Spring is upon on us. Fruit trees are in bloom. We turned off the gas heating at the start of the month. It was very cold at first but now the days have warmed up to 20 degrees Celsius with the bright sun warming the house. Passive solar energy ; )
We have to rethink our heating system for next winter as our bills were two to three times more than what we paid the previous heating season. This despite a major drop in natural gas prices at the start of the year. Lithuania had bought all its natural gas at late 2022 prices.
Natural gas had been seen as a viable form of sustainable energy given its natural abundance, but after Russia's attempt to extort the West that's no longer the case. It can be bought in liquified form so that European countries are no longer reliant on gas pipelines from Russia, but LNG terminals aren't cheap and transportation costs similarly soared in 2022.
If the war has taught us anything it is to cut out fossil fuels. At least to the point where European countries will no longer need to rely on Russia as a source. What was perceived as an endless supply of cheap natural gas, oil and coal 20 years ago came with a heavy surcharge when Russia used its revenues to fund wars in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and Ukraine. Yet, you still have European leaders saying we should be more conciliatory to Russia.
Macron, or Baby Napoleon, as I like to call him, is one of those figures. He thinks he can negotiate some kind of peace deal through China, essentially freezing out the US which he no longer regards as a reliable partner. He claims to speak for the EU but no one acknowledges him as such. Of course, this peace deal would mean Ukraine making a significant number of territorial concessions, not least of all Crimea. We didn't go through this long winter just to give away the house to Russia. But, there is an ulterior motive here. France never really gave up its commercial interests in Russia, despite the sanctions, and it wants to be the first country to take advantage of a needy Russia in a post-war economy.
Macron is also thinking of the 2024 Summer Olympics that will be hosted in Paris. He hopes that the war will long be over by that point and we can return to an international fraternal spirit for the Games. Even if the war is over by next July there are many countries that won't be ready to forgive Russia, least of all Ukraine, especially if Putin is still in power. However, the IOC has said that Russian athletes should be allowed to compete as neutrals, even if they are state sponsored.
The problem all along has been Russia's sense of imperial entitlement. Putin thought he was sitting in the catbird's seat, using high oil, gas and coal prices to bring Western European countries to their knees and reclaim Eastern Europe in his sphere of influence. When that didn't happen, he was forced to turn toward China to offset the financial hit he took when EU countries cut back drastically on Russian energy imports. Even still, he uses his trolls on social media to spread misinformation on the EU's energy reliance on Russia in what amounts to a last ditch effort to save face.
While most world leaders would like to see Putin gone, there are those like Macron, Lula and Xi that very much want him to remain in power. They all have their reasons, which I'm not going to try to sort out, but Macron strikes me as the odd man in the group as he is going directly against European interests.
Macron used some really strange bellicose language in a recent trip to China that had his own state department doing damage control. While his comments were largely directed at China's relationship to Taiwan, he might as well been talking about Russia's relationship to Ukraine. One could argue that Macron was trying to soften up China in an effort to get Xi to press Putin to end the war in Ukraine, but Xi really has no interest in doing so. The war is perfect for China as it sees Russia and the West expending their military resources in yet another regional conflict while he mulls over Taiwan. I suppose this will be part of the discussion at the NATO Indo-Pacific conference being held today in Vilnius. I well imagine the French delegation will have a lot of explaining to do.
It makes you realize what a fine balancing act all this is. I think one of the reasons for the piecemeal approach in supplying Ukraine with military hardware has been not to antagonize China. NATO very much wanted to keep China out of the Ukraine war, hoping that they could deplete Russia's military stock in a battle of attrition. This hasn't been fair to Ukraine, which has had to suffer through constant shelling and energy blackouts for more than a year now. I think the war would have been over by now if NATO had been more assertive, and we wouldn't have had to go through all this needless suffering.
Even with all the added military hardware, including the vaunted Leopard and Abrams tanks, NATO leaders don't expect an end to the conflict this year. I suppose this is what has gotten Macron's dander up, as he wants the world to come back together in Paris in 2024. These are fine sentiments, but Russia will not change. What we need to do is cut all ties with Russia until the Kremlin makes profound changes in its form of government. Only then should Russia be allowed to participate in international events like the Olympics.
I know some will argue that the US, the UK, or even France have fostered similar injustices, but none of these countries are actively trying to absorb another country into its territorial boundaries. That's the key difference here! This kind of violent aggression should never be tolerated under any circumstances. Russia has broken every kind of international law imaginable, including child trafficking on a massive scale, and yet it is still allowed a place at the UN Security Council, G20 conferences, and its representatives feted in Brazil and India and other countries as if this war is of no consequence to them. Not to mention the statewide suppression of any form of free expression or dissent, including gay rights. A ballet tribute to Nureyev was cancelled due to the Kremlin's ban on "LGBT propaganda."
Russia has no interest in being part of a democratic international society, yet here we are placating them at every turn. Putin even went so far as to equate sustainable energy with gay rights in one of his more bizarre pronouncements in which he spoke out against "non-traditional" energy sources. He hopes to still find ears in Europe and the US, where there is a lot of angst toward the shifting energy market.
The warmer weather allows us to take a collective sigh of relief but the danger is still very much there. Lithuania is taking all sorts of precautions ahead of the NATO summit it will be hosting in Vilnius this July, including a ban on commercial flights during those days. Russia will continue to search for ways to destabilize the EU and stir up unrest in the US through its proxy propaganda networks. Sadly, Ukraine will continue to suffer due to what Putin sees as his manifest destiny. We must never forget Ukraine!
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