. None of this is coincidence. Covid wasn’t accidental. It’s the rise of the East.

Yes It is extremely worrying and generally acknowledged as a deliberate move to get Europe to drop or ease sanctions. We are very much involved in the war with Ukraine whether we consider ourselves to be "at war" or not.
I think this winter is going to be extremely difficult for everybody. Not sure what solutions there are to this now, I think there's an awful lot of people wishing that Putin would disappear.

We are at war. The fact seems to have passed many people by. Wars mean extreme hardship for people. It means shortages probably to the point of rationing and being considerably poorer both in an individual and country level for years. It means facing the possible threat of attack including nuclear attack although hopefully the mural destruction deterrent effect will work. Thankfully these days it’s less likely to mean mass conscription in countries not directly effected.. Sadly Putin will win as it is clear that the European/ British resolve to face any hardship whatsoever is clearly zero. Putin is relying on the population of European countries not accepting any hardship whatsoever and insisting their govt ‘fix it’ or be voted out. European countries will start backing off and out and leave the Baltic states to the fate. Tens of thousands imprisoned and killed for the slightest dissent. Whole regions laid to waste and populations starved into submission. Putin will win. I’m genuinely dismayed

All of this (waves arms airily) was obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense or understanding of history.

millenia of “tribalism” doesn’t GAF that you like cheap shite from China, cheap nannies from Poland, cheap veg from Kenya.

stop believing someone halfway around the world gives a shiny shite what you “want”.

@Noname99 So you are saying Nato would not act if a member was invaded?

Plug in electric heater sales will go up.

We all just have to get used to cold houses/ windows like we had for forever before the 90s/80s.

At least we have indoor loos and double glazing!

I just keep thinking about being unable to get fuel to get to work, school buses not having fuel, freezing schools (both private & state, no child will be without some hardship) the poor elderly freezing... It is going to be catastrophic for Europeans.

So much of this is self inflicted though

Our craven politicians have been kneeling at the altar of Net Zero since Ed Miliband introduced the Climate Change Act in 2008.

We should have been securing our energy supplies - fracking, North Sea drilling and so forth

The is a notorious picture of the German UN delegation laughing while Trump warns them not to become dependent on Russian gas. Schroeder has been a director of Gazprom since just after he left office. They are reaping what they have sown

Quite
Straight talking

Did anyone hear on the news about power companies contemplating paying people to use washing machines and dishwashers after 8pm come winter? I started to worry a bit then.

However stressing out changes nothing so if we freeze to death come winter, then it's going to happen whether I stress or not.

However stressing out changes nothing so if we freeze to death come winter, then it's going to happen whether I stress or n

I'm taking this view

We should be buying back our own sources of energy production and nationalising them.
Scotland's oil. Wind turbines. Marine/ tidal energy production. We could be self sufficient.

.

Qik
From what I’ve read, the prevailing wisdom seems to be that Putin / Russia wants the restoration of the old Soviet Union to help achieve a permanent economic shift in power from west to east. In the face of a complete spineless mess and unwillingness of European populations to endure any hardship whatsoever, I seriously doubt NATO will engage beyond useless rhetoric when they invade former soviet countries regardless of NATO membership. They’ll hide behind avoidance of escalating to nuclear and do nothing. It might different if Russia invaded France but that’s not going to happen. Putin isn’t Hitler … this is a land / resource grab to support an attempt at an economic power shift

ManAboutTown Precisely. The sainted Merkel doesn't look so clever now. This was just waiting to happen.

Russia is also skint so whilst he will play games for a while I'm sure it will be back on at some point. As a country we are generally pretty wasteful of energy so some fat can be trimmed that way, scenario planning is being constantly done for scenarios such as this (thankfully by people who know what they're doing and not the government) so there will be things going on behind the scenes as is always the case. I do think we will have to make some adjustments, all preferable to being bombed to be fair though.

I agree.

There have been some catastrophic judgment calls by some Europeans and a real failure of intelligence. The legacy of that will last 50 years or more.

As long as the government continues to frame this as an issue with energy prices there will be problems with people whinging about hardship. They need to be honest: We are at war with Russia. Then people are more likely to accept the reduction in standard of living.

We need to campaign for wind farms to make local electricity. I just started a thread, asking when people are putting on heating, looking for solidarity. Got told to put on a jumper. Pretty fucking useless advice. In the past we had coal. A roaring fire every night. Those days are gone. Who would have thought that our grandparents had it better.

Yep, agree. Rationing and learning to live with less permanently.

The U.K exports over £3.4 billion of gas to Europe each year! This beggers belief!

An MP said the other day, "There is a war on our continent. We cant expect business as usual and the public are going to have to accept that things will be harder" or something to that effect. That's not a direct quote.

He was torn apart for saying it; accused of dismissing people's concerns and not doing anything to "just fix it".