Sure, I was just trying to show her the trade/economics/industry side of things.
I am pretty sure our argument can go forward onto this war in Ukraine. My take on this war is that as long as Russia does get a sudden collapse as the result of an super effective US financial war offensive maneuver, Russia can hardly lose this war.
The real losers will be Ukraine or the EU, and these two will need to try to make the other one loses more, in order to save themselves. This is because of the economic structure of the EU. The EU is essentially a manufacture/industrial-production giant. They earn their wealth via their high value-added exports of goods and services to other major economies. However, these goods and exports are essentially based on resources and materials, as they are industrial outputs.
This means that if the Russian deliberately cut short the supply of gas/energy to the EU, the scarcity and shortage will significantly hamper EU's means of creating value and accumulating wealth for themselves. The biggest problem is that, at least in the mid term future(5-10 years), we can NOT see any meaningful alternative/replacement of Russian gas supply to EU. Therefore the EU is certainly grabbed by the balls by Russia. As long as the Russian can sustain the economic cost of selling less gas to EU, as well as other sanctions and financial war offensives by the USA, EU will eventually capitulate.
And since the US is more interest in a prolong war to drain Russia and EU of their overall strength, they US will not give Ukraine what they really wanted: the supplies and equipment that can help them to quickly win the war (Ukrainian victory). And the EU is afraid of a destructive Russia action of refusing to sell gas to EU, they will also NOT give Ukraine real equipment and supplies to win this war quickly.
This means that Ukraine is pretty much locked in this tragically destructive war.
