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EU does not benefit from Ukraine shutting down gas transit from Russia, says energy expert

Remix News | January 7, 2025

While the countries supporting sanctions and the European Commission welcome the Jan. 1 termination of Ukrainian gas transit due to the reduction in Russian gas purchases, those representing a more moderate position warn of the economic and social consequences, says energy market expert Olivér Hortay, president of the Századvég Economic Processes Research Institute, in an interview with Magyar Nemzet.

“The former argue that the halt in transit is a positive development, because the EU will no longer buy Russian gas on this route, and they also repeatedly state that the EU is prepared for the cessation of transit. In contrast, representatives of the more moderate position emphasize that the halt in Ukrainian transit will have harmful consequences for the entire European community,” Olivér Hortay said.

“The former group typically approaches the issue from the quantity side, and in this sense they are right that in the short term, the transit stoppage will not cause an acute supply problem. After all, the reserves of all EU member states, together with alternative procurement routes, make it possible to replace the missing quantity during this year’s heating season. It is true that there are challenges in the case of Slovakia and Austria, but the situation can also be solved there with the help of the relatively large amount of stored energy sources and alternative procurement,“ explained the energy market expert.

However, this does not mean that the EU is actually benefiting from the closure of Ukrainian gas transit taps. “On the first trading day of this year, European gas exchanges opened above last year’s highest price, which immediately showed how harmful the supply shortage is,” Hortay pointed out.

Moreover, the gas markets of the member states are highly interconnected, meaning that the negative consequences affect all countries. The states most affected will have to face additional disadvantages.

“(Slovak PM) Robert Fico previously said that the new sources of supply are much more expensive for Slovakia, simply because it will have to buy natural gas via a longer route, through more countries, and therefore at higher transit costs. According to Fico, the Ukrainian president’s move will increase costs for the entire European Union, as a result of which EU member states may face a total of €60 billion to €70 billion in additional expenses due to higher gas and electricity prices,” said the expert.

This is also due to competitiveness.

“The fact that the transit shutdown will cause economic difficulties for the European community is important because the EU’s most serious competitiveness problem, as stated in the Draghi report, is the high price of energy carriers. Today, European companies pay four to five times as much for natural gas as Americans. This disadvantage could only be overcome if much more gas than currently arrives comes into the region, so that the expansion of supply would depress prices,” Hortay continued.

Speaking about the longer-term prospects regarding how the affected countries will make up for the lost volumes, Hortay said that Austria will probably increase its purchases from the West and may deplete its stored gas reserves at a faster rate, and Slovakia may also do this. From Hungary’s perspective, however, the unfavorable situation may present an opportunity in that the loss of Ukrainian transit may accelerate the trend that has been developing for several years whereby Hungary shifts to the role of a regional gas distributor.

In recent years, Hungary has shifted its Russian gas purchases from the Ukrainian direction to the south, built its trade relations with other eastern partners, and built and developed its cross-border capacities, thus becoming a gateway for gas coming from the East.

This is beneficial for Hungary for two reasons. On the one hand, due to transit revenues, Ukraine, for example, loses over $1 billion a year by closing its gas taps, and on the other hand, its geopolitical position is strengthened: the energy supply of neighboring countries will depend on energy shipments passing through Hungary.

This role previously belonged to Austria, but if the Ukrainian transit still does not start, Austria may lose this position permanently, according to the expert.

Olivér Hortay also recalled that Hungary sold a record amount of natural gas to Slovakia last year, and in contrast to the situation a few years ago, gas typically flowed eastward on the Hungarian-Ukrainian border. Capacities in the northern direction have been increased with various technical solutions in the recent period, and the really big question going forward will be whether the capacity of the TurkStream can be increased, and if so, when. All of the countries involved, including Hungary, have indicated on several occasions that they would support such an investment.

The European Commission has also contributed to the shrinking supply, making natural gas more expensive overall, says Hortay. Hungary, on the other hand, is in favor of so-called diversification, meaning that it believes that as many suppliers and as many routes as possible should be allowed to bring natural gas to the European market, allowing players to compete with each other, thus driving prices down.

In order for all of this to happen, capacity expansions are necessary, and in recent years there has been significant progress in this area, and the trend is likely to continue, concluded Olivér Hortay.

January 7, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

US ‘Quietly’ Sent Heavy Weapons To Ukraine Well Before Invasion Started, Blinken Reveals

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | January 5, 2025

The United States is currently dealing with conflicts in multiple hot spots from Eastern Europe to Gaza to dealing with a collapsed Syrian state and continued standoff with Iran over its nuclear program.

But the Biden administration regrets nothing – so says Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a major end of term interview given to the NY Times and published this weekend. Among the more interesting pieces of new information from the interview is Blinken’s direct admission that Washington was covertly shipping heavy weapons to Ukraine even months before the Russian invasion of February 2022.

