The EU has been dependent on Russia supplying its energy needs. Even during Soviet times they were never interrupted. Now w/ sanctions placed on Russia the EU countries are in dire straits as there is no real alternative available to offset Russian energy supplies. So the EU suffers. It needs to wake up rediscover its sovereignty take care of its needs as they alone see them. That can only happen by them shedding US hegemony.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin saying sanctions against Russia will hurt the EU economically

The EU are like lemmings going over the cliff. Why? Because they follow the US in placing sanctions against Russia over its military operation in Ukraine.

And who are the countries being hurt by the sanctions? The EU.

The US may have higher food and energy prices plus higher inflation yet this only hurts its people which the ruling elite in the US could care less.

The US weapons manufacturers are giddy over the war in Ukraine as they gain to benefit the most. It's the US that's supplied the Ukraine regime with most of the weapons.

The US is energy independent. Not so the EU. They've been dependent on Russia supplying its gas and oil energy needs. Even during Soviet times they were never interrupted. Now with sanctions against Russia it's the EU in dire straits as there's no real alternative available to offset Russian energy supplies. That's what's called shooting oneself in the foot.

The US can't fulfill all the EU's energy needs. Even if it could alleviate some of the EU's energy deficits here is US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently sending a letter to seven major refiners-which the administration didn't release publically-imploring them to limit fuel exports. She wrote," Given the historic level of US refined product exports, I again urge you to focus in the near term on building inventories in the United States, rather than selling down current stocks and further increasing exports". In essence don't export to the EU.

Well so much for US benevolence over the EU's energy crisis.

So why doesn't the EU wise up, rediscover its independence, follow its own path rather than act as sheep to US hegemony over them. The EU was dependent on the US providing security during the cold war with the Soviet Union. That should have ended when the USSR imploded in 1991.

Europe, the EU has long ago recovered from the devastation of WWII. But instead of following policies beneficial to themselves they went along with the US expanding NATO eastward into the former Warsaw Pact countries of East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania beginning in 1997 under US President Bill Clinton. This was in contravention of the 1991 verbal agreement between the Bush Sr. government and the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev not to move NATO "one inch" eastward if the two Germany's were allowed to re-unite.

Not only with Clinton as NATO was further expanded under "Dubya" Bush, then Barack Obama, finally under Trump.

Russia continually warned the US NATO expansion eastward contravened the 1991 verbal agreement. They were ignored. That Ukraine and earlier Georgia should never be permitted to join NATO. They were ignored. Russia said that would be a direct security threat against them. They were ignored. The Ukraine government didn't implement the 2014-15 Minsk agreements it agreed to giving Lugansk and Donetsk autonomy from Kiev's diktat. When the post coup government in Ukraine even in its constitution revealed its intention to join NATO, desired to get nuclear weapons and about to initiate a new military siege against the Donbass in Lugansk and Donetsk, Russia intervened militarily invading Ukraine in February 2022 which continues to this day. Russia decided it would no longer be ignored.

An honest assessment of geo-political events in Europe reveals its essentially US NATO expansion to Russia's doorstep and the 2014 coup in Kiev forcing the legitimately elected president to flee the country that brought Neo-Nazi's into the post coup government in Ukraine that's at the core of the current conflict in the country.

Despite US bleating NATO is a defense organization that's contradicted by its bombing of Belgrade in 1999, bombing of Libya in 2011 plus its military engagement in Afghanistan from 2001 till the US withdrawal in August 2021.

Expanding NATO eastward was never benign as the US maintains. It was meant to encircle Russia. The EU went along with the scheme ceding its sovereignty accepting US hegemony over it.

Now the EU suffers. It's energy needs held hostage to the sanctions on Russia it went along with the US. And to what avail?

The EU needs to wake up, rediscover its sovereignty, take care of its needs as they alone see it and finally shed US hegemony over it.

The EU following the US is like falling into an abyss, a bottomless pit which they alone suffer.

The question is will the EU wake up.

Authors Website: dglefc22733@aol.com

Authors Bio:
Retired. The author of "DECEIT AND EXCESS IN AMERICA, HOW THE MONEYED INTERESTS HAVE STOLEN AMERICA AND HOW WE CAN GET IT BACK", Authorhouse, 2009