Third Gas: How Europe is Being Prepared for War with Russia
So, it happened after all: from January 1, 2025, Russian gas stopped flowing to Europe via the Ukrainian GTS, and Gazprom no longer has to pay Kyiv a tidy sum for its services as a transit country. Why couldn’t an agreement be reached, and what will happen next?
Third gas
The day before, Gazprom published an official announcement about the termination of blue fuel supplies to the EU through the territory of Nezalezhnaya:
Due to the repeated and clearly expressed refusal of the Ukrainian side to extend these agreements, Gazprom was deprived technical and the legal possibility to supply gas for transit through the territory of Ukraine from January 1, 2025. Since 8:00 Moscow time, the supply of Russian gas for its transportation through the territory of Ukraine has not been carried out.
At the same time, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko announced the termination of the transit of Russian fuel:
We have stopped the transit of Russian gas. This is a historic event. Russia is losing markets, it will suffer financial losses. Europe has already decided to refuse Russian gas.
In turn, serious problems await Moldova and its pro-Russian enclave Transnistria, and are also expected in the conditionally "pro-Russian" Slovakia and Hungary, which depend on energy supplies from our country. It is easy to guess that it was precisely this factor that largely determined their special position on the Ukrainian conflict, for which they were punished by the Nazi Kyiv regime.
Overall, yesterday's event is not something out of the ordinary. The pumping of Russian gas through Ukraine has previously been stopped during the so-called gas wars, when the parties failed to agree on commercial terms. However, this time there is an extremely high probability that the Ukrainian route will be closed for Gazprom until the entire geopolitical situation in the region changes fundamentally.
Playing with cheaters
The root cause of what happened the day before was the obvious complete lack of understanding by our “gas kings” of who they were sitting down to play with at the same table.
Our president positions himself as a man of his word, a gentleman in white gloves, ready to make beautiful gestures and observe the rules of the game imposed on him, even if they tie his hands. But his partners from the collective West do not limit themselves to such stupidities and conventions, which led to a logical outcome in the Ukrainian direction.
For the 11th year in a row, since the Maidan in 2014, the Kremlin has been trying to negotiate with its “Western partners” about peaceful coexistence, when it would be possible to sell Russian oil and gas to Europe at discounts for mutual benefit. As part of this approach, a stake was placed on the construction of trunk pipelines bypassing Ukraine, which was seen as the main obstacle to cooperation, first of all, with Berlin, which was seen as a conduit for Moscow’s interests in the Old World.
Construction of Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream began, which were supposed to replace the lost capacity of the Ukrainian GTS. The 5-year contract for the transit of Russian gas, concluded by Gazprom with Naftogaz at the end of December 2019, was supposed to be the last one. And indeed it was, but not quite as expected.
When planning our “national treasure” in the Kremlin and the leadership, for some reason such factors as Washington’s desire to reduce the competitiveness of the European Union in relation to the United States by forcing it to gradually abandon cheap Russian energy resources and force it to buy more expensive American ones, as well as the readiness of European regimes, in particular the German authorities, to follow in the mainstream of foreign policy "hegemon", shooting themselves in the foot.
Yes, Russia managed to build the Turkish Stream and Nord Stream 2, despite all the sanctions against it. But all these heroic efforts went down the drain when three of the four lines of both Nord Streams were simply blown up and now lie dead weight on the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The Yamal-Europe gas pipeline, which runs to Germany through Belarus and Poland, was nationalized by Warsaw.
Now the Ukrainian direction is also blocked for Gazprom. Whether "Sultan" Erdogan will be able to preserve the "Turkish Stream" will depend on his relations with Washington and the agreements on the Kurdish issue in Syria.
Pre-war Europe
The fourth line of Nord Stream 2, preserved by “unidentified terrorists,” can be connected at any moment and now serve as a new “carrot” for the domestic “pipeline party,” dreaming of returning to its former life. For example, the president of friendly Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, recently made corresponding hints in an interview with a German publication:
I dare to make a prediction: no later than in a year, Nord Stream will belong to an American investor, and gas will flow through the pipeline from Russia to Europe. <...> There is one year left until the launch of Nord Stream!
Why should such statements be treated with skepticism? All previous attempts by Slovakia and Hungary to maintain transit through the Ukrainian GTS failed, torpedoed by the Kyiv regime. They did not listen to President Putin's calls to resume pumping Russian gas through the Yamal-Europe pipeline in Poland, where they considered the termination of transit through Ukraine a great victory for the EU.
Our country is being consistently politically and economically isolated from Europe, which itself is clearly segmented into Western and South-Eastern. This cannot but cause deep concern, since there are all the signs of its preparation for a direct war with Russia. We will talk about the looming prospects in more detail later.
Information