“We made sure that well before [Russia’s ‘special military operation’] happened, starting in September and then again in December, we quietly got a lot of weapons to Ukraine,” he said in the interview published Saturday. “Things like Stingers, Javelins.”

The Kremlin at the time cited such covert transfers, which were perhaps an ‘open secret’, as justification for the invasion based on ‘demilitarizing’ Ukraine and keeping NATO military infrastructure out. Moscow had issued many warnings over its ‘red lines’ in the weeks and months leading up to the war.

Below is the full section from the NY Times interview transcript where Blinken boasts of the pre-invasion transfers:

QUESTION:  You made two early strategic decisions on Ukraine.  The first – because of that fear of direct conflict – was to restrict Ukraine’s use of American weapons within Russia.  The second was to support Ukraine’s military offensive without a parallel diplomatic track to try and end the conflict.  How do you look back on those decisions now?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  So first, if you look at the trajectory of the conflict, because we saw it coming, we were able to make sure that not only were we prepared, and allies and partners were prepared, but that Ukraine was prepared.  We made sure that well before the Russian aggression happened, starting in September – the Russian aggression happened in February.  Starting in September and then again in December, we quietly got a lot of weapons to Ukraine to make sure that they had in hand what they needed to defended themselves – things like Stingers, Javelins that they could use that were instrumental in preventing Russia from taking Kyiv, from rolling over the country, erasing it from the map, and indeed pushing the Russians back.

Blinken claims elsewhere in the interview that the Biden White House kept diplomacy going the whole time, and tried to engage Moscow, but explains that this basically involved keeping the Western allies and backers of Kiev unified and on the same track.

Interestingly when asked about whether its time to end the war, Biden’s top diplomat basically dodged the question…

QUESTION:  Do you think it’s time to end the war, though?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  These are decisions for Ukrainians to make.  They have to decide where their future is and how they want to get there.  Where the line is drawn on the map, at this point, I don’t think is fundamentally going to change very much.  The real question is:  Can we make sure that Ukraine is a position to move forward strongly?

QUESTION:  You mean use – that the areas that Russia controls you feel —

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  In —

QUESTION:  — will have to be ceded?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Ceded is not the question.  The question is – the line as a practical matter in the foreseeable future is unlikely to move very much.  Ukraine’s claim on that territory will always be there.  And the question is:  Will they find ways – with the support of others – to regain territory that’s been lost?

Blinken in the above essentially gives his view that no… it is not time to end the war, despite the majority of the war-weary publics in Europe and the US thinking the opposite. There’s some evidence that much or most of the common Ukrainian populace wants it to end as fast as possible as well.

Ultimately, with the world now on the brink of WW3, it’s clear this White House regrets nothing, which even the title of the interview piece strongly suggests: Antony Blinken Insists He and Biden Made the Right Calls. But we think history will not look kindly.

January 6, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Countdown to the European Collapse

By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | January 4, 2025

Finally, energy cooperation between Russia and Europe is (almost) completely over. After nearly three years of sanctions and sabotage, the bilateral Moscow-EU energy partnership suffered its greatest historical blow. Kiev fulfilled its promise not to extend its contract with Gazprom, which was allowing the arrival of Russian gas to Europe, then creating an extremely uncomfortable energy insecurity situation for its own “partners” in the European Union.

On the morning of the first day of 2025, the Russian Federation stopped supplying gas to European buyers via Ukraine. Even amidst the conflict, the Russian Gazprom and Ukrainian Naftogaz had kept in operation an energy transit agreement signed in 2020, which expired on the last day of 2024. Previously, Kiev had already announced it was unwilling to renew the contract with Gazprom, although some European countries repeatedly asked Ukraine to do so.

Despite the sanctions imposed on Russia since 2022, some European countries continued benefiting from the import of Russian gas, particularly Slovakia and Hungary – nations that refused to participate in the Western-sponsored anti-Russian boycott – as well as Austria, a country historically neutral in Europe’s geopolitical and military disputes. Other nations, even adhering to the sanctions, continued hypocritically receiving Russian gas, such as Italy, Poland, Romania, and Moldova. There were also cases of gas resale, with receiving nations re-exporting the commodity to countries seeking to bypass the sanctions.

With the end of the Ukrainian route, all these states lost any guarantee of a safe energy source – precisely during winter, the time of year when gas consumption in Europe is at its highest. Obviously, there are currently energy reserves that may be enough to cope with the challenges of the current season, but the situation will progressively become more critical over time. European nations will have to find new sources of gas or expand the use of the only two remaining routes for Russian gas (via Turkey and the Black Sea). Recent indicators show a substantial rise in gas prices among Asian exporters. Ankara is also expected to take the opportunity to gain more profits from its pipeline.

