Conti, what you and many people fail to grasp is that while we need Russia, Russia doesn't need us.
Ranking of most resource-rich countries
1. Russia
> Total resource value: $75.7 trillion
> Oil reserves (value): 60 billion barrels ($7.08 trillion)
> Natural gas reserves (value): 1,680 trillion cu. ft. ($19 trillion)
> Timber reserves (value): 1.95 billion acres ($28.4 trillion)
Russia is the world’s richest country when it comes to natural resources. It leads all other nations in the size of both its natural gas and timber reserves. The country’s vast size is both a blessing and a curse since economical transportation for gas (pipelines) and for timber (railroads) are significantly costly to build. In addition to having such large gas and timber reserves, Russia has the world’s second-largest deposits of coal and the third-largest deposits of gold. Additionally, it has the second-largest estimated deposits of rare earth minerals, although none are currently being mined.
http://247wallst.com/special-report/201 ... untries/3/
Cut-off everything between the West and Russia and Russia will do just fine.
I read those stupid comments on airliners.net.
"If Russia bans European airlines, then Europe will ban Russian airlines".
"SU will no longer be allowed to buy spares"
That makes me laugh.
Such sanctions will only be sanctions on paper!
SU leases most of its Airbus and Boeing equipment from European and American lessors. If it so wishes, SU can decide to no longer pay their leasing fees. For all they care, those aircraft can be used to continue to fly Asia where they can not be reposessed, or rot on some tarmac in Moscow. That will largely compensate for the costs of not being able to fly over Europe/U.S. and the loss of royalties. In the meanwhile, the lessors will go bankrupt one after the other.
And if SU still need more money, their shareholder has an unlimited amount of resources to harvest...
For spares, their friends from China will be very happy to provide them with any spares they need, while waiting for their own aircraft industry to kick-start.
However, what's going to happen to LH, AF-KL, BA, AY?
From one day to the other, dozens of aircraft will be flying long detours, costing them millions every day.
I don't even mention the environmental impact of those detours.
AY will probably go belly-up.
I remind you that these airlines don't have a shareholder that's the richest country in the world, and they're already struggling under pressure of competition from the Middle East and Asia.
You might as well remember that Europe doesn't favor national subsidies to airlines.
Obama and our European leaders are trying to build a trade war against Russia.
However, how are they going to win that when the biggest global trade is natural resources of which Russia has the most in the world?
Wake up people, hello???
If our economies go down in this trade war, Russians will have firewood, oil, gold and all the farmland they want. We can then burn the Euro and US Dollar notes that will have the value of regular paper, eat our smartphones and Facebook accounts.
If you believe that our small sanctions will hurt a country sitting on 75 trillion dollars of natural resources, then you are living in a world of illusions, along with our leaders. I personally think that we have more to gain by being closer friends with Russia than the U.S.
I believe that there is more beneficial future in a EuRussia super-union than there is in NATO or whatever other alliance we have across the Atlantic. I believe that he U.S. is staging all of this in order to prevent the formation of EuRussia, which was the direction we were heading for.
http://temi.repubblica.it/limes-heartla ... russia/817