PREFACE/ISSUE
This post is explored UK´s political pressure on Europe to prevent normalization of relations with Russia in summer 2022 before Nordstream is blown up.
I. Why just Nordstream pipelines were taken down?
The EEZ vulnerability:
To understand who blew the Nordstream one needs to understand why just #Nordstream was taken out.
Neither Brotherhood, Yamal, Soyuz, Progress, Blue stream nor Turk Stream...-> An attack by a third state inside borders of another country or in its territorial waters...
...exactly what was the point of Danish and Swedish official statements,... is an attack on its state.
Therefore only certain pipelines IN CERTAIN AREAS could be attacked <-
...do understand this and you get who has done it.
In my first post there are hints.
II. Attempts To 'Renormalize' Relations With Russia were curbed
4 March 2022 - Putin wants ‘normalization’ of global relations, saying there is ‘no need’ for sanctions on Russia“There is no need to escalate the situation, impose restrictions. We fulfil all obligations,” he said. “If someone does not want to cooperate with us within the framework of single cooperation, and by doing so harms themselves, they will, of course, harm us, too.”
19 March 2022 - Britain's Boris Johnson Warns Against Attempts To 'Renormalize' Relations With Russia
19 March 2022 - UK warns against postwar reset with Putin — as it happened
5 May 2022 - A strange message to Boris Johnson and V. Zelenski appeared o Twitter.
12 May 2022 - UK PM Johnson says return to normal relations ‘very difficult’ for Russia’s Putin
Asked during an interview on LBC Radio whether Putin could be welcomed back on the global stage if he were to repent, Johnson said: “Repentance is going to be very difficult for Vladimir Putin now ... nothing is impossible, I suppose, but I just cannot see for the life of me how we can renormalize relations with Putin now.”
12 May 2022 - Russian sanctions prohibit Gazprom from using Yamal-Europe for gas transit via Poland
Russian sanctions imposed on a number of foreign energy companies prohibit Gazprom from using the gas pipeline owned by EuRoPol GAZ (a joint venture between Gazprom and the Polish PGNiG, which owns the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline) to pump Russian gas through Poland, the Russian holding’s spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov said on Thursday.
"A ban has been established on transactions and payments in favor of persons under sanctions, in particular, for Gazprom, this means a ban on the use of a gas pipeline owned by EuRoPol GAZ to transport Russian gas through Poland," he said.
The Polish side repeatedly violated the rights of Gazprom as a shareholder of EuRoPol GAZ, and in late April added the Russian company to the sanctions list, blocking the ability to exercise rights to shares and other securities of the joint venture and receive dividends, Kupriyanov said.
Earlier, the Russian government blacklisted 31 companies from Germany, France and other European countries, as well as from Singapore and the USA. In particular, the list includes former European subsidiaries of Gazprom, traders, operators of underground gas storage facilities (UGS), as well as a joint venture between Gazprom and the Polish PGNiG, which owns the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline - EuRoPol GAZ.
19 May 2022 - West must not normalise relations with Putin again, says Boris Johnson
The west must not make the mistake of “normalising” relations with Vladimir Putin again after the invasion of Ukraine, Boris Johnson has said, as he warned that allowing Russia to win would herald intimidation from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
8 June 2022 Angela Merkel in the interview:
"But it wasn't an easy decision. "The thesis at the time was that once Nord Stream 2 is operational, Putin will stop supplying gas through Ukraine or even attack it." The West ensured that gas was routed through Ukraine anyway, and she continued to receive transit fees. Merkel pointed out that Russia then attacked Ukraine on February 24, when gas was not yet routed through Nord Stream 2 . "In this sense, gas was not a weapon," Merkel said."
17 June 2022 - Putin Says Russia-Ukraine Relations Will Normalize after ‘Special Military Operation’
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday at the St Petersburg Economic Forum that Russia anticipates restoring relations with Ukraine after the "special military operation" in that country concludes.
During a question-and-answer session with Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Putin said: "sooner or later, the situation will return to normal".
18 June 2022 - Merkel defends Nord Stream 2 decision
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended her decisions to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. "I didn't believe in change through trade, but in connection through trade, with the second largest nuclear power in the world," Merkel told the editorial network Germany.
But it wasn't an easy decision. "The thesis at the time was that once Nord Stream 2 is operational, Putin will stop supplying gas through Ukraine or even attack it." The West ensured that gas was still routed through Ukraine and that they continued to receive transit fees.
Merkel pointed out that Russia then attacked Ukraine on February 24, when gas was not yet flowing through Nord Stream 2. "In this sense, gas was not a weapon," Merkel said.
Liquid gas was too expensive for the German economy
Merkel also justified the procedure at the time with economic considerations. "At the time, the German economy opted for pipeline gas transport from Russia because it was economically cheaper than liquid gas from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and later also from the USA," she explained.
They were willing to use taxpayers' money to support the construction of two terminals for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Germany. "But until the last day of my tenure, no company built an LNG terminal in Germany because there was no importer who would have booked long-term capacities in advance because of the high price."
