Thanks to interventions by Washington or Brussels, Nord Stream 2 may end up either not being completed or, once completed, find that much of the pipeline cannot in fact be used. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline project has been subject to immense controversy ever since President Putin launched the project in tandem with his German business partners in June 2015. Contrary to the desires of the German government, most of the Central and Eastern European EU member states have come out against the pipeline. The EU itself has formally extended EU energy law to import pipelines such as Nord Stream 2, while the Polish authorities have launched antitrust proceedings against the project.…
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MURDER IN BERLIN
Germany’s Approach to Russia Comes at a Cost Salisbury” is now shorthand for a Russian murder attempt. What will “Berlin” stand for? Unlike in the cases of the ex-spy Sergei Skripal and the defector Alexander Litvinenko, the hitman who murdered Zelimkhan Khangoshvili on August 23rd did not use a weapon of mass destruction. No polonium (which killed Litvinenko in London in 2007) or nerve agent (which was meant to kill Mr. Skripal in Salisbury in March 2018). Instead, he used a gun, firing three shots that killed the fugitive Georgian citizen (and ethnic Chechen) instantly. Continue reading the article published on the CEPA website.
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Why Germany Is Ignoring Its Own Russian Spy Scandal
The murder of a Chechen rebel in Berlin looks like a Russian operation, but the Merkel government is not making a public fuss about that. Last March, after the attempt to poison the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, U.K., it took the British government only a week to accuse Russia of being responsible; by the 10th day after the crime, it was already expelling Russian diplomats. Now, the same length of time after a very similar event in Berlin, the German government is reacting very differently. The victim of the Aug. 23 attack, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili (or Changoschwili, as it’s spelled in German), was an ethnic Chechen from Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge region who had…
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U.S. Efforts To Derail Russian Pipelines To Europe Have Failed Since The 1960s. Will Nord Stream 2 Be Any Different?
U.S. President Donald Trump will fly to Europe later this month to pursue a goal his predecessors going back to John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan failed to achieve — derailing a Kremlin-backed energy-export pipeline. The Trump administration and the U.S. Congress are fighting to block the 9.5 billion-euro ($10.6 billion) Nord Stream 2 project amid fears it will make NATO allies and other European countries more reliant on Russian energy and damage Ukraine by depriving it of transit fees. Continue reading the article on the Radio Free Europe news website.
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The Nord Stream 2 Pipeline And The Dangers Of Moving Too Rashly Toward Renewable Energy
Few Americans likely noticed last week that Denmark refused to grant a permit for finishing construction of the Russian natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, but its international significance is enormous. Denmark’s refusal is the latest chapter in a story of how good intentions in fighting climate change go bad. It is a cautionary tale of how a country – in this case, Germany – while seeking to make itself and its energy use cleaner, more efficient and more self-sufficient, can produce the opposite of all three. As climate change becomes more of an issue in America heading into the 2020 election season, Nord Stream 2 provides a case study of the…
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Not Only Geopolitics: U.S. Threatens Sanctions Over Russian Nord Stream 2 Project
If Republicans and Democrats from the Trump administration and the U.S. Congress, which stand on different sides of the political barricade, can unite their forces, they may speak with one voice when criticizing Gazprom’s Nord Stream 2 energy pipeline project. In May, bipartisan efforts were made to intensify work on sanctions targeted at entities involved in building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline running from Russia to Germany while U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry declared in Brussels and Kiev that introducing a restrictions package is just a matter of time. Continue reading the article on the Warsaw Institute news website.
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Professor: The Nord Stream 2-pin is passed on to a new government
CHRONICLE: The current Danish government, unlike Sweden and Finland, hesitated to approve Nord Stream 2 through Danish waters. The decision on the route has now been postponed to the general election. This leaves the problem to a new government, writes Bent Ole Gram Mortensen. By Bent Ole Gram Mortensen Professor of Environmental and Energy Law at the University of Southern Denmark, Deputy Chairman of the Energy Complaints Board and consultant for lawyers in relation to Nord Stream 2 As previously described here at Altinget, two applications have been submitted for the establishment of a further German-Russian gas pipeline – Nord Stream 2 – through the Baltic Sea via a route through Danish…
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Russian ex-minister: Nord Stream 2 is 100% political
According to the expert, the Hanhikivi power plant project also has silent features. Russia’s former deputy energy minister, Vladimir Milov, is a stranger to his approach to the Baltic Sea under the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as a purely commercial project. – Of course, Nord Stream can only be viewed from a commercial point of view if, for some reason, it does not want to recognize its obvious political dimension, Milov says to Web News . In addition to the post of Deputy Minister, Milov has also served as Director of the Strategic Department of the Russian Energy Commission and has established an Institute for Energy Policy, under the leadership of which he currently operates. He…
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Spanish Anti-Corruption Body Investigating Troika Laundromat Protagonists
The Spanish anti-corruption body is investigating the purchase of Costa Brava properties by close allies of Russian president Vladimir Putin, who are believed to have laundered money through The Troika Laundromat apparatus, El Periodico revealed Wednesday. El Periodico sources close to the matter confirm the ongoing months-long investigation into the purchase of four lucrative properties by Delco Network and Dino Capital on behalf of Russian oligarch Vladimir Artyakov – former governor of the Samara region and director in the state defense-tech company, Rostec. The villas were purchased through an 80-year-old Russian proxy, with €13 million (US$14.7 million) pumped through the two offshore companies. A proxy is a person authorized to act on behalf of…
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State Secretary Pompeo: US will do “everything in its power” to stop Nord Stream 2 pipeline
United State Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday in a joint press conference with Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz that the US will do everything in its power to stop Russia’s plans to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe, France24 reports. Pompeo said that the pipeline from Russia to Germany, on which construction began last year, would “funnel money” to Russia in a way that hurts Europe. “So while there is certainly a commercial aspect to that kind of transaction, there is an enormous security risk that is attached to it,” Pompeo said. Nord Stream 2 would be 1,200 km long and would double…
