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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRussia Cuts Ukraine gas supply.....
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-14/russia-cuts-ukraine-gas-supply-6-european-countriesI can't say I'm surprised. Russia is due payment and been cornered economically by the oil price
finagling. Sometimes I think the West acts without thinking down the road.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,390 posts)who obviously know fuck all about the past, and rely on the Daily Mail for rumours without checking reality. This shows they should never be linked to. They're no more reliable than an anonymous blog.
The Mail article is undated; but it refers to the EU Czech presidency, and Israel's military operation in Gaza, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. These all point to 2009, and this story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7806870.stm
So that's how Russia behaved 6 years ago.
The Bloomberg story about Russia planning to send all the gas via Turkey rather than Ukraine is true; but the bit you've taken from Zero Hedge is nothing to do with the present.
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)Whether you like the sources is moot. It's what's being reported. I used to think of DU as a bastion for enlightenment of what is currently going on....if you choose not to know what is being said on ALL sources it is your choice. The Daily Mail article is "updated"....check again.
stevenleser
(32,886 posts)If it WAS happening, it would be a breaking news story on all the networks. It would be a huge deal.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,390 posts)(or look things up, if you can't). I gave you the BBC article with the date on. If you look in the Zero Hedge comments, people there are also pointing out it's from 2009. The Mail article is 'updated', but it doesn't say when it was updated, does it?
Only Zero Hedge is 'reporting' that the gas supplies have been cut, because only Zero Hedge is lazy enough to google a few keywords and link to a 6 year old article without reading it and realising that it describes the past. Everyone else is reporting that Russia intends to send gas via Turkey at some unknown time in the future. Zero Hedge is a waste of time.
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)http://news.yahoo.com/gazprom-warns-eu-turkey-pipeline-lose-russian-gas-212440234.html (AFP)
The announcement was from Gazprom on Wednesday of this week.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,390 posts)The Business Insider one links to the Bloomberg one that I pointed out in #1 was correct but in the future; the AFP one says 'Russia now plans to build a new gas pipeline to Turkey ... "Our European partners have been informed of this and now their task is to create the necessary gas transport infrastructure ... They have a couple of years at most to do this".
See? The future. "Russia cuts Ukraine gas supply" is false. So is the claim that 6 European countries are affected. That came from a 6 year old Daily Mail article. Zero Hedge is a pile of crap.
Cerridwen
(13,260 posts)The energy exporter is losing its dominance over the European gas market.
Two factors used to keep Russia as the major gas powerhouse: European policies and cold winters.
But both of those things have changed and Russia is starting to explore non-Western countries. (quite a bit more and background at above link)
Why Europe no longer fears the Russian gasman (The Economist)
European policymakers still remember the shocks of 2006 and 2009, when Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine amid a row about prices and debts, leading to heating crises and factory closures in countries such as Slovakia and Hungary, and making western European countries such as Germany scramble to find alternative supplies. Europe gets a third of its gas from Russia, half of it from pipelines across Ukraine. Politicians decided that Russias grip on gas supplies to countries in the east of Europe gave the Kremlin an alarming political leverage.
Since then the EU has made some big changes. It pushed through a controversial but effective liberalisation of the gas market, known as the Third Energy Package: Russia cannot now both own and control pipelines on EU territory. The EU has has also made the supply system a lot more resilient, putting taxpayers money into new interconnectors between countries dependent on Russian gas imports. This rewrites the rules. If supplies from the east are interrupted, the countries affected can import gas from elsewhere. As of December, Lithuania, once 100% dependent on Russian gas, is importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Norway. Ukraines gas imports from the west are rocketing. The EU has also brokered a deal on debts and prices between Ukraine and Russia, which should keep the gas flowing at least for the first quarter of 2015. Moreover, a mild winter means Europes gas consumption is low and storage is high for the time of year. Even if Russia did try to interrupt supplies, the effect would be modest.
In fact, Russia has other worries. The low oil price is straining the Kremlins coffers. In December, Mr Putin abruptly cancelled the $40 billion South Stream pipeline to central Europe via the Black Sea and Balkans after it ran into trouble. The EU is likely to put pressure on Croatia to open an import pipeline and LNG terminal on the Adriatic coast. And the EU has yet to fire its biggest weapon against Russia: a colossal complaint based on a multi-year investigation into discriminatory pricing and other market abuse dating back to 2004. That could lead to legally mandated changes in Gazproms business model and whopping fines. The investigation was masterminded by the previous competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, but postponed last year for political reasons (amid war in Ukraine, the EU feared worsening ties with Russia). Now the fate of the Abominable Gasman lies with Mr Almunias successor, Margrethe Vestager. (not much more at link)