There is currently hope among Europeans for a cheap gas supply through the long-awaited Qatari-Turkish pipeline project via Syria. With the fall of Bashar al Assad’s legitimate government, energy giants from Turkey and the Gulf have revived the proposal, although they are waiting for domestic pacification in Syria by the Al-Qaeda junta to begin the construction. Some optimistic analysts in Europe believe this would be the antidote to Europe’s dependency on Russian gas – or Asian and American, as in the current circumstances.

The main problem with this hope is believing in the goodwill of the Western hawks to “pacify Syria.” Without Assad, Damascus became a “failed state,” with territory divided between different factions in constant hostilities. It is unlikely this will change – simply because, despite the tactical operators of the Syrian crisis (Turkey and Qatar) wanting pacification, the strategic mentors (Israel and the USA) are not interested. Tel Aviv prefers a polarized and war-torn Syria, unable to do anything to prevent territorial progress in the Golan and beyond. Washington, which is subservient to Israeli interests through the international Zionist lobby, is interested in the same – along with, of course, fostering Kurdish terrorists to worsen the internal Syrian situation even further.

In other words, Western analysts still do not understand that the decision-makers of the unipolar axis simply do not want to solve Europe’s problems. It is not in the US’ interest that its “partners” in Europe regain cheap energy and a strong industrial base. For Washington, the collapse of Europe is not a tragedy but a strategic goal, whose roots lie in the science of geopolitics itself. According to the fundamentals of Western geopolitics, Russian-European integration would be disastrous for the US-UK Atlantic axis. Therefore, in the face of Russia’s imminent military victory and Moscow’s rehabilitation as a Eurasian geopolitical power, the Americans and the British have adopted a “scorched earth” strategy in Europe.

Sanctions, the terrorist attack on Nord Stream, and the closure of the Ukrainian route to Europe are events that are part of the same strategic context: in all these cases, Anglo-American strategists want to provoke an energy collapse in Europe to enable deindustrialization and the subsequent economic and social crisis. The final goal is a ruined Europe, not only unwilling but also incapable of establishing any future strategic ties with Moscow.

With the fall of the Ukrainian gas route, it can be said that the US won an important battle in its economic war against Europe. The total collapse is merely a matter of time.

Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.

January 5, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Journalist killed by Ukrainian drone strike

RT | January 4, 2025

Aleksandr Martemyanov, a freelance reporter with the newspaper Izvestia, has been killed in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic after the civilian vehicle he was riding in was attacked by a Ukrainian drone, Russian media reported on Saturday.

At least five other journalists, who were also in the car, including two RIA Novosti reporters, were injured in the attack, the news agency said. The vehicle was hit while traveling on a road away from the frontline between the town of Gorlovka and the regional capital city of Donetsk.

The car carrying the reporters was hit by a kamikaze drone. Martemyanov succumbed to his wounds shortly thereafter, Izvestia has confirmed.

At the time of the attack, the reporters were returning from Gorlovka after filming the aftermath of the strikes on the town, which has been coming under indiscriminate Ukrainian artillery, missile, and drone attacks on an almost daily basis.

The attack on the journalists’ car appeared to be deliberate, Maksim Romanenko, a reporter with RIA Novosti, suggested. Romanenko sustained relatively minor injuries – bruising on his face and a concussion – during the incident.

January 4, 2025 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Angela Merkel’s Revelation: The Minsk Agreements Were Not Intended To Be Pursued

By Ricardo Martins – New Eastern Outlook – January 4, 2025

The EU was born as a peace project. Is it still so? The former German Chancellor reveals in an interview and in her Memoirs that Europe preferred conflict to peace with Russia.

The Minsk Agreements: A Tactical Pause, Not a Path to Peace

The former German chancellor Angela Merkel sparked controversy with her candid reflections on the Minsk agreements. These accords were ostensibly negotiated to de-escalate tensions in Ukraine after Russia’s accession of Crimea in 2014 as a result of a referendum by its residents and the subsequent outbreak of hostilities by the Ukrainian army and the Azov Battalion against ethnic Russians in the Donbas and Donetsk regions.

In an interview and in her memoirs titled Freedom, Merkel stated that the agreements were not genuinely pursued as a path to peace with Russia but rather as a strategic delay tactic, buying Ukraine time to strengthen its military and prepare for an inevitable confrontation.

Her statements highlight deeper underlying tensions within the European Union, particularly among member states like the Baltic nations and Poland, who viewed Russia’s actions as an existential threat. This perspective helps explain why efforts for peace were limited, and why many in the EU tacitly or openly preferred to prepare for conflict rather than seek reconciliation.

