this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
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Vast industrial capacity and tons of oil and natural gas, both of which the EU needs but does not have.
Only major industries Russia has are weapons (we sell those, they are a competitor) and fossil fules (we are in the process of not using them)
not anywhere close to fast nor soon enough to help the situation.
I disagree. Renewables have been growing exponentially for years. Its already making an impact in some countries, sadly way less in others.
Mostly due to the PRC and its incredible increase in solar and other renewables.
Yeah, good.
Instead of taking the opportunity to vastly expand renewables and make a green transition Europe is buying LNG from the US for a way higher price than Russia offered. The green transition has been watered down on European level as well (I wouldn't call it exponential growth)
Russia has quite a bit more than just those areas, but importantly, the EU still needs fossil fuels. It could sidestep this by purchasing large amounts of solar from China, or making or buying nuclear reactors, but it can't do so overnight. Moreover, the EU is heavily financialized, and industry is hurting. Much of what the EU consumes is made overseas, or comes from overseas resource extraction, especially from European neocolonies in Africa. Imperialism is decaying, so this puts the EU in an even tighter spot, hence political instability and a strong rightward shift.
The country that export most of nuclear build capacity, is by far Russia, with over 20 reactors in construction abroad. So while EU countries does have know-how to build them too, i bet it's nowhere near the required scale (also China builds like 30 reactors, but in China)
Definitely, that's what I was implying with that but I probably should have spelled it out, rather than expecting them to realize nuclear depends likely on Russia.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Russia has way less industrial output than the EU. Russia is more imperialist than the EU. EU is shifting right, but is still wayyy to the left of Russia. Saying we should align with Russia is like saying we should align with turkey. Or Saudi Arabia.
Russia is the 4th largest economy by GDP, adjusted to PPP, and isn't as heavily reliant on finance capital as the EU is. Moreover, Russia has no colonies nor neocolonies, and doesn't run their economy based on export of capital and plundering the surplus value of the global south, like the US and EU do.
Imperialism is characterized by the following:
-The presence of monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life.
-The merging of bank capital with industrial capital into finance capital controlled by a financial oligarchy.
-The export of capital as distinguished from the simple export of commodities.
-The formation of international monopolist capitalist associations (cartels) and multinational corporations.
-The domination and exploitation of other countries by militaristic imperialist powers, now through neocolonialism.
-The territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers.
The global north, Europe included, uses this export of capital to super-exploit foreign labor for super-profits. It also engages in unequal exchange, where the global south is prevented from moving up the value chain in production, allowing the global north to charge monopoly prices for commodities produced in the same labor hours. Russia does not do this, it has a paltry sum of the world's finance capital, and this is proven by just how low their nominal GDP is compared to it's GDP adjusted to PPP.
The Russian Federation and the EU are both right-wing, but the EU is actively imperialist. The fact that progressive nationalist movements like the Alliance of Sahel States are kicking out European plunderers, and the PRC is presenting as an alternative to western domination, is exactly why conditions within the imperialist west are declining and causing a shift to the far-right. Austerity politics are enforced due to capitalist decay.
I think long term a post-Putin Russia should really just join the EU (along with Ukraine). Russia has always been European. The cold war fuelled by the US is over. There's no reason to divide Europe ethnographically when with open borders, free trade and unified economic policies everyone can do what they want.
The only thing the EU should realize faster is unified wages across regions and some sort of control over private property/housing, else western capitalists will keep buying land and homes creating serfdom.
Putin tried to join NATO, and be closer to the west. The west said no, and that they wanted to imperialize Russia. Post-Putin, it seems demographics are trending more towards the communists, which is opposed to the EU.
Nothing says there can't be a socialist revolution in the EU!
Hopefully one comes! I just think Russia's closer to one at this point.
please, tell me more
The CPRF is the largest and growing opposition to United Russia, as capitalism has been a failure.
Russia is part of the global north. Most of Russia's territory is made up of colonies. You can not be pro Russia and anti imperialist at the same time.
Geographically, yes, but not in the sense of the commonly referred to "global north," ie the US Empire and its vassals in Europe, etc. Russia has no colonies nor neocolonies, the last time it did was when it was Tsarist. The soviet union was anti-imperialist, and thus the Russian Federation inhereted no colonies.
Tell that to roughly a quarter of the entire continent of Africa that lived or still lives under French imperial control