Irish based aircraft leasing firms are having to write off billions on planes now re-registered as Russian and the refugee influx is budgeted to cost billions this year. That is real money for a small country! In addition Russian based ransomware cyberattacks on the Irish health service cost millions and possibly a few lives. The government has already legislated to nullify planning permission for a major expansion of intelligence gathering facilities at the 4 acre (nearly 2 hectare) Russian embassy compound near the middle of Dublin, and you can expect a much more robust response to Russian Ambassador Filatov's many provocative comments in the Irish media in the future.

I have argued elsewhere that the Ukraine crisis has already done much to improve the EU sense of cohesion and common purpose. Even unionists in N. Ireland may be beginning to learn that the Protocol is not the no. 1 EU priority just now.

Index of Frank's Diaries

"Europe's need for gas far exceeds what the system can supply," said Nikos Tsafos, an energy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Diplomacy can only do so much."

In the longer term, however, energy experts say the United States could do a lot to help Europe. Along with the European Union, Washington could provide loan guarantees for U.S. export and European import terminals to reduce costs and accelerate construction. Governments could require international lending institutions like the World Bank and the European Investment Bank to make natural gas terminals, pipelines and processing facilities a priority. And they could ease regulations that gas producers, pipeline builders and terminal developers argue have made it more difficult or expensive to build gas infrastructure.

Charif Souki, executive chairman of Tellurian, a U.S. gas producer that is planning to build an export terminal in Louisiana, said he hoped the Biden administration would streamline permitting and environmental reviews "to make sure things happen quickly without micromanaging everything." He added that the government could encourage banks and investors, some of whom have recently avoided oil and gas projects in an effort to burnish their climate credentials, to lend to projects like his.

"If all the major banks in the U.S. and major institutions like BlackRock and Blackstone feel comfortable investing in hydrocarbons, and they are not going to be criticized, we will develop $100 billion worth of infrastructure we need," Mr. Souki said.

Which would be a really dumb thing to do, from the point of view of the planet.

Current very high gas prices in Eurasia :

seem suspicious to me, and very possibly part of Putin's preparations for the current war. Sure, demand has recovered because of Covid, but the rise in price started a year ago. Bear in mind Putin's very close relationship with MBS, clown prince of KSA...

Strategically, if Europe really wants to wean itself off Russian gas, Iran is a much better candidate than the USA. Just need to build that pipeline through Turkey. Easy.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

* Do you feel more or less Russian/Ukrainian now than you did last Christmas?

In practice, the people of the Donbass will continue to be pawns, and they are unlikely to have any real say in the outcome. We can reasonably expect that Ukraine will have to concede, at a minimum, the occupied post-2014 territories to Russia, and at a maximum, all of the two oblasts that constitute the Donbass.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}