Asymmetric warfare between Russia and Ukraine- what it means for the rest?

Currently, Australia is the world's largest exporter of LNG, followed by Qatar, America, Malaysia, Algeria and Russia with an insignificant difference among the last three. Qatar and Australia predominantly export LNG to Asian countries, especially to the Southeast part.

Russia, on the other hand, is Europe's main exporter of gas supply contributing 40 per cent. One-third of the gas supply from Russia to Europe passes through Ukraine. Germany, in particular, imports more than 50 per cent of its gas from Russia. Recently, the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Germany has been completed. That is why Germany does not want any confrontation with Russia. The co-called protest from Germany comes with some empty words and that is the case from the majority of the European countries. 

Russia has already reduced gas supplies to Europe and price hikes have begun. The United States and the European Union have demanded Russia not cut off gas supplies to Europe and threatened to freeze foreign exchange reserves. The USA and some other countries have already put sanctions on Russia. However, only time will tell how much pressure Russia will feel under all these threats and sanctions.

Now the question is what would be the impact of Russia's full-scale war on Ukraine on the rest of the world, especially on the countries with fully or partially dependent on LNG import. For example, the impact on a country like Bangladesh importing 12 million cubic feet of LNG mostly from Qatar?

 The US President Joe Biden has already requested Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim to supply gas to Europe. The two leaders are scheduled to meet in Washington next Monday (28th Feb). Maybe that's when the deal will be made. In that case, the gas will be supplied to Europe from Qatar's LNG reserve for South Asia. And as soon as it becomes effective, the price of gas will go up. And if the price of gas goes up, the price of other commodities will also shoot. An energy crisis may occur in import oriented countries like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and similar. There will be chaos in the power and transport sector, which we have seen in the recent past in those countries.

The supply of remittances from Europe will be drastically reduced to the developing countries- the important driver of the economy. The people are struggling to earn livelihood with the rising prices of commodities. Now it is difficult to run a family with $1,000, which will easily turn into $2,000. If the war continues longer, definitely there will a disaster for the developing nations, where 20-50% of people are living under poverty.

In addition, the export market of those nations ( i.e., garments for Bangladesh and India) will collapse in Europe. As a result, the fragile economy in developing countries with a huge population will be in danger- like turning into a bottomless basket.

All these predictions are the consequence of a long-term war. Hopefully, the war will end soon and all my projections go in vain.

Finally, many people say that Ukraine has brought its own doom by tying the ropes when it saw cows in other people's barns. The European Union, NATO or America are just roaring without visible action.

Figure source:https://www.statista.com/statistics/1262074/global-lng-export-capacity-by-country/