26 July 2022 - German ex-chancellor Schroeder in Moscow, Putin meeting possible
3 August 2022 - Gerhard Schröder confirms meeting with Putin again
3 August 2022 - Zelenskiy Finds Actions Of Former German Chancellor 'Disgusting'
Peskov said that Putin told Schroeder that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was ready to be used. He also claimed that Russian gas supplies have fallen to around 30 million cubic meters per day from 167 million cubic meters after Poland sanctioned the Yamal-Europe pipeline and Ukraine stopped flows via one of the routes.
19 August 2022 - Reopen Nord Stream 2 to ease our energy crisis, senior German politician urges
A senior figure within one of Germany's ruling parties has said the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia should be reopened, in a sign of an emerging rift over energy supplies as winter approaches...
5 September 2022 - Russia switches off Europe’s main gas pipeline until sanctions are lifted
Russia’s gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will not resume in full until the “collective west” lifts sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has said.Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, on Monday acknowledged that certain political factions in the bloc wanted the EU to drop its support for Ukraine, push Kyiv into a ceasefire and abandon sanctions against Russia to ease economic pressure on European countries. He said those views were “not representative” of the position adopted by member states.
[M: German-Russian relations in terms of NordStream are connected to Schröder negotiations. See above.]
5 Sept 2022 - Russian Gas Cut-Off Scuppers German Plan to Bolster Reserves
Germany is unlikely to meet its target for filling natural gas storage sites to 95% by the start of November following the latest Russian supply cut, according to people familiar with the matter.
23 Nov 2022 - Boris Johnson Causes A Stir With Claims About Europe’s Initial Response To Russian Aggression
The former PM, who has tried to make his support for Ukraine one of the lasting legacies of his premiership, went a step further in a new broadcast interview with CNN Portugal.
Speaking on Monday, he said Germany, France and Italy all had very different responses compared to him when Russia was closing in on its European neighbour at the end of February.
23 Nov 2022 - “After all my anxieties...I pay tribute to the way the EU has acted. They have been united. The sanctions were tough.”
[M: Perhaps he has orchestrated the mission to cancel Nordstream?]
23 Nov 2022 - BBC - Ukraine war: How Germany ended reliance on Russian gas
III. Other pipelines
The claim here is that politically it was not possible to target directly other pipelines as well, on the top of the vulnerability of EEZ above.
- Attacking Yamal-Europe would alleviate Belorussia and/or Poland.
Yamal was stopped by sanctions imposed by Poland. - Attacking Brotherhood, Soyuz, Progress Ukrainian pipeline network would weaken Ukraine, the UK ally. Ukraine stopped flows through one pipeline going through their territory.
- Attacking TurkStream and BlueStream would alleviate Turkey.
- Power of Siberia is a Russian pipeline to China which is unreachable.
- The NordStream 1,2 are the only pipelines incorporated in Switzerland. Russia has 51 majority share in NS1 and full ownership of NS2.
It is the only pipeline which could be attacked and not cause war as it is not fully owned by Russian state.
IV. Nordstream II got legal out of bankruptcy protection extension
8 September 2022 - Swiss court gives Nord Stream 2 more time to avoid insolvency.In May, the court granted a provisional moratorium against bankruptcy proceedings for the first time, which was valid until September 10. This period has now been extended by another four months.
10 Sept 2022 - Nord Stream 2 gas link operator wins further stay of bankruptcy: court
On May 11, Switzerland-based Nord Stream 2 AG was awarded a provisional stay of bankruptcy until Sept. 10 2022, according to a notice in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce.
In a new notice dated Sept. 8, a court in Zug awarded a four-month extension of the stay of bankruptcy from Sept. 10 until Jan. 10, 2023.
There have been calls from within Germany in recent weeks to allow Nord Stream 2 to begin operations after flows through the first Nord Stream system were curtailed and then halted altogether, with gas prices having surged to new records as a result.
[M: It is possible that there was no other option to stop legally the Nordstream 2 after this Swiss court decision. It is possible that the final decision was made after the court stated the extension.]
CONCLUSION/SUMMARY:
The UK was effected the least by having smallest reliance to Russian hydrocarbons yet the UK was most vocal about any positive diplomatic solution into the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
Only Nordstream pipelines could be taken down because they are located outside the state borders or given states. Nordstream is in Exclusive Economic zones (EEZ) of Denmark and Sweden.
There is a possibility that pipelines to Turkey were targeted as well but there is very little information about it. Russia seemed to stop planning attack in Black Sea on 22/09, several days before the 26/09 event.
There is a possibility that Germany was discussing with Russia secretly about ending sanctions for sake of its economy. .
Notes:
More about the how UK lobbied against the Nordstream projects post
More about the German-USA deal about Nordstream 2 in this post
More about devastating effect of sanctions on European economy here.
More about sanctions and Russian contra action in this post here.
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