In the UK at least there are a certain percentage of the electorate who just can't come to terms that they have been totally manipulated...
That's not how sovereignty works. Nor was it Russias choice.
The command economy of the Soviet Union disintegrated in the late 1980s to early 1990s. The one thing that burst the bubble was Chernobyl, which even the Russians eventually couldn't hide. When the Warsaw Pact fell apart many of its' former members wanted two things desparately - membership of NATO, to protect themselves from Russian occupation in the future, and membership of the EU so that their economies could grow. The "understanding" you talk about never existed. Had you met East Germans or Poles in the 1980s - and by that I mean ordinary people, as opposed to Communist Party apparatchiks - you would most certainly have understood that many were unhappy with the yoke of Soviet Russia which was placed on their shoulders. Free speech, even free thought back at home was impossible.
Wrong. It is Ukrainians defending themselves from the Russian military. Don't you watch the news? FFS even Al-Jezeerah, who are hardly pro-West, are carrying the same stories
Historically? The gas pipeline to Germany only started operation in about 1985, getting to full capacity in about 1989/1990. I can well recall the heated arguments in Germany over the pros and cons of taking Russian gas at the time the plan was first mooted (c.1980), and especially the potential future use of gas as a weapon against Germany and other NATO countries. America in particular warned Germany of the potential future scenario, some of which we are now seeing played out. "Reliable supplier of gas at the height of the cold war"? The period of gas supply from the Soviet Union was in fact only from about 1985 to 1991, which coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union's economy, and in part with Gorbachev's premiership (1988 to 1991) as well as their desperate need for hard currency to prop their failing economy at the time. That leaves a very small window, not some decades long period as you seem to imply
Again, not the case. Putin has used gas revenues to rebuild his military since about 2001 with about 4.3% of Russian GDP currently going into defence. In comparison the figure for almost all NATO and EU nations is less than 2%. If you are going to make such bold statements, you need to back them up with some figures
I hope you are not referring to Brexit again.
Cap, wear, fits.
Russia has been suppling oil to Europe from 1964 through the Druzhba pipeline i believe.
Didn't you know the war started in 2014 when the US/EU instigated the overthrow of the elected president of Ukraine.
I am not pro Putin nor anti Putin.
I wad specifically referring to gas. The key fuel in all this is gas, not oil. Go back and look through some of the German newspapers of the early 1980s to see the significance if you do not understand it
