Humiliated and Insulted
Part 3: Deathmatch for Gas
With the collapse of the USSR and Ukraine’s transformation into a sovereign state the Russian Federation had to face the new reality, that natural gas exports from its own gas fields depended on a third country. This country not only received significant financial benefits from gas transit, but — eventually, after many years — it could be blamed also for unethical hacking the pipelines, resulting in both transit and supply security risks.
By favour of the ruling Ukrainian political elites and oligarchs (who always could come to terms with the Russians for their own benefits), there were relatively few real significant problems with gas transit — at rare occasions, when the tense situation escalated into a crisis, it was always for serious political reasons. Both Ukraine and Europe learnt the lesson what was the real meaning of the phrase ’Russian gas as a mean of political pressure’. The most serious gas war between Russia and Ukraine took place in 2009 (technically it was a debate between two companies, Gazprom and Naftohaz). Although there were some serious crises before and after this, it was only the crisis of 2009 that led to the complete and protracted suspension of supply, halting deliveries to several European countries.
Nevertheless, it were mainly not these crises (from which Moscow ultimately came out as the winning party), but the Orange Revolution of 2004 in Kiev which motivated Russia to start planning and constructing alternative gas supply routes bypassing Ukraine. Yushchenko’s Western orientation was dangerous for Moscow not only from political, but from military and economic point of view as well, because Russia was interested in keeping Ukraine in its own sphere of interest. Moscow probably could’ve accepted Ukraine to be a buffer zone between Russia and the West, but nothing more.
The Nord Stream gas pipeline, and later, its expansion, Nord Stream 2 (NS2) have been deliberately planned to bypass the Ukrainian transit route, and it threatened Kiev with the loss of transit revenues. But with the construction of Nord Stream 2 (and Turkish Stream) Russia comes close to have the ability, to completely turn off the gas flows through Ukraine, threatening Ukraine’s own gas supplies, not just transit revenues. After the occupation of Crimea, no Ukrainian citizen doubted any more that Moscow would be ready for that, depending on its interests, at the same time they believed that the US could prevent the construction of the NS2 pipeline, using their economic and political lobby, combined with the means of legal blackmailing.
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No other Russian gas pipeline had such a high profile as that of Nord Stream 2, and there has never been as much hype around other pipelines — threat of sanctions, political pressure, etc.
At this point, let me to go back in time and recall the case of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder with the Russians. After a little bit of imitated outcry, the world accepted that, after serving as advocate of the Nord Stream pipeline as chancellor until 2005, Schröder took up the chairmanship of Nord Stream AG’s Shareholders’ Committee in 2006 (later on, in 2016 he became the Chariman of the Board of Nord Stream 2, and in 2017 he was appointed as the independent Director of the Board of Rosneft).
After all of this, one should expect something similar in the case of Nord Stream 2, i.e. it is highly possible that Chancellor Merkel oversees the pipeline project until she leaves, and everything she had to do in the spirit of the unbreakable German-Russian friendship would be done by that time. (If anyone had any illusions about the truly ’special’ nature of the German-Russian relationship, watch the Russian propaganda film shot with Putin in Dresden, the German city where ’the father of Russian democracy’ had stationed while the Berlin Wall was fallen.)
It should come as no surprise if Merkel in 2024, just like Schröder in April 2014 (shortly after the occupation of Crimea!), would celebrate her 70th birthday in the ceremonial hall of the Yusupov Palace and would welcome the best wishes of Vladimir Putin, who will still be the leader of Russia. It is also possible that Mutti by that time would be the person responsible for managing Nord Stream 2 AG.
As a daughter of a German Lutheran pastor who moved from West Germany to the East (not the other way around!), Angela Merkel ranged through the USSR as a student. Then this talented young researcher climbed into German high politics, gained Helmut Kohl’s benevolence, simply to betray him later, so he had to step down.
After all of this, logically, nothing else can be expected from Merkel, than betrayal. She is just like her predecessor, Schröder, who gave meaning to the expression ’political prostitution’.
It is mentioned among the frivolous commitments of the U.S.-German joint statement of 2021 that the parties will push the issue of extending the gas transit agreement between Ukraine and Russia by 10 years (the contract expires at the end of 2024), and Berlin will appoint a special envoy to deal with this specific issue. In addition, a special commissioner position will be set up in Germany to improve German-Ukrainian bilateral energy relations and joint investments, with a budget of EUR 70 million.
One thing is for sure: just as Kiev had not been informed a priori of the U.S.-German agreement and joint statement, these decisions will not be made in Ukraine as well. So, there is no sense even to talk about the representation of Ukrainian interests, as Kiev hopes.
Finally, let’s not forget about the steps Russia took this summer before the afore-mentioned U.S.-German agreement, such as raising the price of gas and undersupplying the European gas market. These were clear messages and at least one question comes up: who could take seriously the German promise not to allow Russia to use energy as a political weapon?
And why the Ukrainians tolerate their own government let such things happen? I will try to answer this in the next part of my analysis.
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