What would it take for the world to have an open, honest conversation about fossil fuels and natural gas? What are the catalysts? We still don’t know. But we found out this week that a few thousand dead folks in Eastern Europe is not in there. Ukraine has huge pools of natural gas. An untapped sweet shop of everything from Lithium to Iron to Gas to Salt to Oil to Coal and more. It’s thought its two largest shale gas fields are in Donetsk and Lviv Oblast. Donetsk is on the eastern border with Russia and was one of the first to be 'recognised' by Vladimir Putin as a breakaway state. Lviv is west next to Poland. Consequently it has been harder to surround, attack and 'take'. Crimea (taken in 2014), a (sort of) island on the south boasts huge offshore drilling and gas extraction opportunities. But what it had in fossil fuels, it lacked in clean drinking water. Until then it had relied largely on Ukraine (mainland), specifically a canal in Kherson to keep its population clean and healthy, however, understandably when Putin invaded, Ukraine didn't much feel like helping with the water sitch - and constructed a dam to block the supply. Since the main driver for annexing Crimea was to gain control of the offshore gas, that made things really fucking difficult. If Russia wanted to succeed in looting the country's resources, it would have to take the mainland too. Or at the very least, Kherson (to unblock the dam). Perhaps that's why it was an area of interest for Putin's "military operation" (Don't Mention The WAR!) and why the dam itself was one of the first targets. So why is this important? Two reasons. First, Russia's economy is pretty gassy. It is the world's second largest producer of natural gas after the United States and YOUR MUM. Russia have the second largest coal reserves, they drill crude, they have the largest oil shale reserves in Europe, they sell it to the E.U.; You get the idea. And so unsurprisingly, natural resources make up around 60% of Russia's 2019 exports. To complicate matters, the European Union buys around 45% of its gas from Russia. Viewed in this context, the prospect of a burst fire-hydrant like Ukraine, popping up and spraying fuel over everyone - and as an independent, democratic and NATO state - the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia makes perfect (if murderous and psychopathic) sense. "Wait, our whole shit is gas. Ukraine are gonna fuck that up! Unless we run in and take control of everything..." - Vladimir Putin, 2020, probably. So you'd think in a world of journalists trying to one-up and out-scoop each other, in a race to publish their articles before somebody 'tweets them to it' - this most obvious of narratives might have been explored more. But no, it's almost entirely absent everywhere. Sky News, BBC, New York Times, The Guardian, The Sun, Sydney Morning Herald, Russia Today, Tass - it is the elephant in the room, ignored in favour of "He's just suddenly gone insane!" or "He wants a Soviet Re-Union! He took issue with the NATO application!" or "It's about liberating Ukrainians from neo-Nazis" or "Ukraine are developing nuclear weapons!" or "But What Does Putin Actually WANT!?". So let's examine these... First, insanity. Do we honestly think he's just randomly, now, after twenty-two years in power, gone bat-shit? Sure, he's arrogant and rambling and seventy years old, but he doesn't seem crazy to me. Not in the irrational, maniacal way hacks suggest, which is essentially: Putin is throwing it all on 28-black, balls to the wall, untroubled by a saner man's concepts, like 'risk' and 'consequence'. To me he seems very much on-the-ball, if not defiant, determined and unforgivably callous. Second, Soviet Re-union. Yes, he's probably lusted for a USSR-lite for some time. But why make that play now? Why Ukraine first? Why risk becoming a geopolitical wasteman when the upside is capturing just one territory? It's like stealing a tenner out your Uncle's wallet. Sure, you might get to buy a four pack of Fosters to take to your mate's band's gig. But is it worth the prospect of being ostracised from your family!? Like, great I got to self medicate through their cover of Wonderwall but now I'm getting Black Sheep'd at every birthday, Christmas and Christening from now until eternity. It doesn't stack up. Next, the NATO application. So... *unlike* the Kherson dam, this does sort of hold water. You could understand why having a NATO nation right on your border might irk the former KGB employee & now President of the Russian Federation. But come on, let's be real: to go from 'irk' to 'I feel so threatened by Ukraine that I will now invade it' is quite a leap. Did they feel 'threatened' by it when they stole Crimea? Didn't look like it. And let's be clear: being a member of NATO doesn't directly