Cheap weapons and cheap fossil fuels are about the only thing Russia has left to offer the world. They're really not good at anything else.
And at the rate their own weapons are being demolished in Ukraine, the arms business income stream has dried up. They don't have anything spare to sell to African dictators; they can't even supply their own forces. So really, it's down to fossil fuel exports for them.
Hypothetically... if somebody wanted to kick Putin right in the wallet, destroying Nord Stream wouldn't be a bad move.
I saw a video of the new Russian conscripts marching around with Mosin Nagant 91/30 rifles. The 91 in 91/30 stands for 1891. They were already obsolete by the start of WWII, but Russia was so starved for arms and the 91/30 was so easy to build and foolproof to operate that they resumed production. They built millions of them, and at the end of WWII they just dunked them in grease to keep them from rusting, and put them in crates, and stacked them in warehouses in case they were ever short of guns again. And now they've pulled these fossils out of storage and degreased them and handed them to their new conscripts. That's how desperate things are.
Russia's dreaded armed might has turned out to be such a fukken joke. A colossal paper tiger. They're now throwing Wagner Group mercenaries and freed convicts at Ukrainian forces; the convicts are surrendering en masse. Russia is giving almost as much equipment to Ukraine's forces as NATO is. Russia's standing army is in tatters, they've turned to conscription, they're hauling 1960s-vintage equipment out of storage, their Black Sea fleet has been crippled, they are being humiliated. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Russia to avoid conscription.
Russia is a joke, Shady. Whatever Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene are telling you, the truth is that Russia is a joke and we are seeing graphic evidence of that right now.
We're far past the point where there's any exit strategy for Putin. He can't "walk it back" at this point. This can't end just by agreeing to cease hostilities. There has to be reparations. There has to be war crimes trials for the atrocities committed by Russian forces. Heads need to roll. And steps need to be taken to make sure that they don't just rebuild their forces and try again next year.
I hope that western powers do everything possible to choke the life out of Russia. Cripple the economy, cut off their supplies, turn it into a giant parking lot. Sooner or later people will be mad enough to drag Putin out into the streets and hang him by the neck until he is dead. If, hypothetically, blowing up Nord Stream is a step that helps make that happen, then I'm all for it. There's only one way this ends. Cut the head off the snake.
-k