The Minsk agreements—Minsk I in 2014 and Minsk II in 2015—were brokered under the Normandy Format with the involvement of Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia. These agreements called for an immediate ceasefire in Donbas and Donetsk, withdrawal of heavy weaponry, granting autonomy for these regions in eastern Ukraine, and constitutional reforms in Ukraine to ensure the autonomy of these regions. If the agreements had been implemented, they would have saved the lives of 14,000 Russian ethnics in Donbas and Donetsk, and certainly, they would have avoided Russian special operation in Ukraine.

However, Merkel’s remarks suggest that these agreements were never fully intended to resolve the conflict. Instead, they were a way to “freeze” the situation, allowing Ukraine to rebuild its military capacity and align itself more closely with NATO and the West. This approach mirrored a broader strategy within the EU that saw Russia’s actions, such as the accession of Crimea, not as isolated incidents but as part of a larger pattern of aggression.

Baltic and Eastern European Perspectives: Security over Diplomacy

For the Baltic States—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—Russia’s accession of Crimea and its support for people in eastern Ukraine were seen as dire warnings. These countries, which share borders and historical tensions with Russia, viewed any peace deal as a potential opportunity for Russia to consolidate its gains and prepare for further expansion.

The Baltic States, are deeply rooted in Russophobia. As a result, they prioritise strengthening NATO and bolstering their defences over engaging in diplomacy, which they perceive as a tool Russia has exploited for strategic advantage. Additionally, there is a persistent mistrust of European institutions, viewed as incapable of guaranteeing their security. Consequently, they place greater reliance on the United States through NATO and favour purchasing American defence equipment over European alternatives.

This is the stance held by the EU Foreign Affairs Chief, Kaja Kallas, the former Prime Minister of Estonia, who is hindering a diplomatic solution in Ukraine. This makes her unfit for the role, as she is driven by deep Russophobia and is little inclined toward diplomacy.

EU’s General Stance: Divided but Increasingly Hawkish

Within the broader EU, member states were divided over how to handle Russia. Western European countries like Germany and France initially pursued dialogue and diplomacy, partly due to their economic ties with Russia. However, Merkel’s remarks suggest even these efforts were tempered by a recognition that peace with Russia might only be temporary.

By contrast, Eastern European members like Poland and the Baltics were vocal advocates for a tougher stance. Their influence grew as Russia’s actions in Ukraine escalated, pushing the EU toward a more unified, confrontational approach.

The Militarization of Ukraine was pursued as the EU and NATO believed that a stronger Ukraine was essential to deter future Russian aggression. This focus on military preparedness left little room for genuine peace efforts. As a result, the U.S. did not respond to Putin’s letters and security guarantee requests.

Further, there was the question of strategic interests. For many EU members, particularly the Baltics and Poland, a weakened Russia was viewed as essential for regional stability. Consequently, the West and NATO members were accused of unnecessarily prolonging the war. A former U.S. Senator famously remarked, “We will fight until the last Ukrainian,” underscoring the approach of continued military engagement.

The peace agreement reached in Istanbul in April 2022 was reportedly rejected by Western powers. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, acting on behalf of U.S. President Joe Biden, hurried to Kyiv to dissuade President Zelensky from signing the deal, assuring him of full Western support to defeat Russia.

Merkel’s Legacy and the Fallout of Her Comments

Merkel’s acknowledgement that the Minsk agreements were merely a strategic delay has sparked debates about the sincerity of European diplomacy. Her remarks have also undermined Europe’s moral narrative, exposing the calculated realpolitik behind decisions often framed as efforts towards peace. While Merkel defended her actions as necessary to protect Ukraine and Europe, they raised uncomfortable questions about the EU’s commitment to its proclaimed values of diplomacy and conflict resolution.

At the time, the guarantors of the Minsk agreements—France and Germany—still held significant diplomatic clout on the international stage. Today, however, these nations have become diplomatic dwarfs, rendered increasingly irrelevant by their subservience to U.S. interests—a dependency deepened by the war in Ukraine. This decline is also compounded by the West’s hypocrisy and double standards, which have eroded its legitimacy on the global stage.

In sum, Merkel’s comments highlight a Europe that, while officially advocating peace, frequently prioritised U.S. interests over genuine reconciliation. For the Baltics and other Eastern European nations, their warmongering approach underscores the challenges of pursuing balanced diplomacy in an era of resurgent great-power rivalry.

January 4, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Uncle Sam and Banderite bandits destroy Europe while Euro lackeys hail liberation

Strategic Culture Foundation | January 3, 2025

This new year began with a new era that presages Europe sliding irrevocably into economic darkness and abject suzerainty under U.S. dominance.