threaten Russia. It just means it'd be impossible to invade it. And why invade it? So now we're back here, at a blank canvas of actual motivations. Doesn't it seem more plausible that - in applying to join NATO, what with its commitment to perceive an attack on one nation as an attack on all - that Putin knew his chances of taking it would be severely hampered - and so now was his limited window of opportunity. Get in there quick before you have to deal with Collective Defence. Like punching a kid before his Dad turns up. On the balance of probabilities, isn't it more likely that Russia's place as the dominant supplier of fuel in Europe was looking shaky. If Ukraine struck deals directly with the E.U. and Russia lost that lucrative revenue stream, or even a proportion of it - their fuel-based economy would've taken a real hit. Isn't it totally plausible that the solution was clear: take Ukraine while you can, before NATO enter the equation, secure ongoing energy revenue, keep Russia ticking. And if it happens to reunify a former Soviet state? Well that's a little nice-to-have on top. But a stroke of the balls to the full, third-date blow-job, nonetheless. The fact we're NOT talking about natural resources and focusing on "Mad Vlad!" is almost as concerning as the invasion itself. What are we scared of? I mean, what does it tell us about finite resources, about consumerism, about booming populations, that we're not even willing to cite gas as the very, very obvious motive here? Perhaps we won't like the answers to our questions? Instead we get an endless conveyor belt of geopolitical amateur dramatics. "We want to liberate them!" (so why are they running away?). "It's Being Run By Neo-Nazis!" (the President is Jewish). "They hijacked the planes coz they hate FREEDOM!". Carefully constructed, paper-thin justifications with all the reassuring credibility of your mother when she dismissed those high school taunts, like "Oh don't listen to them, they're just jealous cuz you're 'mazin!". Because these invasions or operations are always sold to us via the most admirable of pretexts, aren't they? We're liberating these people so they can enjoy freedom. They persecute journalists for telling the truth! The blueprint is simple. Take a country with natural resources and use a valiant, self-fellating fairytale to justify your attack. In fact, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Playstation.. all of them are desperate for Lithium, most of which comes from Chile. Do Betfair give odds on how long until we send the weapons inspectors in? Now, look, I'm not suggesting for a moment that media in the U.S., Australia, UK and E.U. have taken part in conspiracies to cover up the motivations of our own, numerous invasions. But I do wonder to what extent they're complicit. I wonder if correspondents in Libya or Iraq or Syria knew all too well that it's all about fuel security really...it's energy dominance really - but that that truth is just too depressing to report. They can't say to people: "Hey, Braindead Consumer, shovelling a Big Mac down your pie hole, if we run out of oil, society will collapse, there's only so much of it, and we're willing to lie, murder and steal to keep the Coca-Cola trucks going! This segment brought to you in association with Shell." You think people would be able to handle that? Have you *met* people? It would scare the shit out of them. Peoplecalled 999 when KFC was closed. No. Instead we give them the simple story. The Black & White, Good v Evil fairytale. The one they can digest along with the Big Mac. It's "This dictatorship was bad, so we heroically saved everyone". And yes, of course, it's totally possible they were bad. But replacing them with a democracy feels very much like the icing on the cake, the stroke of the... well, you know. The cold, hard inconvenient truth about people is that telling regular folks how fucked, unfair and cruel the world is would not lead to a grown-up conversation about energy and sustainable living. It would send swathes of your city out robbing and looting to get what they could before the show's over. But back to Ukraine. As ever, I'm left wondering: do these journalists know *this* is about fuel too? Again? Are we now comfortably in what history books will describe as The Oil & Gas Wars? Feels like it. Do the hacks know but deliberately not say because the broader context of natural resources, of Peak Oil is just *too* frightening? Do they focus on Mad Vlad because to shine a light on bullshit pretexts for illegal invasions might illuminate our own "military operations"? Perhaps most pertinently - and similar to so much of our own domestic politics of the last few years - I'm left wondering are they really this dim and shortsighted? Or are they just hoping you are?
