Victory has always been on the table for Ukraine if they hadn’t been held back in using the weapons they were given. The US and EU were always too afraid of Putin escalating to a nuclear conflict. Most likely that fear is unfounded. Putin isn’t stupid, he would have let the EU have it’s pyrrhic victory. Cutting off their energy supply would have hurt the EU worse than losing the war hurt his pride. Leaving them with broken energy markets while he sat there with an oil supply would have let him entrench much deeper than he already is on the far right across both continents. He probably could have taken control of Ukraine’s rare earth supply through intermediary markets cheaper, and more completely, than the war has cost him already.
At this point though, the market has largely diversified itself away from Russia. Meaning the EU isn’t as worried about Ukraine blowing up the oil supply. At least until the problem in Iran came into play, almost as if coordinated.
Victory has always been on the table for Ukraine if they hadn’t been held back in using the weapons they were given. The US and EU were always too afraid of Putin escalating to a nuclear conflict. Most likely that fear is unfounded. Putin isn’t stupid, he would have let the EU have it’s pyrrhic victory. Cutting off their energy supply would have hurt the EU worse than losing the war hurt his pride. Leaving them with broken energy markets while he sat there with an oil supply would have let him entrench much deeper than he already is on the far right across both continents. He probably could have taken control of Ukraine’s rare earth supply through intermediary markets cheaper, and more completely, than the war has cost him already.
At this point though, the market has largely diversified itself away from Russia. Meaning the EU isn’t as worried about Ukraine blowing up the oil supply. At least until the problem in Iran came into play, almost as if coordinated.