Uncle Sam has won a decades-long ambition to dominate Europe entirely, thanks to the help from a NeoNazi regime in Ukraine and the pathetic European politicians who hail the slavery of Europe as some liberation.

The people of Europe are facing a foreboding period of economic hardship. We can confidently say that because the most fundamental of economic inputs – fuel energy – is about to become more expensive and precariously supplied for the European Union.

Russia’s decades-long energy relations with Europe are now severed. It seems an astounding final act of reckless self-harm. The European Union’s economies have been floundering from an energy crisis caused by EU leaders willfully cutting off supplies of Russian gas. Now, with the last major transit route shut down, Europe is heading toward economic, social, and political self-destruction.

On Wednesday, New Year’s Day, the Ukrainian regime cut off the last supply route of Russian gas to the European Union. This regime, which glorifies Stepan Bandera and other Nazi-era fascists, is, in effect, holding the entire European Union hostage with its Russophobia and relentless corruption.

The arrogance and audacity are astonishing. The Ukrainian regime does not have an elected leader (Zelensky canceled elections last year), it is not a member of the EU, it has milked European taxpayers of hundreds of billions of Euros, and now has unilaterally shut down the last gas pipeline from Russia to the EU.

Ironically, the pipeline was called the Brotherhood Pipeline. It was conceived in the 1970s and began operating in the 1980s, carrying natural gas from Russia’s Western Siberia to the EU. Ukraine received generous transit fees for the overland route. The decades-long era of transcontinental cooperation was killed on December 31 by a Banderite regime that has the cheek to claim its actions are virtuous to “stop Russian blood money”.

Incredibly, too, various European leaders also hailed the Ukrainian action as a liberation from Russian energy dependence. Some Western media even tried to cast Moscow as the villain that instigated the cut-off. The New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, for example, inverted reality with the headline: “Russia ends exports of natural gas to Europe via Ukraine”.

To his credit, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico seems to be the only sane leader among the EU’s 27 member states. He condemned what he called Ukraine’s “sabotage” of Europe’s energy supply and its economies. Fico warned that the European Union is facing a full-blown economic disaster as a result.

The Ukraine transit route supplied Slovakia, Austria, Italy and the Czech Republic. Now, those countries will have to find alternative supplies from international markets. The Ukrainian route also supplied Moldova, which is facing an immediate energy crisis. Russia claims that the Moldavian government owes outstanding bills for past gas supply.

The Brotherhood Pipeline harks back to an era of friendship and cooperation even though it was conceived during the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union. The 4,500-kilometer pipeline was partly financed by German capital.

Another ambitious Cold War-era supply route was the Yamal Pipeline, which ran over 4,100 km from Siberia to Poland and Germany. Its operation was halted in 2022 by Poland following the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine.

The more recently constructed Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that ran 1,200 km under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany were blown up in 2022. That covert act of sabotage was no doubt carried out by the United States under the orders of President Joe Biden, according to the respected investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

The upshot is that all major Russian natural gas supply lines to Europe have now been terminated. The only one remaining is Turk Stream which runs under the Black Sea to Turkey. But it mainly supplies Balkan countries that are not in the EU.

In the space of two years, Russia has gone from being the major supplier of EU gas imports (over 40 percent) to being a minor source. The big winner of the phenomenal market disruption is the United States, whose exports of liquefied natural gas to the EU have tripled. Another winner is Norway, which is not an EU member. Other sources of gas for Europe are Azerbaijan and Algeria.

However, the unprecedented extra costs to Europe for this enormous rearrangement in its energy trade are encumbering the EU economies, industries and households with crippling burdens. New pipelines have to be built, as well as new terminals to receive the shipped gas. U.S. exports cost 30 to 40 percent more than the Russian product.

The slump in the German economy from higher energy costs is directly caused by the cutting off of abundant and affordable Russian gas. And it is going to get even worse. The grim fate of Germany heralds the economic misery that the whole EU is sliding headlong into.

The history of Europe’s economic demise is as obvious as it is blatant.

Of course, it is all about the United States using and abusing its Western “allies” for its own interests. For Western imperialists, there is no such thing as allies, only interests. And the Americans are exacting that maxim to the hilt.

For decades, the U.S. has vehemently opposed the energy trade between the EU and Russia. Back in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s administration tried its best to block the development of the Brotherhood Pipeline with threats of economic sanctions. The Americans openly said they didn’t want to see Europe and the Soviet Union developing cooperative relations.

At least in earlier times, the European governments appeared to have more independence and backbone. Germany, France, Italy and others rebuffed Washington’s demands to shut down the gas projects.

The long-running strategic aim of the U.S. to displace Russia as an energy supplier to Europe has now been realized. It’s a sign of the desperate times and lawlessness that American military operatives attack European infrastructure.

The blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines and the proxy war in Ukraine have secured the strategic aim of the U.S. and its NATO proxy – keeping the Germans (Europeans) down, the Americans in, and the Russians out.

So much for the free-market capitalism and rules-based order that American and European elites preach. The practice is brute economic competition and dominance down the barrel of a gun. Millions of lives have been destroyed in this “great game” of American imperialist chicanery, and the proxy war in Ukraine is risking the escalation to a nuclear Third World War.

The Banderite regime – an echo of the Nazi past – has enabled the United States to enslave Europe to Washington’s imperialist desires.

Tragically, a coterie of elitist European political leaders are so obsessed with Russophobia and servility to their American overlord that they are crowing with delight at cutting off Russia.

Russia will not suffer. Its vast energy resources are finding alternative lucrative global markets. The victims are the European citizens who are being plunged into wretched economic hardship due to the machinations of American capital, its Banderite tools, and Euro fools.

January 4, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

German MP calls for NordStream to be reactivated

RT | January 3, 2025

Germany should respond to the rising energy prices caused by Ukraine’s halting of Russian gas transit by repairing and reactivating the Nord Stream pipelines, leftist German MP Sevim Dagdelen has said.

Ukraine refused to extend its transit contract with Russia’s Gazprom beyond the end of 2024, effectively cutting off the flow of natural gas to some EU countries as of Wednesday. Under the old contract, Ukraine moved gas through its own pipeline network and into Moldova, Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, and then on to Austria and Italy.

Ukraine’s decision caused EU gas prices to spike to €50 per megawatt hour, a figure unseen since October 2023.

“Ukraine drives the energy price up further by stopping the transit of Russian gas in Europe,” Dagdelen wrote on X on Thursday, complaining that “the German government and the EU are happily watching the destruction of European industry due to high energy prices.”

Energy costs soared in Germany after the government renounced Russian oil and gas imports in 2022. Whereas the country once relied on Russia for around 55% of its natural gas supply, it has struggled to make up the shortfall, and its leading manufacturers – including Volkswagen, Bosch, and BASF – have all announced layoffs and plant closures.

Prior to the start of the Ukraine conflict, Germany received gas from Russia via the Nord Stream 1 pipelines, while Nord Stream 2 was due to come online in 2022. Berlin revoked the certification for Nord Stream 2 several days before Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began, and both sets of lines were destroyed in an act of sabotage in September of that year.

While German investigators have reportedly settled on the theory that the pipelines were destroyed by Ukrainian saboteurs, American journalist Seymour Hersh maintains that they were blown up by the CIA and US Navy. The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has blamed “professional saboteurs from the Anglo-American special services,” referring to the US and UK.

In her post, Dagdelen called for the pipelines to “finally be put into operation,” and for the German government to “stop giving money to Kiev!”

Dagdelen is a member of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a leftist political faction that supports rapprochement with Russia and shares the right-wing Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) anti-immigration stance. The party’s leader, Sahra Wagenknecht, recently blamed the Ukraine conflict on the failure of the US to acknowledge Russia’s “red lines.”

Back in September, Wagenknecht declared that “if Ukraine is responsible for the terrorist act against the German energy supply, the arms deliveries must end immediately and the question of compensation must be put on the table.”

Dagdelen is not the first German MP to demand that Nord Stream be reopened. In September, AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla called the undersea pipes “a lifeline of German industry,” and declared that “Nord Stream must be repaired, opened, and secured.”

January 3, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Asian LNG prices to rise because of Ukraine – Bloomberg

RT | January 2, 2025

The cessation of natural gas flows from Russia to European consumers following Kiev’s decision to stop transit via Ukrainian territory is expected to boost competition for alternatives between Europe and Asia, increasing prices for liquified natural gas (LNG), Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing an energy expert.

Russia officially suspended gas transit to the EU through Ukraine on January 1 after months of negotiations between Russian energy giant Gazprom and Ukrainian companies Naftogaz and the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine ended without an agreement to extend the contract.

“This is going to further tighten the LNG market,” Scott Darling, a managing director at Haitong International Securities, told Bloomberg. “Supply, particularly for LNG, is tight, and we see more upside risk to spot LNG prices this year and next.”

While the stoppage was expected after months of political wrangling, European consumers still have to replace around 5% of their gas and may rely more heavily on storage, the news outlet noted, adding that the gas repository had recently fallen below average levels for the current time of year.

In anticipation of the reduction of supply, prices for natural gas surged with Europe’s gas benchmark ending the year up more than 50%, Bloomberg reported, emphasizing that the growth hadn’t yet been reflected in the cost of the normally more-expensive LNG.

