No we weren’t.
In 2020 and 2021, we were a net exporter of TOTAL petroleum products.
Nor crude oil.
go back and read, I’ve stated that like 4 times now.
As Russia china and Mongolia hold a summit
to officialy agree to gas and oil pipelines from
Russia . . . . though Mongolia . . . . to China
an intesting fly has entired the ointment.
(Official Chinese TV version below)
I am not sure where they are getting their information,
but I ahve come across at least three differnet analysts on Bloomberg and CNBC stating that …becasue Putin is on the ropes … at the summit, Chinese President Xi is in the dirvers seat and essentially indictating terms to Vladmir Putin.
Poor little man.
“The Dirty Dozen” is rumored to be his favorite movie. 
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Xi was dictating terms from the beginning.
Russia has been the little brother in this strange alliance from the start.
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I stand corrected. We imported crude, refined it into its marketed sub products, then exported those sub products. Seems we didn’t need the crude oil, or its sub products, for domestic use. Reducing our domestic production created both a domestic need for us, and a lowering of the global supply.
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ukes are now east of the oskil and ruskies are trying to set up a defensive line along luhansk border.
i also found it interesting that after more than 6 months, ukraine still has an airforce and has attacked russian ground formations around dontesk and kherson.
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This is because Russian Forces never conducted any actual suppression operations (SEAD) to destroy the Ukrainian ADA network. Had they suppressed the Ukrainian mid and high level ADA systems, they could have operated with impunity over all of the Ukraine. Then that would have made short work of the Ukrainian air force, and all of Ukraine would have been under day and night air strikes, not just long range missile attacks. But the Russian air force is obviously untrained in this type of operation. In the build up to the current Ukrainian operations, their air force initiated targeted ADA suppression operations, using US HARM missiles. The Harm is the primary SEAD weapon and we have dedicated ground attack units, with specially outfitted F-16s and F/A-18s whose sole mission is to suppress enemy mid and high level ADA systems. The Ukrainian Mig 29s don’t have special targeting systems of our Wild Weasel (F-16) and Growler (F/A-18) SEAD aircraft. But the HARM also can engage an ADA system by being fired in the system’s general direction and programming the the radar signal targeting receiver/guidance system in the missile to go active after it is fired, but before it is expected to have reached the suspected location of the targeted ADA system. Ukraine has been targeting the Russian systems in the areas of their planned offensive. The Russian ADA systems are suppressed, while the Ukrainian systems can engage any Russian fighters that attempt to enter the fight. We also know that the Russian MANPAD systems are nowhere near as effective at point defense as the Western MANPAD systems provided to the Ukrainians. Ukraine has local air superiority at the point of contact and this is a huge combat multiplier on the battlefield.
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Once Xi gets depended on Russia gas and oil who’s going to be in driver seat than?
And Xi is watching us and NATO deplete our munition stocks in Ukraine. If they have all been spent in Ukraine, what could be sent to Taiwan?
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Yes, I was wondering about that. Are we selling enough weapons to Taiwan?
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You can’t deliver what you don’t have. A back order slip won’t load and fire.
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Have we been selling necessary weapons to em might be a better question.
To me, Taiwan is more of our interest than Ukrainians IMO…specially concerning microchips.
That and they making pretty good tools as of late.
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The Russians should have taken a look at Colin Powell’s playbook for Desert Storm before launching into this fray.
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Here is a thought … A very large portion of Russian oil reserves lie east of the Urals. Is a shift in the border between China and Russia out of the realm of possibility?
Honestly I think just about anyone could have seen that invading Ukraine was insane. Even in the best case if Russia had toppled the Ukraine government and occupied every major city and town, it would have turned into a nightmare of partisan attacks, assassinated mayors and governors and a long lasting low level insurrection for as long as they were there.
Putin was fed lies about Ukrainians welcoming them with open arms (remember Iraq and Cheney’s prediction anyone?) and how easy the military operation would be. But he was also high on his own supply of arrogance that he could rebuild the old Soviet empire.
Now he loses the war, is losing Finland and Sweden to NATO, his Central Asian partnerships are crumbling and his military is decimated. Putin himself is in mortal peril that he will be overthrown.
Good going Vlad.
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Before the Russian invasion started, I speculated that an invasion of Taiwan might coincide with this one … during the Olympics when Xi had thousands of potential hostages to prevent any intervention. NATO, the USA and the UN would have been virtually hog tied to respond to either conflict.
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I’ve thought and talked about that too. Real threat to Russia IMO is China.
Part of me believes that Europe and China wants to break Russia apart of their resources.
the biden’s have housing investments in khazakstan. i’m sure they can work something out
