Eric Zuesse -- The Real History Behind Ukraine, Putin, the EU, Gas, & Donbass

 

 

 

The Real History Behind Ukraine, Putin, the EU, Gas, & Donbass

 

Eric Zuesse, February 25, 2022

 

Russia’s long-predicted invasion of Ukraine finally happened, but the reasons for it are widely misrepresented. Basic history is necessary in order to understand it.

 

The Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, from Russia, under the Baltic Sea, to Germany, was planned in order to enable greatly increased sales-volume of the lowest-cost natural gas, which came from Russia, into the EU, without having to rely upon the irregular pipelined supplies through the unstable and unpredictable nation of Ukraine. In fact, the planning-document noted on its page 12 that “Import of Russian natural gas to Europe takes place through three main routes, whereof 80% of the gas is in transit through the Ukraine.” They didn’t need to say that that was unstable; everyone knew it was; so, diplomatically speaking, this unfortunate fact about Ukraine wasn’t mentioned by them in the document, though the fact was a crucial reason for the Nord Stream project, which would transmit gas directly from Russia to Germany, no longer through unstable Ukraine. 

 

On 8 November 2011, the BBC headlined “Nord Stream gas pipeline opened by Merkel and Medvedev”, and Russia’s RIA Novosty presented this happy photo of the signing-ceremony:

 

 

From left to right, Gerhard Schroder had been Germany’s Chancellor; Francois Fillon had been France’s Prime Minister; Johannes Teyssen was the CEO of multinational German electrical utility E.ON; Angela Merkel was Germany’s Chancellor; Mark Rutte was Prime Minister of Netherlands; Dmitry Medvedev was Prime Minister of Russia; Alexey Miller was Chairman of Russia’s Gazprom; Guenter Oettinger was the European Commission’s V.P. in charge of Energy; Kurt Bock was CEO of Germany’s BASF; and Erwin Sellering was Germany’s Minister President of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

 

An Ever Increasing Number of Military Ships Arrives to the Eastern Mediterranean

27.09.2018 

Author: Martin Berger

An Ever Increasing Number of Military Ships Arrives to the Eastern Mediterranean

Column: Politics

Region: Middle East

The last couple weeks in the Eastern Mediterranean could remind a casual observer of some sort of a military parade, with members of the US-led coalition bringing an ever increasing number of military assets to the region.

The number of warships flying various flags being dispatched as a show of force to the Eastern Mediterranean has been increasing on a daily basis. The warships of the Standing NATO Maritime Group 2, including HNLMS De Ruyter of the Royal Netherlands Navy, Greece’s Elli, HMCS Ville de Québec of the Royal Canadian Navy, and four American Tomahawk-wielding destroyers – USS Carney, USS Ross, USS Winston S. Churchill and USS Bulkeley. Even the flagship of the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet USS Mount Whitney made an appearance in the region together with at least three of the multi-purpose Los Angeles class nuclear submarines, one of which was the USS Newport News, which was previously stationed in Gibraltar.

Further still, this massive force was then joined by an American carrier strike group, led by the USS Harry S. Truman, bringing along the missile cruiser USS Normandy together with a number of destroyers.

France has also been keeping its FREMM class frigate Auvergne stationed in the area. Further still, Germany’s FGS Augsburg passed through the Strait of Gibraltar and entered the Mediterranean Sea on September 21.

In the meantime, corporate media sources are desperate in their attempt to persuade us that such an unprecedented number of military ships deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean must be attributed to the ongoing conflict in Syria. They argue that this is a means of intimidation to deter Damascus from staging an otherwise totally illogical “chemical attack” in Idlib, as if there was a single viable explanation as to why Syrian authorities would even consider such an option.

But is this the only reason for such an urgent concentration of Western armed forces in the Eastern Mediterranean? What is the actual rationale behind such an unprecedented event?

One must be mindful of the fact that the conflict in Syria has been raging for years and at this point it’s approaching its end game. To launch a transition to peaceful life and begin a discussion regarding post-war arrangements of the country, President Bashar al-Assad has to reestablish control over the last Governorate still occupied by radical Islamists – Idlib. The prospects of the peaceful settlement of the Syrian conflict and the situation around Idlib was greatly facilitated by the joint plan of action agreed upon by Russia’s president with his Turkish counterpart mid-September.

Therefore, the West has no real pretext to carry on the concentration of its armed forces in the Eastern Mediterranean, since it has no way of attributing this build up to the present situation in Syria. Nevertheless, this process continues. At the same time, the Pentagon has recently intensified negotiations with Greece on expanding its military presence in the territory of this European country.

So, what is this all about?

Careful analysis of the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean shows that in the nearest future a new conflict can erupt in this region that will be much more violent than previous hostilities, since it’s basically going to be a free for all engagement. In comparison, the still raging Syrian conflict will look like a minor occurrence. The driving force behind this future struggle is the huge hydrocarbon deposits of the Eastern Mediterranean, which is believed to hold world’s third largest natural gas reserves. The West which has effectively established tight control of well over half of all energy deposits in the Persian Gulf, has been willing to jump the gun in a bid to secure its grip on the Eastern Mediterranean, but was unsure how bloody the future battle for local resources was going to get. However, the clock is ticking now. ExxonMobil is going launch an exploration mission in the gas fields of Cyprus, a part of its exclusive economic zone. On top of that, Total, Shell, Eni, Qatargas, Noble Enerji, and Kogas have all been planning to start gas production in the region.

Pipeline Geopolitics: Why is Russia Maintaining Its Gas Transit Pipelines Through Ukraine Open?

Pipeline Geopolitics: Why is Russia Maintaining Its Gas Transit Pipelines Through Ukraine Open?

By Andrew Korybko

Global Research, May 31, 2018

Region: Europe, Russia and FSU

Theme: Oil and Energy

In-depth Report: UKRAINE REPORT

President Putin’s surprise announcement that Russia is ready to maintain gas transit through Ukraine has left people wondering whether both sides’ pipeline jostling over the past couple of years was ultimately all for naught if the pre-Maidan status quo ultimately returns.

President Putin took the world off guard by announcing that Russia is “ready to preserve the Ukrainian transit” of gas, instantly provoking a wave of speculation over why both his country and Ukraine would even be interested in this after making many moves over the past couple of years to strategically disengage from one another. The 2014 success of the US-backed urban terrorist movement commonly known as “EuroMaidan” led to a serious security dilemma between Russia and its “revolutionary” neighbor after which both parties simultaneously came to the conclusion that they can’t depend on one another from that point onwards.

Ukraine started exploring “reverse gas flows” through its preexisting pipelines in order to receive supplies from its western neighbors, which then set into motion Poland’s moves to build an expensive LNG terminal along its Baltic coast. The US saw – and some would say, engineered – a perfect opportunity to sell its costly LNG to the EU by hyping up the threat of Russia’s possible “weaponization” of energy supplies, relying on the mid-2000s stereotype that itself was just a media-driven manipulation stemming from Kiev’s own weaponization of its transit state status. Faced with eventually being cut off from its largest customers, Russia endeavored to diversify its export routes and clientele.

The first part of this strategy saw it transforming the stalled South Stream pipeline into Turkish Stream and launching another Nord Stream pipeline, while the second half dealt with Russia’s “Pivot to Asia” and development of LNG exports to faraway markets. Concurrent with this, the US began to court its Croatian ally into footing a large part of the bill for an LNG terminal on Krk island, with the long-term vision being for America to supply the EU with gas through receptacles along the northern and southern Baltic and Adriatic coasts respectively of the Polish-led “Three Seas Initiative”.