Ukraine’s transit network is connected to the pipeline systems of Moldova, Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, and then extends to Austria and Italy.

Slovakia is seen as one of the countries hardest-hit by the latest halt, as the nation covers nearly 60% of its demand with Russian supplies running through Ukraine. Moldova could also be significantly impacted by the drastic move, as the former Soviet republic generates much of its electricity at a power station fueled by Russian gas.

Russia is still able to provide European consumers with gas supplies through the TurkStream pipeline, as well as to send shipments by the sea in the form of LNG.

TurkStream runs from Russia to Türkiye via the Black Sea, and then continues to the border with EU member state Greece. It has two lines, one for the Turkish domestic market and the other for central European customers including Hungary and Serbia.

January 2, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

Transnistria switches off heating after gas supply via Ukraine stops

RT | January 1, 2025

Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria has halted heating and hot water supply to households on the first day of 2025 after the flow of Russian gas via Ukraine stopped, a local energy company has said.

On Wednesday, Russian energy giant Gazprom announced that it could not deliver gas to Europe via the Ukrainian route anymore due to “the repeated and clear refusal” of Kiev to prolong the relevant agreements that expired at the end of 2024.

Later in the day, Transnistria’s energy company, Tirasteploenergo, said that that because of “the temporary cessation of gas deliveries to the heat-generating facilities of the enterprise… heating and hot water supply to the population, publicly funded institutions and organizations of all forms of ownership will be cut.”

For now, only medical facilities that provide inpatient care will be heated, the company added.

“There is no heating or hot water,” an unnamed employee of Tirasteploenergo in the republic’s capital of Tiraspol told Reuters by phone. The woman said she did not know how long the situation would continue.

In mid-December, Transnistria introduced a state of economic emergency due to the looming gas crisis. Shortly thereafter, Moldova announced a state of emergency in the energy sector.

Transnistria, which is located on the left bank of the Dniester River and whose population is more than half ethnically Russian and Ukrainian, proclaimed independence from Moldova in the early 1990s, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Around 1,100 Russian soldiers are currently stationed in the region as peacekeepers in order to monitor a 1992 ceasefire between Chisinau and Tiraspol.

Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko confirmed the stoppage of gas supplies on Wednesday, calling it a “historic event.” The minister claimed that due to the decision by Kiev “Russia is losing markets, it will suffer financial losses. Europe has already made a decision to give up Russian gas.”

Ukraine refused to prolong the transit contract with Russia despite the fact that Gazprom has long-term agreements with several European buyers.

The leader of one such country, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, threatened last week to cut electricity supplies to Ukraine if the flow of gas ceases.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that the deadlock over gas supplies via Ukraine will not be resolved, adding that “this transit contract will not exist anymore, it’s clear. But we will manage; Gazprom will manage.”

January 1, 2025 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Polish FM slammed for celebrating gas cutoff

RT | January 1, 2025

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has celebrated Ukraine’s decision to halt the flow of Russian gas to the EU as a victory for the West, despite the cutoff leading to higher prices and shortages in some countries.

Russia stopped gas transit through Ukraine early on Wednesday morning, after Kiev refused to extend an agreement under which it collected transit fees to move the gas through its own pipeline network and into Moldova, Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia, and then on to Austria and Italy.

Sikorski took to X to celebrate. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin spent billions building Nordstream to circumvent Ukraine and blackmail Eastern Europe with the threat of cutting off gas supplies,” he wrote, referring to two pipelines that linked Russia with Germany until they were destroyed in an act of sabotage in 2022.

“Today Ukraine cut off his ability to export gas direct to the EU,” Sikorski continued, hailing the decision as “another victory after the enlargement of NATO by Finland and Sweden.”

Kiev’s decision caused EU gas prices to spike to €50 per megawatt hour, a figure unseen since October 2023. Slovakia, which relied heavily on Russian gas imports via Ukraine, will be severely affected, as will EU candidate state Moldova, which used Russian gas to generate much of its electricity.

Sikorski should be “locked up in a mental institution” for “celebrating cutting Europe off gas in the middle of winter,” wrote journalist Thomas Fazi responding to Sikorski’s post.

“Russia was clearly trying to blackmail Europe by supplying even more gas to them. Thankfully, Ukraine heroically ‘saved’ Europe by cutting off the gas,” another commenter wrote. “The absurdity of this logic is mind-blowing.”

“People like Sikorski who want to destroy European economies by cutting them off from global resources and markets should not be allowed to live in Europe,” another comment read. “Go to the USA where your loyalties lie.”

Sikorski was similarly ridiculed back in 2022, when he responded to the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines by posting – and then deleting – an image of the blast site along with the caption: “Thank you, USA.” While German investigators have reportedly settled on the theory that the pipelines were destroyed by Ukrainian saboteurs, American journalist Seymour Hersh maintains that they were blown up by the CIA and US Navy.

