Elerond

Reason is heart of capitalism, every time you add layer in production chain you add layer that makes more money than lower layer.

Germany is heavily invested on producing their energy with gas and they have driven down their alternatives, like they are still continuing their plan to shut down their nuclear reactors during this year, even though their energy prices have been in increasing several years now. Building power plants take some time and it cost money, which is why Germany does not want immediately change source of their energy as they have option not to do so. Germany could reverse it decision to shut down nuclear plants and increase production in its coal plants. Remove all limitations from its coal mines, but it does not want because they think they can still do their move to renewable energy in next three decades and use their natural gas as transition time strategy. So they are willing to buy gas from Russia just so that they don't need to do immediate actions that cost money and go against their past decision about their energy production. But question on who Russian will sell their gas if Germany (and other European countries don't buy it). As they don't have infrastructure to deliver it anywhere else and they ability to build such infrastructure is heavily hindered by hits their economy has taken from sanctions and they don't have domestic production for necessary parts to build such infrastructure. And if we don't count in struggles they have in delivering gas and oil to elsewhere, there is question of where to sell it. China is willing to buy it but cheaper price than what Europe is currently paying and there is same situation with India. As both of them are looking new sources to make their energy cheaper. So if Europe doesn't buy gas and oil from Russia, then Russia is in situation where they need to spend billions to build new delivery infrastructure just to get less money they are currently getting. Considering that EU is producing almost twice as much wheat than it uses, it can easily keep bread and other agricultural foods in reasonable prices, even if they need to move from artificial fertilizers back to natural fertilizers and more sustainable cultivation, and still produce more than needed from current fields. Of course such jumps aren't easy and cost money when done in short order, which is why it looks like that many farmers will not sow all their fields this year, causing jump to crop futures, but that is temporal even in scenario in which EU can't buy any fertilizers from Russia. Bigger problem about food prices hit to countries that don't produce enough themselves to feed their population and have relied on buying food from Ukraine and Russia. If trade sanctions against Russia last for long time it there will be problems with Russian wheat exports even if they don't have any issue with production, because so much world transport capacity is in hands of countries that have put sanctions on Russia. As wheat in Russian silos does not help people in Africa if there is very limited capacity to transport it to Africa.

Consumer. They can change their economy much easier than the producer. There is reason why USA is rich where countries that produce goods and natural resources it use are poor

CIPS has big dollar problem Largest Chinese export partners United States: US$452.6 billion (17.5% of China’s total exports) Hong Kong: $272.7 billion (10.5%) (Which largest trading partner after China is USA) Japan: $142.6 billion (5.5%) (Which largest trading partner after China is USA) Vietnam: $113.8 billion (4.4%) (Which largest trading partner is USA) South Korea: $112.5 billion (4.3%) (Which largest trading partner is USA) Germany: $86.8 billion (3.4%) (Which largest trading partner is USA) Netherlands: $79 billion (3%) (Which largest trading partner is USA) United Kingdom: $72.6 billion (2.8%) (Which largest trading partner is USA) India: $66.7 billion (2.6%) (Which largest trading partner is USA) Taiwan: $60.1 billion (2.3%) (Which largest trading partner after China is USA) Singapore: $57.5 billion (2.2%) (Which largest trading partner after China and Hong Kong is USA) Malaysia: $56.4 billion (2.2%) (Which largest trading partner after China and Singapore is USA) Australia: $53.5 billion (2.1%) (USA is forth largest trading partner) Russia: $50.6 billion (2%) Thailand: $50.5 billion (2%) (Which largest trading partner is USA) But luckily USA is not vindictive against countries that try to avoid its rules

It is just realism what is current state of affairs, not some ideological pipe dream that people forget as soon as it goes against their own opinions how things should be. And it is not really EU, but it member states together deciding sanctions as EU does not have such powers even though people/countries always want to credit it for decisions that they made but don't want darken their name with them. Meaning it is not Ursula von der Leyen people should be mad about the RT/Sputnik bans even though she told about them to public. Shooting messenger usually don't lead better policies. And people now waking up reality that human rights are very conditional when they have voted for anti-human rights politicians in past decade because they don't want refugees in Europe. And politician that oppose sanctions against Russia and Turkey when they censor media and prevent ECHR giving them any sanctions. And politician that who make laws that prevent forbid religious apparel. Politician who for 'economic' reasons oppose building alternates for oil and gas in energy production. And politicians that oppose billionaires hiding their assets, founding shell companies that are owned by fictional people and are part of larger shell company that is also owned by fictional people which is owned even larger shell company and thousands of these shell companies somehow have their addresses in same building. And politician that prevent all regulations for buying and owning estate leading housing prices go sky high so that investors can make money and people be dammed and can always sleep under bridge at least until even that is too expensive for them. And now people are so surprised that politicians aren't hold back by watered down human rights and principals that they themselves wanted to water down because they protected people they didn't like. People seem to have naive thinking that politicians are guided by higher principalities and morality, and there is no need for people's rights until it is too late. Bold part is just fact, there is no need to hide your feelings about EU.

