Rise of the Global South

Nord Stream 2 vs. Gas Transit

In light of the fact that Kyiv is now ending gas transit to Europe, it is useful to recall the time of Nord Stream 2’s construction to understand how Western media and politicians deceived the public.

As the European—especially German—economy increasingly demanded cheap Russian gas, planning for Nord Stream 2 began in 2013. However, at the end of 2014, the second Maidan coup took place, bringing anti-Russian forces definitively to power in Ukraine and establishing Kyiv’s anti-Russian course, including war against the Russian population in the Donbas.

Since then, the argument of transatlanticists has been that Russia would use Nord Stream 2 to blackmail Ukraine and end gas transit through Ukraine. The argument was that gas transit, with its revenues, was vital for Ukraine, and evil Russia could financially dry up Kyiv if it stopped the transit through Ukraine. Therefore, Nord Stream 2 had to be prevented.

The US was against both Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 because it wanted to sell its fracking gas to Europe. At the same time, the US began expanding oil and gas production through fracking, which is why the US actively fought against the construction of Nord Stream 2, even imposing sanctions on European companies involved in the pipeline’s construction.

Under pressure from the US, Germany and the US signed an agreement in the summer of 2021 titled "Joint Declaration by the United States and Germany to Support Ukraine, European Energy Security, and Our Climate Goals," in which Ukraine and its role as a transit country for natural gas were highlighted, and Germany committed to "ensuring that Russia does not use any pipeline, including Nord Stream 2, to achieve aggressive political goals by using energy as a weapon." In addition, Germany committed to a series of financial obligations towards Kyiv.

And the winner is...

None of this is mentioned in Western media today. Suddenly, Kyiv (to its own detriment) gives up gas transit, which Ukraine and the West supposedly fought for all these years, and the EU (also to its own detriment) parts ways with cheap Russian gas, which had been the basis of European economic success and prosperity.

The US blew up the Nord Streams in September 2022, thereby cementing Europe’s dependence on American fracking gas. Now, the US continues its policy of pushing Russia out of the European gas market and supports the end of Ukrainian gas transit, which was once supposedly so important to them that they imposed sanctions on their European "allies" to prevent Nord Stream 2 and supposedly protect Ukrainian gas transit.

Now, there is only the Turk Stream pipeline, which supplies Southeast Europe, including Hungary, with cheap Russian gas via Turkey, but the US has already set its sights on this pipeline as well. On March 27, 2024, Jeffrey Pyatt, the US Deputy Secretary of State for Energy, announced at a press conference on Turkey’s role in Europe’s energy supply that the US plans to replace Russian gas flowing through Turkey with gas from other sources.

❗️ This was not an initiative from Brussels but from Washington. It is clear who makes the decisions about the gas market in Europe. And as luck would have it, the US is the primary beneficiary of these developments because, first, they are now selling overpriced fracking gas to Europe; second, they are making Europe politically dependent on them; and third, the increased energy prices in Europe will lead to European industries relocating to the US, which, fourth, weakens Europe’s economic competitiveness.➡️➡️➡️

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DruschbaFM-ENG |DruschbaFM-GER

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