The head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has blamed “professional saboteurs from the Anglo-American security services,” referring to the US and UK.

January 1, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine Violates Draft Rights, Restricts Religious Freedom, and Tortures PoWs – UN Report

Sputnik – 01.01.2025

Ukraine has been violating its own constitution by unduly restricting the right to conscientious objection to military service during mobilization, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a report published on Tuesday.

“The right to conscientious objection to military service has continued to be subjected to undue restrictions in law and practice … Domestic law in Ukraine unduly restricts this Constitutional right only to some forms of religion or belief, excluding others, contrary to applicable obligations of equality before the law and non-discrimination under the ICCPR,” the report said.

For example, five men faced arbitrary detention and torture in Ukraine for attempting to exercise their right to conscientious objection to military service, the UN rights watchdog said.

“During the reporting period, OHCHR documented the cases of five men who were assigned to military duty and transferred to a military training facility after attempting to exercise their right of conscientious objection to military service. In all cases, the men were arbitrarily detained between two to four days by military personnel responsible for conscription and subjected to ill-treatment or torture.” the report said.

Religious Freedom Under Attack

The UN report also found that Ukraine’s new legal provisions restricted religious freedoms by prohibiting the Russian Orthodox Church.

“In territory controlled by the Government of Ukraine, new legal provisions regarding religious organizations entered into force; these prohibit the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, as well as Ukrainian religious organizations found to be affiliated with counterparts in the Russian Federation. The law introducing these provisions established disproportionate restrictions on the freedom to manifest one’s religion or belief,” the report read.

Torture of PoWs

Furthermore, almost all Russian PoWs in Ukraine interviewed by the UN from September to November 2024 were subjected to torture, the report said. Fourteen soldiers were subjected to sexual violence.

“During the reporting period, OHCHR interviewed 25 Russian POWs in Ukrainian internment facilities, including in the newly opened camp ‘Zakhid-4’ in Lviv [Lvov] city. All but one reported experiencing torture or ill-treatment in 2024 at one or several stages of captivity,” the OHCHR said.

The UN agency said it verified the killing by first-person-view drones of three Russian and one Ukrainian servicepersons who were “hors de combat” and severely wounded on the battlefield. It cited drone video footage that showed a heavily wounded, unarmed Russian serviceman being killed by a drone while lying on the ground.

January 1, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Syria’s new leadership receives Ukrainian FM in Damascus

The Cradle | December 30, 2024

Syria’s de facto ruler Ahmad al-Sharaa, better known as former Al-Qaeda chief Abu Mohammad al-Julani, and the country’s new Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaybani hosted Ukraine’s top diplomat in the capital, Damascus, on 30 December.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha arrived in the capital at the head of a high-level delegation, which included President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s special envoy.

“We seek to cooperate with the new Syrian administration in several areas. We share with Syria the suffering from unjust regimes,” Sybiha was quoted as saying. “We are ready to help Syria in collecting evidence and investigating the crimes of the former regime and Russia.”

“Russia and Assad regime are partners in committing atrocities in Syria. We believe that relations between our two countries will witness great development,” he added.

The foreign minister went on to say, “If you can expel the Russians from your lands, you will ensure your security and the security of neighboring countries.”

Shaybani said during the meeting that his country is “turning the page” on the era of the former government of Bashar al-Assad, stressing that there will be a “strategic partnership” between Damascus and Kiev.

Sharaa’s organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly known as the Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Syria), appointed a transitional authority following the collapse of the Syrian army and the fall of Damascus on 8 December after an 11-day shock offensive that took the region by surprise.

Over the past few years, Ukraine has provided crucial support to HTS and other extremist factions under its command – who were based in Syria’s northern Idlib governorate before the assault that ended the Assad government.

HTS militants and fighters from ISIS and other extremist groups have also been deployed in Ukraine to fight Russian forces.

Before the launch of the offensive on 27 November, Ukrainian drone experts had been training and equipping extremist militants in Idlib.

The Russian military intervened in Syria in 2015 in support of Assad’s government, helping the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) turn the tide against several groups who had taken over large swathes of the country – including the Nusra Front, which became HTS.

Moscow and the former Al-Qaeda branch have established a line of contact since Assad’s government fell in early December.

“Russia is an important country and is considered the second most powerful country in the world. There are deep strategic interests between Russia and Syria. All Syrian weapons are Russian, and many power stations are run by Russian expertise,” Sharaa said on 29 December. “We do not want Russia to leave Syria in the way some people would like.”

Russia has said that the future of its presence in Syria will depend on the outcome of talks with the country’s new authorities following the transitional period.

December 30, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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