But it is, which is why Russia and Turkey are able to censor their people so effectively even though they are under European court of human rights. EU has avoided using it ability to censor outlets so far, but now they decided to use tactics perfected by Russia in past two decades against Russia. Of course it is slippery slope and easily lead more censorship in future, but as now it is accordance of European human right principalities and EU laws.

It is quite difficult to shot tank 0.5 km away with NLAW or some other light anti tank weapon. NLAW's maximum range is 1km and it is effective from 20m-800m. And it is not like Ukraine has NLAW's to waste, so they most likely take high risk in order to make sure that they destroy their targets instead of waste shots.

Considering that message which I answered was "All you "Give me liberty give me death!1" people should be outraged. " , American 1st amendment is the we should look for guidance. But my interpretation is based on on European and universal human rights. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights: Freedom of expression 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises. 2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. About EU's decision to ban RT and Sputnik, it is one of those difficult questions where multitude human rights are in conflict with each other. EU banned RT and Sputnik for pro war propaganda, as it is seen that people's right for free speech can be limited when said speech is in support for breaking other people human rights in fundamental way (in this case Ukraine people rights given in article 3 in UDoHR and article 2 in ECoHR ).

RT is not only medium that youtube doesn't allow on their site. They have moderate their content from beginning based on what they think is good for their platform. So I am not sure why people now think that youtube censor some media outlet when they have censored millions and millions users and outlets for decades. Is it because they don't publish videos from outlet that has multiple tv channels, web pages and had for some reason been censored by YouTube even though they have broken YouTube rules multiple times which would have lead permanent ban for your normal user

Free speech is about government preventing people expressing their opinions, which includes not publishing messages from the government. So in this case freedom of speech is on side of YT and against RT, which is government owned media and government that owns it prevents people expressing their opinions in multitude of ways.

Because they are told that Ukraine attacked them, it is not like they are getting any real information what happened

Ideological wars have tendency to go on even when it would have been reasonable to end them years earlier. Like for example Vietnam war, Soviet-Afghanistan war. Super powers continue losing wars for decades even though they have little to nothing to gain.

Just bring some refugees from middle east or africa and you find that people very much have "European Identity" European may treat people from some areas of Europe as ****, but during crisis we see that even worst Europeans are much more preferred than people from elsewhere. Even the thousands and thousands Russians that currently leave their country and pour in EU don't cause any short demands to close borders like couple thousand refugees from Syria in Belarus caused. But in Europe it is important to know that people identify first by their nationality and then by their bloc/s and then as European.

On 6 May 1992 Parliament of Republic of Crimea former Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic changed constitution of Crimea so that it says that Crimea is part of Ukraine. In 1994 Russia, UK and USA and recognized Crimea legally part of Ukraine in Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances which they signed.

Things have changed from 60s, in way that both USA and Russia have strategic nuclear weapons that can be shot from anywhere in world to anywhere in world. So close proximity of military bases and nuclear weapons has quite little impact to MAD

I fear that Russian offer doesn't have room for negotiations, but if Ukraine refuses they increase amount they bomb civilian targets until Ukraine submits to their demands, as Russia knows that no one is coming to help Ukraine.

It means that there can't be any armed forces in the country. Similar situation as in Finland's autonomic territory Åland/Ahvenanmaa, which Russia still supervises

Russia needs to agree all deals Ukraine makes to ensure that they don't join any bloc

Russia demands demilitarization of Ukraine

Like Russian promise to ensure Ukraine territorial integrity if they give up their Soviet era nuclear weapons. I am not sure how high Ukraine's trust towards Russian guarantees is these days

They can do only bilateral agreements that Russia approves

No fly zone would mean actual military presence from Nato and willingness to shoot down any Russian/Ukraine air craft that breaks the no fly zone, so Nato would become defacto party of conflict which is what Zelensky hopes because for him it would mean that Ukraine would not need to fight alone against Russia.

But they aren't exporting significant amounts to Africa

Russia exports over half of its fertilizers in five countries; Brazil (21%) , China (~10%) , USA (~9%), Estonia+Finland (~9%). Exports to India have in past months surpassed exports to Estonia and Finland. China is world biggest fertilizer producer, USA is second biggest. Russia is forth with about 9% of world fertilizer production Considering that Russia tries to keep China, India and Brazil not joining with West, I am not sure how comprehensive their ban will be

There is no prospect that conflict will end any time soon Russia already has started to use oil and gas directly as counter to western sanctions, so no worries, they will be eventually be targeted with current course