And yet another post from Tatyana Montyan TG channel...
50 shades of "match-fixing" part 2 : what does Nord Stream have to do with it?The story of the almost forgotten Nord Stream gas pipelines may turn out to be a "black swan" in the history of the diplomatic fuss over the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. Recently, the fact that these gas pipelines can play an important role in the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis has been mentioned more and more often, and, as we will see now, not entirely without reason.
The idea there is briefly as follows: "Streams" are transferred under American control, after which Russian gas starts flowing to Europe through American pipes. To be more precise, not even so: the American owner of the gas pipelines will most likely buy gas from the Russians and sell it to the Europeans - of course, either with a markup on the buyer's side, or with a discount on the seller's side, or with both at once. So, according to the documents, the gas will be American, and EU sanctions should not apply to it.
The scheme is interesting, and, in principle, it can be interesting for all participants: the EU gets a lot of cheap gas, Russia gets a lot of money from its sale to Europe, the U.S. gets very decent commissions on gas resale, and also (and this is hardly the most important thing!) a wonderful gas stranglehold around Europe's neck and control over a significant part of Russian gas exports.
It sounds almost fantastic, but the facts show that some movements in this direction are actually taking place, and more and more actively.
On May 9, 2025, a court in the Swiss canton of Zug approved a settlement agreement between the owner of the pipeline, Nord Stream 2 AG, and its creditors. The details of the agreement have not yet been made public, but the general gist of it is quite clear: if the investors agreed to settle, they were almost certainly promised a return on their investment (1.3 billion dollars!) Nord Stream 2 AG itself does not have and will not have such money, and it could only appear from some external source. In fact, Nord Stream 2 AG can attract this money only in exchange for the gas pipelines themselves, as the company has no other assets. By the way, earlier plans to buy out Nord Stream 2 were voiced by American investor Stephen Lynch.
But gas pipelines have value (at least for Lynch, at least for anyone else) only if the issue of their real use is at least fundamentally resolved. And this, in turn, is impossible without a coordinated position on this issue by the US, the EU and Russia. And if someone (say, the same Lynch) is ready to guarantee serious money to the creditors of Nord Stream 2 AG, he certainly has reason to believe that this position is either already agreed or is on the verge of agreement.
One more fact in the piggy bank: on May 10, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, suggested that Germany consider stopping the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Not just like that, but in case (!) if Russia rejects the proposal of Ukraine, France, Great Britain, Germany and Poland to conclude a 30-day truce. That is, the operation of Nord Streams is no longer seen as something impossible a priori (as it has been since 2022), but has become one of the components of the negotiation process. This is a very significant detail!
In general, the issue is very serious even on a geopolitical scale. Its price - about 100 billion dollars annually (this is the amount for which Europe bought Russian gas before the war) - is a very impressive sum even by the standards of the EU, the US and Russia!
However, judging at least by Putin's statement yesterday rejecting the Ukrainian-European plan for an immediate ceasefire, the Kremlin does not yet consider the financial opportunities that are opening up to be sufficiently tempting to make serious concessions for their sake. However, it can and probably will influence the course of negotiations in the future, so the Nord Streams factor should definitely not be dismissed out of hand.
