[xiphias2]

What's interesting in this is how many people still think that in politics there's a ,,good side'' and a ,,bad side''.

Europe would stay much stronger together with Russia, so it was worth for US to increase the conflicts between the two powers (destroying Nordstream wasn't the nicest move).

Putin was used to high gas prices making his power the highest, but he wasn't used to the power of LNG that US has, as it's the first time that LNG comes into geopolitics in Europe so strongly.

But as you wrote, nobody wants to kill people, it's a terrible consequence of geopolitics.

[BlueTemplar]

Russia has been developing its own LNG with the French know-how and with Chinese money, and while the volumes that EUrope imports are still relatively small, they are now only an order of magnitude smaller than pipeline methane at its peak... and growing.

It's also questionable just how long the US will be able to afford to export that methane (phase change isn't free), since the related tight oil seems to already have peaked ? (Maybe a few decades still ?)

[rhaway84773]

So why did Putin attack Ukraine if it was so obvious that it would benefit the US?

[iinnPP]

That's a great question worth a full deep dive. A debate where losing is beneficial and where being a spectator is worthwhile.

[xiphias2]

He probably expected an easier win and smaller help from US, but again that's geopolitics, it's still not about ,,people liking killing people''